Direct Instruction Social Studies Lesson Plan Template
Name: Hayley M. Central Focus/Big Idea of the Lesson:
Colonists interests affected the choices that
Grade Level/Subject: 5th Grade Social they made when settling into a colony.
Studies
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective: 5.H.1.2. Summarize the political,
economic and social aspects of colonial life in the thirteen colonies.
Daily Lesson Objective: Students will explain the where, when, why, and how colonists
settled into colonies through a poster activity scoring at least 16 out of 20 points.
21st Century Skills: Highlight which of Academic Language Demand
the following skills are part of this lesson:
Language Function: Explain
Collaboration
Communication Vocabulary: colony, colonists
Creativity
Critical Thinking Discourse: Filling in a graphic organizer
Problem Solving and creating a poster.
Syntax: Students will write in complete
sentences with correct grammar and
punctuation.
Prior Knowledge of students:
Students may have heard of the 13 colonies, but have had no formal instruction on the topic.
Activity Description of Activities and Setting
Time
1. Focus & Teacher: What were the 13 colonies? Turn and talk with your 4 min
Review partner. You have 2 minutes!
Grab students attention together after 2 minutes. Call on students
to hear their responses and have a small discussion about prior
knowledge.
2. Kid-friendly I can explain when, where, why, and how different groups of 1 min
Objective people settled in different regions of the U.S.
Statement
3. Teacher Input The teacher will hand out a 13 colonies geography coloring page. 10 min
(Include a line of With the guidance of the teacher, the students will label each of the
4 questions; 2 of 13 colonies and color coat them based on if they are Southern,
the 4 questions New England, or Middle colonies. The teacher will first call on
should be students to ask if they know what to fill in the blanks in numerical
deeper level order before providing the answer.
thinking
questions) After filling out the 13 colonies geography coloring page, the
teacher will post the following questions:
● Why do you think that is it called the New-England
Colonies?
● Why do you think that it is called the Middle Colonies?
● Why do you think that it is called the Southern Colonies?
● What do you think the connection is between the 13
colonies and the United States?
Possible Student responses:
● New-England is a city in Massachusetts.
● Because it’s in the middle of the map!
● Because the colonies are in the southern part of the map!
● The 13 colonies are also 13 of our states.
Teacher: You guys did such a great job with that activity. Now, we
are going to dive deeper into each of the 3 main colonies and learn
about how they are different.
4. Guided The teacher has student helpers pass out the Settling the Early 20 min
Practice Colonies and Comparing the Colonies Graphic.
Teacher models questioning and think-aloud to identify evidence for
the first two sections to show students the expectations for the
lesson. The teacher will fill out the first two sections under the
document camera, and then instruct students to complete the last
section with a partner.
Expectations are modeled using the sample chart and
worksheets/notes to demonstrate how to read for evidence by
pausing and thinking aloud, rereading for meaning, highlighting
evidence found and using context clues for unfamiliar words.
Evidence to highlight to assist with graphic:
New-England Colonies:
● “Although economic prosperity was still a goal of the New-
England settlers, their true goal was spiritual.”
● “Pilgrims and Puritans sought to create a society where they
could have the freedom to believe in their own religions.”
● “The land in this area varied between some good soil in the
southern part to mostly rocky areas and forests in the north. It
had very hard, cold winters that made it difficult for early
settlers to adjust…”
● “Settlers eventually learned to make their living by farming
the smaller fertile areas, fishing, lumber mills and ship
building, and transporting products to and from England.”
● “...the General Assembly ran the colony…”
● “...the General Assembly changed their rulings to allow a new
colonial legislature where only adult males who owned
property and were members of the Puritan church were able
to vote for the governor and representatives to the General
Court.
Middle Colonies:
● “William Penn began the settlement of this area because he
wanted to start a colony where Quakers could live safely and
have the freedom to believe in their own religion.”
● “...each religious group was able to practice their own
beliefs.”
● “The middle colonies enjoyed consistent weather and offered
fertile land where crops grew well.”
