Developmental Lesson Plan

Teacher Candidate: Mr. Murphy Date: 1/17/2022

Group Size: 25 students Allotted Time: 30 mins Grade Level: 4th

Grade

Subject or Topic: US Government CORE 1 CH.8

Common Core/PA Standard(s):

Standard - 7.3.4.A

Identify the human characteristics of places and regions using the following criteria:

● Population
● Culture
● Settlement
● Economic activities
● Political activities

Learning Targets/Objectives:

1. The fourth-grade students will develop and demonstrate an understanding of

Pennsylvania’s diverse cultures, by researching their own culture and sharing their
findings with the class in a cultural celebration.

Assessment Approaches: Evidence:

1) Participation in group talk
2) My Cultural Components worksheet
Assessment Scale: (Participation)
1) Sharing and actively listening
(observational).
2) Student completed the cultural
research and wrote down something
unique about someone else in the class

● The student was an active participant in class and showed respect to their classmates
when others were presenting their culture to the class.
● The student completed the worksheet at home and finished it during class.

Subject Matter/Content:
Prerequisites:
- Understand that everyone around us is different and comes from a different background
than we do.
- Have an understanding of their own background, which will be discovered through
their cultural background research homework from the night prior.
Key Vocabulary:
- Culture: A pattern or behavior shared by a society or group of people, like: food,
language, clothing, tools, music, arts, customs, beliefs, and religion.
- Ethnicity: A term used to describe the cultural background of a person, and an ethnic
group is a group of people from the same ethnicity.
- Population: All of the people who live in a determined area.
- Census: An official survey that is done by the United States to determine population
information across the nation.
- Urban: An area that is associated with being a town or a city. The town of Pottsville
would be considered urban.
- Rural: An area outside of the town or city, sometimes called the country. Farmlands
would be an example of rural areas.
- Suburban: The suburban area is the area that is not inside city limits, but not as far
away from the city as rural areas are.
- Multicultural: Meaning having a number of different cultures and backgrounds
combined.
- Metropolitan: A metropolitan area is the city and the communities that surround it.
- Custom: A tradition or practice that is associated with a group of people or a culture.
- Industry: A term used to describe a business type, such as the creation of steel or coal
being called the steel industry or coal industry.
- Ethnic Group: A group of people that all share the same culture. (PA is made up of
12 million people that belong to many different ethnic groups, making our state
multicultural).

Content/Facts:
- Explain the basics of population and the role that the census plays in finding the
population of people living in a designated area of Pennsylvania and other locations in
the United States, as well as what their Culture is.
- 2000, 2010, 2020 Census Data for Pennsylvania includes:
- 2000: 12,000,000
- 2010: 12,700,000
- 2020: 13,000,000
- Explain why the population may have gone up.
- Describe the three types of possible living areas, including Rural, Urban, and
Suburban.
- Urban
- Suburban
- Rural
- The impacts that play a role in the increase and decrease of population in a given area.
- The fact that the coal industry is the reason for the population in Pottsville to go
up.
- Customs and cultures that makeup Pennsylvania
- The area around Pottsville is full of many different backgrounds and cultures
(connect to the classroom)
 - Describe the fact that the area around Pottsville (Northampton, Berks, Lebanon,
and York Counties) are full of people from the PA Dutch culture
- Explain the importance of culture in our lives and respecting and celebrating the
culture of others
- 12 million people of different ethnic groups in PA
- Ethnic Group: A group of people that all share the same culture. (PA
is made up of 12 million people that belong to many different ethnic
groups, making our state multicultural).
- Ways culture is shown in the community: food, language, restaurants, and art
- How does PA celebrate cultures?
- Festivals’
- Museums
- Research and share the different backgrounds that make up the students and teachers in
our classroom, while learning about ourselves and others by asking an adult at home
and using internet resources, in order to answer 4 questions.

Introduction/Activating/Launch Strategies:
1. “Class”- students reply “Yes”
a. “Classssss” -students reply “Yessss”
2. Who knows how many kids we have in class today?
a. Based on role call, say how many students we have.
3. Has everyone in our class today, been in our classroom from the start of the year, or
have we had some new friends join as the year went on?
a. Yes, Michael was new in the beginning of the year, and Jose joined our family
shortly after that!
b. When we lost a student a few weeks in, he was replaced with two more
amazing classmates.
4. Just like the number of students in our class changed in just a few months, so does the
number of citizens living in Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and the United
States!
a. Can someone tell me what it means when I tell you that the population of
Pennsylvania is around 13,000,000?
i. What does that word Population mean?
5. Great job! Today we are going to learn about populations, and the many different
things and people who make up the population of Pennsylvania.

