Lesson Plan #1-Introduction to the Ancient Greeks
Unit Title: Lives of the Greeks & Romans
Essential Questions
Area of Focus: Contribution to today
Grade: 3
What is democracy?
How did the Greek democracies influence the United States democracy?
Standards of
Learning (be sure to
include integrated
standards here too)
Social Studies 3.1: The student will explain how the contributions of ancient Greece
and Rome have influenced the present world in terms of architecture, government
(direct and representative democracy), and sports.
Objectives
Social Studies: Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the lives of the
Ancient Greeks and democracy. They will be able to compare Ancient Greek
democracy to US democracy.
C/T 3-5.11: Apply knowledge and skills to generate innovative ideas, products,
processes, and solutions.
A. Organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view,
use, and assess.
• Understand the various ways in which digital products can be shared.
Computer Technology: Students will be able to apply knowledge of Ancient Greek
democracy and compare it to US democracy.
Materials
Teacher Materials: Laptop, PowerPoint, BrainPOPJr
Student Materials: Netbook cart, edublogs.org, Interactive notebooks, pencil, KWL
chart
Procedures
(introduction,
instructional
strategies,
summary/close)
Introduction (5 minutes)
1. (Hook): "Have you ever been allowed to vote or been asked for a choice in
doing something? Doesn’t it make you feel important to have a choice in
something? In the United States we are given the freedom to make choices.
Do you think we were the first people to think of this idea? Today we are
going to talk about the Ancient Greeks and how they created the idea of being
able to vote and free choice”.
Instructional Strategies (20 minutes)
2. We will create a KWL chart about the lives of Ancient Greeks. What do you
know about the Greeks? What do you want to know? And what you’ve
Lesson Plan #1-Introduction to the Ancient Greeks
Unit Title: Lives of the Greeks & Romans
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Area of Focus: Contribution to today
Grade: 3
learned.
I will first ask the students what they know about Ancient Greece and
democracy (I anticipate they may mention Greek gods and goddesses like
Hercules. They may make the connection to Percy Jackson and the
Lightening Thief.) This is the first time the students will be exposed to
Ancient Greece so their background knowledge may be very limited, and
that’s okay! Based my WATT interview only 1 out of the 4 students had any
real knowledge of the Ancient Greeks.
Next I will ask them what they want to know about democracy in Ancient
Greece. I anticipate students wanting to know things like: do they have a
president? Who has all the power? Who is allowed to vote?
“Let’s give Tim and Moby a chance to explain democracy to us”. After the
video, we will answer the questions as a class.
Next, we will go through the SMART board PowerPoint discussing Ancient
Greece and it’s democracy. What is a direct democracy? What is a
representative democracy? Which one did Ancient Greece have? Who was
allowed to participate? Which form of government do we have in the U.S.
today?
During this instruction time, we will be doing “think, pair, share”. Especially
to discuss the critical thinking portion of the government in comparison to
ours. I really want to get the students engaged and thinking about how Greek
democracy is like ours.
Summary/Close (10-15 minutes)
6. Students will then have a chance to complete their blog post. I will give them
about 10 minutes to work on it. They will be able to finish it during their
Language Arts block when we do the Daily 5. After this, we will complete
the KWL chart. What did we learn about Ancient Greek democracy?
7. We will discuss how Ancient Greek democracy is similar to democracy in the
United States. I will ask them to keep thinking about what our government
would be like today had the Greeks not invented democracy.
Lesson Plan #1-Introduction to the Ancient Greeks
Unit Title: Lives of the Greeks & Romans
Area of Focus: Contribution to today
Grade: 3
Formative
Assessment
The formative assessment for this lesson is a blog post. Throughout this unit students
will be keeping a blog through edublogs.org. After each lesson I will have a critical
thinking/application question for students to answer on their blogs. This assessment
will allow me to see what students understand and if a topic needs to be explained
again. The question for this posting will be: Name one way in which the Greek
government its similar to our government today. Name one way is it different.
Why do you think it is different?
Differentiation
The third grade class I’m designing this lesson for is an ESL class. Most of the class
is fluent in English; a couple of students need more assistance. Typically they are
pulled during social studies to work with the reading specialists. If they are in class
during the lesson, I would make sure to have a lot of images to go along with the
content material. I will also have them focus on learning the vocabulary, so that they
can learn the basic concept of democracy. The BrainPOPJr video will also help them
get a good picture in their head of Ancient Greece. I would have the students answer
a simpler question to post on their blog. I think if the students could answer the
question “what is democracy”? I would know they are retaining information from the
lesson.
Multiple
Intelligences
This lesson incorporates various activities to support multiple learning styles:
Technology
Integration (if
applicable)
Students will be able to show organize and display their knowledge of Greek
democracy through a blog. Throughout this unit students will be keeping a blog.
They will be answering various questions to show that they not only understand the
lesson but also can think critically and apply their knowledge.
Text based visual: text from Notebook Presentation, text from worksheet
Graphic based visual: Notebook presentation of Ancient Greece, pictures of Ancient
Greece
Auditory passive: teacher instruction of Ancient Greek life and democracy
Auditory active: BrainPOP video
Inter-personal: cooperative activity- worksheet, student talk during the discussions
Model: demonstration of how to complete worksheet
Sensory motor: use of computer for blog post