● “Aspects of New England shipbuilding, mining and lumbering
and the large forms of the South could be found here as
well.”
● “....ruled by a governor and a governors court of the king’s
choosing”
● “....the king granted land to the people of North America.”
● “Initially, only males could vote, but after the sudden growth
in population in the area, this rule was changed to only male
property owners had voting rights.”
When students are done with the Southern Colonies, call students to
respond and show where they found their evidence and the teacher
will add student responses to the chart. The chart will be kept under
the document camera as a visual reference and as a resource for
the next section of the activity.
The correct evidence found in the Southern Colonies should
consist of the following:
● “Geography and motive to develop this area into a cash crop,
selling crops for profit rather than growing them to feed
animals.”
● “Begun as a Catholic experiment, the colony’s economy
would soon come to mirror that of Virginia…”
● “Due to the hot, humid weather, there was a higher incidence
of disease and outbreaks of malaria and yellow fever kept life
expectancies lower.”
● “Industries such as fishing, lumbering, shipping, bricklaying
and shoemaking began to develop as colonists…”
● “... laws were established only by those who initially
established the colony.”
● “Later as growth and population increased, any white male
who owned property could vote for assembly members but
the governors were elected by the king of England.”
5. Independent Students will complete a Come to Our Colonies assignment with 20 minutes
Practice a list of tasks each group member is responsible for. The purpose
is for students to create a poster to attract settlers in England to
come to their colonies.
Teacher should first review the task sheet with students and split
students into groups of 6. Each group is given a Poster Notes
sheet with information about their colony, the rubric that the poster
will be graded on, and Come to Our Colonies paper.
The teacher should circulate and question to encourage thinking
and creativity while students are working.
6. Assessment Formal Assessment: Come to Our Colonies Poster
Methods of all
objectives/skills: Poster Rubric
Category 4 3 2 1
Required The poster All required All but 1 of the Several required
Elements includes all elements are required elements elements were
required included on the are included on missing.
elements as well poster. the poster.
as additional
information.
Graphics All graphics are All graphics are Some graphics Graphics do not
Relevance related to the related to the topic of relate to the topic. relate to the topic.
topic of the the poster and some
poster and make make it easier to
it easier to understand.
understand.
Grammar There are no There are 1-2 There are 3-4 There are more
grammatical/mec grammatical/mechan grammatical/mech than 4
hanical mistakes ical mistakes on the anical mistakes on grammatical/mecha
present on the poster. the poster. nical mistakes on
poster. the poster.
Labels All items of Almost all items of Many items of Labels are too
importance on importance on the importance on the small to view or no
the poster are poster are clearly poster are clearly important items
clearly labeled labeled with labels labeled with labels were labeled.
with labels that that can be read that can be read
can be read from from at least 3 ft from at least 3 ft
at least 3 ft away. away. away.
Attractiveness The poster is The poster is The poster is The poster is
exceptionally attractive in terms of acceptably distractingly messy
attractive in design, layout, and attractive though it or very poorly
terms of design, neatness. may be a bit designed. It is not
layout, and messy. attractive.
neatness.
7. Closure All the student group "advertisers" come up to the front and sell the 15 minutes
(make this an benefits of their colony to their peers using their Settling the
activity based Colonies Poster.
closure like an
Exit Tickets) Each group then receives a Poster Activity - Family Occupation
Tags that ask them to choose the best area according to their new
interests. After choosing, students should write on a sticky note to
explain why choices were made. This can be due to religious beliefs,
job skills, family structure, etc.
The teacher then shares that now that we have a better
understanding of what made colonists move to the different areas,
we can understand what settlers may have done to continue to
attract new colonists from England.
8. Assessment Poster Project Rubric Scores:
Results of all
objectives/skills: Group 1, New-England Colonies: 20 points
Group 2, Middle Colonies: 18 points
Group 3: Middle Colonies: 19 points
Group 4, Southern Colonies: 20 points
Group 5: Southern Colonies: 19 points
Targeted Students Student/Small Group Modifications/
Modifications/Accommodations: Accommodations:
Autism Spectrum: Students who are on the Early Finishers: Students who finish early may
spectrum will receive frequent breaks, sensory research additional information on their Chrome books
tools, a checklist/outline, and a quiet corner with to add on their poster.
their group.
