DIRECT INSTRUCTION LESSON PLAN GUIDE AND TEMPLATE

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Name:
Lesson #:

Lesson Title:

Grade Level/Subject:
Topic:
th
4 grade social studies/ language arts
5 themes of geography
NCES/CCSS Standard and
North Carolina Essential Standard
Objective (1)
4.G.1
Understand how human, environmental and technological factors
affect the growth and development of North Carolina
Common Core State Standard
RI.4.7
Interpret information presented visually, orally, or quantitatively and
explain how the information contributes to an understanding of the text in
which it appears
Revised Blooms level of
thinking/type of knowledge (1)
Behavioral Objective (2)
Objective Rationale (1)

Prerequisite Knowledge and

Skills (1)

Key Terms and Vocabulary

(1)

Focus/Review (prepares
students for the lesson) (2)

Knowledge: recall of information, discovery, observation, and

listening.
Create a five theme foldable book with accurate and presentable
notes.
Students are learning about the five themes of geography to get a
better understanding of the state and surrounding community they
live in. This will help them by opening their mind to different
cultures, places, ways information move in their everyday life, the
regions that they live in, how they affect the environment for their
future and how the environment affects them, and so that they can
know their location.
Students will need to know that they live in the State of North
Carolina, students will also need to know different examples of the
5 themes such as languages, transportation, the three regions of
North Carolina and different landmarks of North Carolina.
Movement, Regions, Formal regions, Functional regions, Human
environmental interaction, Absolute location, Relative location,
Place.
Content and Strategies
Instructional
Strategies
List
the
Grab classes attention 1, 2, 3 eyes on me (1,
instructional
2 eyes on you). Okay class as you know we
strategies you
are transitioning from science to social studies
will use in this
this week, and later today we will be talking
about the five themes of geography, but before section of the
lesson.
we begin who can tell me where we are right
now? ( charlotte, school) Good can anyone
Revised for spring, 2012

Objective as stated for

students (helps students set
their own goals for the lesson)
(1)
Teacher Input (provides the
content to students in a
teacher-directed manner) (3)

Guided Practice (scaffolded

practice with the content;
helps students make sense of
the content provided in
Teacher Input) (3)

tell me what sate we live in? * hands raised*

(North Carolina) Alright good now lets get
focused
As I mentioned before we will be learning about the five themes of
geography, we will do this by making our own book and take notes in our
book about the different themes.

Alright class the first thing we need to do is to

make our book, you all have a sheet of blank
white paper on your desk and when I tell you to
you are going to pick up that paper and follow
my instructions exactly. Alright pick up your
paper and fold it in half hot dog style,
(demonstrate each fold as you instruct the
students with your own sheet of paper) Does
your paper look like this? (Hold up paper and
show students allow time for corrections if
wrong) Now fold the paper in half hamburger
style this time it should look like a wallet.
(Show class your foldable correct if mistakes.)
now fold it in half one more time hamburger
style one more time it will look like a little
book. Now we need to unfold the paper entirely
and it should have 8 rectangles on the paper.
After your paper is completely unfolded, fold it
again in a hamburger style this time, (Show
class your sheet for a visual.) Make sure the
open side is facing down towards the floor now
at the top you will rip down the middle but only
rip halfway down, do not rip it all the way.
(show them your example) When your paper is
ripped halfway unfold the entire paper again.
Fold it once more as hotdog style and you
should have a long strip of paper with a whole
at the top. Take the edges and fold them in
allowing the whole to collapse and create a
rectangle, (show students close up how you do
this step this is the trickiest step of the
procedure). Now fold the paper in half one
more time to create your book. Now we are
ready to write our books.
The first thing I want you to do is to Write the
title of your book, the title should be The 5
themes of Geography (allow time to write title
should not be longer than 2 minutes) The next
thing that you need to write one the book is the
author, you are the author so I should see your
first and your last name on the book cover.
Now open your book to the first blank page and
write a subtitle at the top labeled Location.
Revised for spring, 2012

List the
instructional
strategies you
will use in this
section of the
lesson.

List the
instructional
strategies you
will use in this
section of the
lesson.

(Allow a minute for compliance) Your next

page should have a subtitle Place. The Third
page Human environmental interaction, fourth
Movement, Finally regions. (Allow a minute of
2 in-between each subtitle for compliance.)
This will be your study guide for the rest of the
unit so you will need to take good notes
underneath each subtitle so you can study your
book daily. Any questions before we begin?
( answer any questions and then begin) Alright
class we are ready to begin. The first page you
need to turn to is Location, there are two types
of location the first is Absolute Locationabsolute location is something described in
numbers or letters such as longitude and
latitude or a street address. For example Paris
France is 48 North latitude and 2 East
longitude. Another example is the Presidents
address which is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
There is also Relative Location- this can be
described by landmarks, time, distance, or
direction. An example of this would be when I
type in an address into my GPS it gives me
directions to the absolute location using relative
location, my GPS will tell me to drive 3.6 miles
due east and turn right. This is an example of
relative location. The next page you need to
turn to in your book is Place. There are
different characteristics of places wherever you
go. There are Human characteristics- such as
culture beliefs, religion and main languages. If
you go to China what language do you think
they will speak? (Chinese) If you go to Russia
what language will they speak there? ( Russian)
And if you go to North Carolina what language
do we speak here? (English) Here is a tricky
one if you go to Brazil what language do you
think they will speak? (Spanish) The national
language of Brazil is actually Portuguese which
a cousin to Spanish. (pull class back together)
When you go to a place you will also see
Physical Characteristics- you can see these as
landmarks such as mountains and rivers,
vegetation, and soil. Can anyone name a
famous landform in North Carolina? ( Common
answer is Mt. Everest) Mt. Everest is a
physical characteristic yes but it is not located
in North Carolina, what is a North Carolina
Mountain? (Mt. Mitchell) Yes Mt. Mitchell is
a Physical characteristic of North Carolina it
Revised for spring, 2012

