The American Flag Lesson Plan

This is a lesson plan I create on the American Flag for Kindergarten. It supports the ND standard and benchmark K.2.1: Identify symbols of the United States.

Objectives

After completing the lesson, the student will be able to identify the American Flag and it's symbols.

Vocabulary

Colonies
Stars
Stripes
States

Introduction

I will begin the lesson by reading the book The Flag We Love by Munoz Ryan. This is a great story to read to make sure everyone is on the same level as we begin learning about the flag.

Lesson Development

Next I will show the students the American Flag. 
Ask the students what color are the stripes on the flag.
Then count the stripes all together.
Explain to students that the stripes are a symbol for the first thirteen colonies of the United States.

Next, ask the students if anyone knows how many starts there are on the American Flag.
Explain that there are 50 stars which stand for our 50 states.

Finally explain that the colors of our flag are also symbols. Blue stands for justice, white stands for purity, and the red stands for courage. Put these words into terms that Kindergarteners can understand, such as fairness, clean, and brave.

Next hand out the American Flag Worksheet. Read the questions out loud to students and have them fill in the blanks using "Kindergarten spelling."

Lesson Expansion

Students create their own flags! I created my own flag as an example to show students.

Explain to students that their flag can also have symbols just like the American Flag has stars and stripes which are symbols for the colonies and states. My flag has an apple because they are often a symbol for teachers. I used the color yellow because it often mean loyalty and it stands for my loyalty to teaching. And I used purple because it means "high rank" like a king or queen, and the teacher is in charge in the classroom so they are the highest rank at school.

Webinars

I just watched my first webinar today. What a great way to watch a presentation for someone across the United States! If you haven't watched a webinar before, I suggest giving it a try. I watched this webinar on iPads in education through simplek12.com. To get started with your first webinar you can just login as a guest and sign up for a webinar of your choice. If you really enjoy the webinars you can make an account on simplek12 where you can watch recordings of webinars at any time you want, as well as live webinars. Just click on the link below to check it out!

http://www.simplek12.com/

Too Busy for a Friend?

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names
of the other students in the room on two sheets
of paper, leaving a space between each name.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say
about each of their classmates and write it down.
It took the remainder of the class period to finish their
assignment, and as the students left the room, each
one handed in the papers.

 Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate
sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that
individual.

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire
class was smiling. 'Really?' she heard whispered. 'I never knew that I meant
anything to anyone!' and, 'I didn't know others liked me so much,' were most
of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they

discussed them after class or with
their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise
had accomplished its purpose. The students
were happy with themselves and one
another. That group of
students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in
Vietnam and his teacher attended the funeral
of that special student. She had never seen
a serviceman in a military coffin before.
He looked so handsome, so mature.

The church was packed with his friends. One by
one those who loved him took a last walk
by the coffin. The teacher was the
last one to bless the coffin.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer
came up to her. 'Were you Mark's math teacher?' he
asked. She nodded: 'yes.' Then he said:
'Mark talked about you a lot.'

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went
together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father
were there, obviously waiting to
speak with his teacher.

We want to show you something,' his father said, taking a
wallet out of his pocket 'They found this on Mark
when her was killed. We thought you
might recognize it.'

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces
of notebook  paper that had obviously been taped,
folded and refolded many times. The teacher
knew without looking that the papers
were the ones on which she had
listed all the good things each
of Mark's classmates had said about him.
'Thank you so much for doing that,' Mark's mother said.
'As you can see, Mark treasured it.'

All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around.
 

Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, 'I still
have my list. It's in the top drawer of
my desk at home.'

Chuck's wife said, 'Chuck asked me to
put his in our wedding album.'

'I have mine too,' Marilyn said.
'It's in my diary'

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took
out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to
the group. 'I carry this with me at all times,' Vicki
said  and without batting an eyelash,
she continued: 'I think we all
saved our lists'

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried.
She cried for Mark and for all his friends who
would never see him again.
  

The density of people in society is so thick
that we forget that life will end one
day. And we don't know when
that one day will be.

 So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are
special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.

VENSPIRED learning

Check it this blog created by a 10 year teacher!

http://venspired.com/

Laura Candler's File Cabinet

Need some lesson plan and activity ideas? Check this out!

http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/index.php

On this site veteran teacher Laura Candler shares lesson plans and activities she used to do in her classroom. There are tons of free printables and great ideas located in Laura's "filing cabinets" including:

• Literacy
• Math
• Science
• Health
• Social Studies
• Odds N Ends
• Seasonal Activities
• Info for Teachers

There is bound to be something on this website for you! You can also like Teaching Resources on Facebook for even more education fun!

QR Codes

 

Have you ever seen one of these and wondered what it is? It's called a QR code, and you can find them all over the pages of magazines and advertisements these days. QR codes encode information in a two dimensional space. You can use these to link information to a smartphone or an iPad. I myself have an iPhone and I downloaded a QR code app, it basically just takes a picture of the QR code and links it to a website. Scan the QR code above and it will link you to a website where you can create your own QR code.

Wordle is great, but...

http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm
abcya.com is also another way to make word clouds!

http://www.tagxedo.com/
Here you can make word clouds in the form of shapes!