Development/Teaching Approaches
1. As we just said, population is the number of people who live in a certain area.
a. How do we know what the population of Pennsylvania is, is someone walking
around outside of our house to count how many people walk out, or is it just a
guess?
2. Every 10 years the United States puts out a survey that is called the US Census, where
your family fills out how many people live in your house, as well as how old they are,
and what your background is.
3. Based on these responses, the United States, and individual towns and cities know how
many people are living in an area.
 a. Areas that are in a city, are called a metropolitan area, and are also called
urban, which are all related to cities and the areas directly around them.
b. The area that is outside of the city, and more in the country are considered rural
areas. An example of a rural area is farmland!
4. We have to take the census every so often, because as things in our community change,
so does our population. What are some things that might cause people to move into
and out of an area?
a. More housing being built/ more business, or industry in an area/ leaving
because there is no work/ too expensive.
5. As people are coming and going, they bring their culture with them and leave a
footprint on the area that they are living in, whether it be the food, art, or music that
their culture was known for.
a. With Pennsylvania having over 12,000,000 people, there are so many different
cultures that make up our communities.
b. One culture or ethnic group that Pennsylvania is known for is the Pennsylvania
Dutch. Has anyone ever had a whoopie pie, or heard of hog maw? you might
not have, but they are both foods from the Pennsylvania Dutch, that my family
makes, even though we have no connection to that ethnic group.
c. My home town of York has a large population of Pennsylvania Dutch people
living there, which has impacted the food that my family makes and eats,
because of traditions and customs, like food, language, art, and other common
attributes of the Pennsylvania Dutch community are shared.
6. With having a diverse community and diverse population, in Pennsylvania, and in
Pottsville, it is important that we celebrate all of the things that make us unique.
7. In Pennsylvania, there are a number of different ways that our communities celebrate
our unique cultures and backgrounds, through festivals, such as the Folk Festival in
Kutztown, and by celebrating our more diverse cultures in the state from Indian and
Latino to Chinese, Polish, and African American.
a. One example of the state of Pennsylvania celebrating culture is that we have a
whole museum in Philly, called the African American museum in Philly,
honoring the past, present, and future of that ethnic group.
8. Just like our state, we are going to celebrate the many diverse cultures of our class, by
sharing what you guys found out about your background and culture at home.
a. I’ll give you 2-3 minutes to square away everything that you still need to
answer, using your ipad. Mrs. Lombel and I will be around to help you answer
any questions you may still have.
9. Now that we all have our cultural components sheets filled out, we are going to share
what your cultural group is, and then share one of your blocks.
10. After everyone shares, we will fill out the last block, so be sure to pay attention to your
classmates as they share their uniquenesses!
11. Begin going around the class, having students share one at a time, going from
table to table, until everyone has shared their culture.
a. Say: Can I get two claps and a Rick Flair to celebrate everyone’s culture!

Closure/Summarizing Strategies:
 1. I know you were all paying attention to your peers, so I want to wrap up today’s lesson
on cultures, by having you write down one unique thing you learned about your
classmate’s culture.
a. If you are having trouble remembering, ask your tablemates about their culture
and write down something that you thought was unique about them and their
culture.
2. After you have made sure all of your blocks have been filled out, and you have written
down a fact about one of your classmate’s cultures, make sure your name is at the top
of your paper, on the line provided.
3. After you have done all of that, quietly bring your paper up, and place it in the Social
Studies bin.
a. When you have turned in your paper, go back to your seat, put everything away,
and show me that you are ready to go to specials by having your desk clear and
sitting quietly.
Accommodations/Differentiation:
● Follow all IEPs
● For students that struggle with reading small text, or writing small, print larger copy of
outline of guided notes to better fit their needs.
● Help any students who needed help working on their cultural backgrounds, because
nobody was at home to help them research their background.

Materials/Resources:
● a class set of worksheets from homework
● Book:

Reflective Response:
Report of Student Learning Target/Objectives Proficiency Levels

Remediation Plan (if applicable)

Personal Reflection Questions

Did you achieve what you wanted to with this activity?
I had a number of students that found a lot of great information about their families and
their families’ cultures. Students were also extremely excited to share their different customs
and traditions with the class. A lot of my students were nervous about sharing, but everyone
was respectful when others were presenting, and when students began to share, there were a
number of different comparisons and contractions to one another’s cultures in the foods that
they ate and the different ways that they celebrate holidays. I would say based on the
engagement of my students and productive conversations and questions, that I did achieve
what I wanted to with this lesson and showing that though we are all different, we are each
unique and can come to many similarities through our differences.

How was your classroom management during this lesson?

 The only classroom management that had to be done during this lesson was making sure
that the students were being respectful while their classmates were sharing so that we could all
hear and contribute any questions related to their culture when they were done presenting their
cultural background. Using the “Apples Up” strategy and the “eyes and ears” students knew
that they were supposed to be focused on nothing but their classmate that was sharing. The
class was extremely respectful after the behavioral expectations were established and they
knew that they were supposed to be active listeners for each of their classmates. A few times I
had to ask students to listen quietly but waited until the reader was done so that I did not
interrupt the student that was sharing, during their presentation.

How was my time management?

Working on my time management in the next few weeks, I wanted to focus on this as a
reflection question. My time management today was perfect, allowing for students who did not
complete the whole homework assignment to have some time to finish up, while their classmates
that had completed it shared with a classmate as a practice read before they did it for the class.
This practice read, as well as the effective classroom management and pre-planning allowed for
every student to share that wanted to share, and allowed for the goal of sharing our unique
cultures of Pennsylvania to be met. I had the class in line for special on time and ready to go
quietly, when it was time for them to be in Art, they were there, when some days I had had to
rush them to line up and get on our way to go to special. This was by far the best I have done
with time management in any subject, but social studies in particular.