also happens to be the tallest mountain in the

entire Appalachian range. Lets recap what are
the two characteristics you find when you go to
a place? (Human, and physical characteristics)
(pull class back together) Alright class lets
refocus. The next page you need to turn to is
Human Environment interaction. There are
several ways that the environment affects us
and there are also several ways in which we
affect the environment. We depend on it, we
modify it and we adapt to it. We depend on it
because we grow plants and vegetables that we
need to survive, we modify it by making
yourselves comfortable by heating and cooling
buildings, and we adapt to it by putting on
jackets if it is cold, or shorts if its hot. The next
page will be Movement; there are different
ways things move. There is human movement
this is how we as people get to one place to
another, how did you get to school this
morning? (Car, bus, walk, bike) these are all
ways that we as humans move so these would
be an example of human movement. Now lets
say that you did something supper exciting
today in school like learning about the 5 themes
of geography and making your own book, and
because you had such a great day a school you
want nothing more than to tell your
grandmother what happened, but heres the
thing she lives all the way in California, would
you walk to California to tell her? (NO!!)
Then how would you tell your grandma what
you did in school today? ( Call, text, facetime,
write a letter) These are all examples of
information movement, this is how you get
information from one place to another without
actually moving yourself. The last type of
movement is idea movements, this is how one
idea spreads around everywhere, much like
your rainbow looms these did not start in North
Carolina but somehow it got here through idea
movement. This can be spread through adds,
news, tv, newspapers, or magazines. The next
page you will turn to is Regions. Who knows
the regions of North Carolina? (Mountain,
piedmont, coastal) Good these would be an
example of Functional regions but first we will
learn about Formal Regions: these regions are
defined by governmental or administrative
boundaries such as state lines, cities, countries,
Revised for spring, 2012

Independent Practice
(application activities to help
students use and demonstrate
what they have learned) (2)
Closure (provides a wrap-up
for the lesson) (1)

Evaluation (How will you

assess students learning so
that you can determine if they
met the objective of the
lesson?) (2)

and counties. Functional regions are regions

separated by functions, such as cell phone
regions, newspaper region, even school zoning.
These are the five themes of geography and I
know that is a lot to learn at one time so there is
an acronym to help you remember the 5 themes
MR. HELP M-Movement, R- Regions, HEHuman environment interaction, L- location, Pplace (With each letter have the class give you
examples so that you can see that they
understand the content.)
Now turn and talk with your groups and explain to your group
members what you have learned today about the five themes.
(allow students to discuss for about 5 minutes) (1, 2, 3 eyes on
me , 1, 2 eyes on you)
Alright class pack up you stuff now, its time for next block, I
want you to study your books about the five themes, you will need
to know this tomorrow and for the rest of the week. Make sure you
study.

Formative:
Observe students taking notes
Summative
Should be able to see that they wrote clear understanding notes in
their books and have shown that they have studies the book by
answering review questions in future lessons.

Plans for Individual

Differences (differentiations
needed for students) (1)

Students who cannot take clear notes will have notes printed for
them to read over at home, students who rip paper in half will get
a book already made for them. One student has hearing aid I will
wear microphone as I speak so that he can hear me more clearly.

Materials used in the lesson;

Resources used in developing
the lesson (1)
21st Century Skills (must be
in three lessons)
Global Awareness (must be in
two lessons)

Power point presentation

Culturally Responsive
Teaching (must be in three
lessons)

Communication: active listening, expressing ideas, select

appropriate media
List aspects of global awareness addressed in the lesson.
Tell where each aspect is addressed in the lesson and give a brief
description.
List aspects of culturally responsive teaching addressed in the
lesson.
Tell where each aspect is addressed in the lesson and give a brief
description.

Overall alignment in the lesson (2):

The behavioral objective must be aligned to the lesson objectives (NCES/CCSS).
The instructional activities must help students meet the behavioral objective and be successful on the
lesson assessment.
Revised for spring, 2012

The lesson assessment must provide enough reliable and valid data so the teacher can determine if
each student has met the lesson objectives or not.

Add any instructional materials needed for the lesson here (worksheets, assessments, PowerPoints,
slides from SmartBoard programs, etc.) (2)

Revised for spring, 2012