English Language Learners: Students who are Struggling Readers: Students who struggle to read
not fluent in English will be given notes in their will be put into a group with high level readers to assist
native language as well as English. them in reading the notes to complete the project.
Materials/Technology: Comparing the Colonies Graphic, Settling the Early Colonies Notes, Poster Paper,
writing utensils, Document Camera, Family Occupation tags, printed rubrics
References:
https://betterlesson.com/lesson/554060/early-colonial-settlements-the-why-the-where-and-the-what-now
Reflection on lesson:
I went into teaching the lesson feeling very confident and I maintained that throughout the hour I had with
the students. Strengths of my lesson included confidence, loud teaching voice, eliciting student thinking through
questioning, and classroom management when gathering attention back to me. The lesson went very smoothly
and all the students loved to participate, something that I learned prior through the “What Are They Thinking”
assignment. A downfall from this lesson was that I was not given permission to use the document camera. My
clinical educator told me that she needed to use her computer to do report cards while I was teaching, therefore
I had to teach this lesson in a more difficult way. Throughout the guided practice filling out the graphic, many
students asked me to repeat myself over and over because I was not able to show this under the document
camera. Thus, this lesson took a very long time to complete and I never actually got to finish off with the family
occupations ending activity.
While my lesson was cut short the first go around, I did get the opportunity to teach this lesson a second
time. My clinical educator asked me if I could teach the same lesson to her other class so everyone would be on
the same page and have the same handouts. Teaching the lesson the second time was much easier than the
first time because I was able to manage time a little better and I decided to cut out reading the notes together
and filling out the chart. Instead, I decided to give a set of notes to each group and assign them a colony. When
students presented their posters, everyone was able to fill out the graphic organizer from the information that
their classmates presented. To end off, we played a Kahoot to recap what we learned given to me by my clinical
educator. The feedback provided to me helped me revise this lesson to better manage time and to also
incorporate a piece that my clinical educator wanted me to include, a Kahoot. Therefore, a weakness that was
able to be fixed the second time I taught the lesson was time management.
When looking at my teacher feedback, I really appreciated that she thought I did well with the lesson as
I worked really hard on it. One piece of feedback I was given was to create an anchor chart since I couldn’t use
the document camera, however I wasn’t told I couldn’t use it until I got to the classroom and had to quickly
improvise. If I did this lesson differently, I would have liked to make an anchor chart since I was not able to use
the document camera so students would have a visual to look at and refer back to. Another piece of feedback I
was given was to scale down the reading material to make sure it is student-friendly. After looking back, I would
agree with my CE that there are some big words and concepts and maybe I should have taken the information
that I wanted out of the text and created my own notes.
Teaching the lesson taught me that I need to be able to quickly improvise, stay on top of time, be
prepared to answer student questions, and elicit student thinking/build off of prior knowledge. One question I
received was “Why is that state blank on the map? Isn’t that Maine?” Thankfully, I noticed this the night before I
taught the lesson and looked up why that state was blank. The blank state was considered Massachusetts at
the time of the 13 colonies, making two of them. If I did not prepare for answering this question, I would not
know how to answer and not looked knowledgeable on the topic I was teaching. I also had the opportunity to
quickly improvise the lesson and teach it without a document camera and eliciting student thinking. I asked
questions such as “Why do you think these were called the Southern Colonies? What about the Middle? New-
England?” Students were able to draw prior knowledge of the location of states and realize that New-England is
a city in Massachusetts, therefore making them the New-England colonies. Students also noticed that the
Middle and Southern colonies were in the middle and the southern part of the United States Map. Overall, I had
a great time teaching this lesson and was very thankful that I got the opportunity to teach this lesson two times
and see how I was able to better it the second time.
