A Grade 5 Social Studies Lesson Plan: Famous Faces of the American Revolution

This lesson served as an excellent follow-up to the research projects and presentations on the famous faces of the American Revolutionary War period that my fifth graders had been working on. Students need to be able to recognize and identify the major players of this time period, and this lesson will help the students become more comfortable with the people they have studied and heard presentations on.

Standards/Goals (Massachusetts frameworks)

Students should:

"Explain important political, economic, and military developments leading to and during the American Revolution . . . [especially] Revolutionary leaders such as John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere" (3.5).

"After reading a biography of a person from Massachusetts in one of the following categories, summarize the person's life and achievements" (3.7).

Objectives

Students will be able to:

Apply previous knowledge and information.

Identify the key people of the Revolutionary War period based on their characteristics or their names.

Make educated guesses and hypotheses.

Enhance their communication skills, especially questioning and answering skills.

Materials

The teacher will need:

Index cards (or similar, such as post-its)
Tape

Procedures/Steps

(Hook) Preview the activity by telling the students that they all learned a lot from the presentations. Now they will be playing a fun game that will test their knowledge and prepare them for the final unit test.

Describe the rules of the game. Each student will have a card with the name of one of the people the students talked about in their presentations written on them. They will go around the room and ask their peers a yes or no question about their person. Using the answers as clues, the students should be able to identify the name of their famous person.

Give each student a note card with a piece of tape attached to it. These note cards have the names. Without looking at the cards, have the students tape the note cards in their hands to the back of the person sitting next to them. Make sure that the names can clearly be read.

Be sure to emphasize that this activity requires maturity and respect, and that the room shouldn't become too noisy. With that imparted, have the students get up and start approaching one another with questions. As the students discuss, be sure to make sure that they're adhering to the rules. Be on hand to clear up any disputes or confusion.

After 10-15 minutes, call the students back to their seats. Ask how many students think they have the answer. Allow them to take the note cards off their backs and see if they were correct.

(Summarizer) Ask the students how they did. Do they feel that they learned a lot from the presentations? What do they feel they need to work on? Based on their answers, you may have to review the lives of the famous individuals of the Revolutionary War period.

Modifications

This lesson is simple and straight forward and builds off knowledge that students have heard in the days immediately preceding this activity. Therefore, I did not have to make any drastic modifications for groups of students. If I felt that a particular student is struggling with the material, I would him or her a more famous person so that that student might have a deeper understanding to build off of. Also, since the students should have created posters to go along with their presentations, I would post them around the room so that students will have a reference point.

Assessment

The informal assessment for this activity is in the summarizer. If students indicated that they had difficulty remembering the historical figures, I would go back and spend more time in review. Also, my observations during the activity helped me to gauge the students' proficiency with the material. The formal assessment for this lesson is embedded in a final unit test.