Thematic Unit Lesson 4: IDEA Teach
Name: Emily Kohne
Grade: 2nd
Concept:
 I will be teaching about two very similar landforms the students have already learned
about and those landforms compare and contrast from one another, such as the
appearances and recreational purposes.
State Academic Standards:
 Social Studies-2.3.8- Identify ways that recreational opportunities influence human
activity in the community.
 Language Arts- 2.W.1: Write routinely over brief time frames and for a variety of
tasks, purposes, and audiences; apply reading standards to write in response to
literature and nonfiction texts.
 Health-2.1.1: Identify responsible health behaviors.
 Visual Arts- 2.6.4: Demonstrate evidence of reflection and care in creating artwork.
 Physical Education- 2.2.5: Integrate and reinforce a variety of educational concepts
through games, rhythmic, and fitness activities.
 My lesson supports the standards by having the students compare and contrast two
landforms. They will show me their understanding of the similarities and differences
of the landforms through drawing pictures of recreational activities that can be done
on the landform while drawing the landform accurately. They will also be writing in
their writing journal about one of the landforms and the step by step occurrences on a
hike using sequencing words.
Objectives:
 Students will compare and contrast two different landforms.
 Students will compare and contrast the landforms recreational activities.
 Students will identify recreational activities that support healthy behaviors.
 Students will demonstrate their understanding of landforms recreational purposes by
creating drawings depicting them.
Materials:
 Pictionary cards
 Bucket
 Manila Folders
 Types of Landforms for Kids (A Video Lesson) YouTube Video
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwNfvyCXh1k)
 Mountains (First Step Nonfiction. Landforms) by Sheila Anderson
 Valleys (First Step Nonfiction) by Sheila Anderson
 Writing Journals
 Coloring Utensils
 Landform Library (Gear Up)
 Word wall sentence strip
Engagement & Exploration:
Engagement:
 The students will come up to the carpet and I will have a bucket of prompt Pictionary
cards.
 On each card, there will be a name of a landform that the students will be familiar
with from earlier in the week. (I will whisper the word to them if they cannot read it)
 Once the students grab a card from the bucket, they will play Pictionary in order for
the other students to guess what landform they drew.
 I will model an example, if the card I pulled from the bucket was valley then I would
draw a bunch of hills and make sure there was a large gap and drop in between a few
of them and then circle the part of the picture that was the valley.
 I will remind students they can look at the word wall words if they cannot think of
landform names.
 I will call students up, have them read their card and once their teammates have
guessed the activity they can call on someone else to come up.
Exploration:
 “As park rangers in training, it is important for us to be familiar with the land and
areas around us. As we are exploring today, we need to pay close attention to the
details of the landforms we are discovering in order to learn more about them.”
 After this activity, I will show the YouTube Video Types of Landforms for Kids (A
Video Lesson) starting at the time 2:25 and I will stop the video at the time 4:22.
 This time slot in the video addresses mountains and hills and talks about all other
landforms that are connected to them.
Word Wall
 Recreational: the things that people do to relax or have fun when they are not
working.
 This will be addressed in the engagement.
Explanation:
 Once we have seen this video, I will have the students go back to their seats and I
will drop off a manila folder to each group of tables.
 Each group will be given 1 folder and work together in their table group. Inside the
folder will be a picture of a mountain on one side and a hill on the other side.
 Below each of the picture and in the middle of the folder will we the numbers 1, 2,
and 3.
 I will tell the students that they will be comparing and contrasting the characteristics
of these two landforms, whether it is the appearances, characteristics, or recreational
purposes of the landform.
 Their responses will be written in the folders.
 Once the students have had enough time to compare and contrast, I will have the
class come to the carpet were we will share the responses they came up with and
what other things they learned.
 I will then read different pages from the non-fiction books Mountains (First Step
Nonfiction. Landforms) by Sheila Anderson and Valleys (First Step Nonfiction) by
Sheila Anderson, exploring the details of these landforms.
 After reading, the students will show me what they learned by responding to a
written prompt in their writing journals.
 Sequencing words should be used in this writing to show the sequence of events.
o “You are on a nature walk in a national park and you are trying to decide
on if you should go on the mountain hike or on the valley hike. Once you
decide, describe what happened, step by step, on your hike and what
recreational activities you did.
Evaluation:
 Students will be given a blank sheet of paper draw a picture of themselves doing a
recreational activity on a mountain on one side and then on the back they will draw a
picture of themselves doing a recreational activity on a valley.
Gearing Up and Down:
 Gear Up- If this activity is too remedial, I will have the students research another
type of landform from the landform library and will then draw a picture of them
taking part in a recreational activity with that landform.
 Gear Down- For the student who is behind on developing writing skills, I will scribe
for her as she tells me a story she wishes to write in her writing journal. Once I have
written it, she will copy what I wrote to practice word spacing and sentence
structure.