State Capital Lesson Plan

State Capital Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan Outline

• Unit Topic or Theme: Geography: Identifying the Capitals of the 50 States.
• Grade: 6th Grade

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• Lesson Topic or Theme: Being able to identify the location and Capitals of the 50 States
• Lesson Objectives: The Student will be able to identify and locate the Capitals of the 50 States
• Instructional Technique: Pretest to establish the students’ prior knowledge of the Capitals of the 50 States followed by individual web based activities, with a printout worksheet to accompany the activity to increase prior knowledge of the States, as well as introduce new information to the student. The homework distributed following the lesson will reinforce the information learned in class, as well as allow the student to practice the new information learned in the lesson at home.
• Instructional Materials: See attached handouts.

1.) Pretest:

2.) Homework:

-After Students complete the in-class activities, (the pre-test and web based activity) distribute the homework titled “State Capital Word Search”

3.) In-Class Worksheets:
Capital Scavenger Hunt Worksheet paired with the interactive online activity.

-To access the online activity open the web browser and have students type in the hyperlink below:

Or

-To access the activity open the web browser and have students go to , click on the “U.S Geography Games” then when brought to the second page have the students click on the link that says, “ Capitals 1 Beginner)

Capital Scavenger Hunt worksheet: By using the online program on sheppardsoftware have students track their progress by filling in the facts on the worksheet, (Capital Scavenger Hunt) and printing out the report card provided at the end of the online activity. To access the report cards:

1.) Click on the "Click Here to See Your Scores" button located on the screen after completing exercise

2.) To print the report card, click "Print Scores" button located at the bottom of the screen.

Theoretical Perspective:

Academic rationalism:

-Following previous lesson plans that educate the students of the locations of the 50 States, the next logical step is for the students to learn the capitals of those states. Students are expected to be knowledgeable of the area that which they live in, and as they grow up in the educational system and society, it is important for students to be able to locate major cities in the United States. This lesson plan also equips the student with crucial map skills that will become useful as students progresses in the educational system, and begin to gain knowledge on other locations across the globe.

Procedure:

A. Introductory Activity

Pre-test:

-to establish the students’ prior knowledge of the location of the 50 States' Capitals and to achieve a better understanding of the students’ progress following the classroom and homework activities leading up to final evaluation.

B. Step-by-step (descriptive outline)

Pretest:

-Distribute the pretest to achieve the goals listed above in the Introductory Activity.

Worksheet:

-After the students have taken and in class have scored their pretests, the Capital Scavenger Hunt Worksheet will be distributed. This Activity is to be done in class. Capital Scavenger Hunt Worksheet paired with the interactive online activity.

Homework:

-Students will be handed out a Capital City Word Search where they are expected to fill in the blanks of the 50 state capitals next to their corresponding state and then locate the state within the word search. This homework is geared more towards the identification of the 50 state capitals and less on the location of those capitals.

Evaluation:

-When the lesson comes to a close, following the completion and correction of both the in-class worksheet, and the take home assignment, (homework) the students will be given a final evaluation. This evaluation is the same assessment as the Pretest that students previously took prior to the lesson.

C. Closure

-The purpose of the homework and evaluation is to solidify the students’ knowledge of the 50 state capitals independently and locate those capitals on a map.

D. Adaptations for different learners (i.e. non-native speakers, struggling readers or math phobic learners, students with poor study skills)

- After taking the Pre-Test before beginning the lesson on the 50 State Capitals you will be able to grasp the level that each student is currently at in the classroom. Some children will have very little to no knowledge on the location and names of the 50 state capitals, while other students will show proficient knowledge in both the location and the names of the 50 States. Inevitably there will be students that fall in different ranges, or fall somewhere in the middle. Meaning:

1.) Evaluate (by using the pretest), the knowledge the student has on not only the 50 state capitals, but also the 50 states in general (These students may have learning disabilities, or struggles in map studies, or they could also be new to the United States and have not been familiarized with the United States Map prior to this lesson).

a.) For those students that appear to struggle with just the location of the 50 States, again open your web browser and have the student visit the sheppardsoftware.com website and click on the link for the activity to learn the 50 States.

2.) After the evaluation, you may realize that some students excel more in memorization, and less in map skills, or on the other hand, you may find that students excel more in map study than paper memorization.

a.) Some students may have to spend more time on the sheppardsoftware.com website activity to learn the location of the states, and other students may be able to produce the location of the capital without further assistance of the interactive website.

b.) The interactive website that was paired with the State Capital Scavenger hunt has different levels of map activities based on the level of the student. After assessing which students have surpassed the beginner level with ease, you should then ask the student to complete the next level exercise to challenge the students’ map knowledge.

E. Homework

Students will be handed out a Capital City Word Search where they are expected to fill in the blanks of the 50 state capitals next to their corresponding state and then locate the state within the word search. This homework is geared more towards the identification of the 50 state capitals and less on the location of those capitals.

F.Evaluation:

A. How will you determine if you have met your objectives?

-Our objective for this lesson is, “The student will be able to identify and locate the Capitals of 50 states”. In order to determine if we have met our objective, we have provided the students with different forms of assessment to see how they have progressed. There is an initial pretest to see where the students stand with locating the states and their capitals, a worksheet/guideline for students to do while they are on the website. This worksheet will act as a guide line for the students while on the interactive website so they stay on task. When the students are on the website completing the activity they are being graded on which capitals they know, when they have completed the activity they will print out their report card. Our final way to determine if the objective was met will be through the homework assignment. For homework they students have to write down each states capital (spelt correctly), then find it in a word search. If students are able to name and correctly spell each capital it shows they learned from the interactive website. To conclude the lesson, and as final assessment the students will be given the same pretest that they took at the beginning of the lesson to show the progress the student has made throughout the duration of the lesson.

B. Concerns or Questions.

-With teaching any lesson there is always going to be concerns about students. One concern we have is that when the students take the initial pretest, some will be further behind than others. Meaning that some students might not be able to locate the 50 states whereas other students might already know the capitals. A second concern is that some students might have poor memorization skills so it will be harder for them to learn all 50 capitals. If a student has difficulty memorizing then they will have an extremely hard time not only learning the capitals, but locating the states as well. A final concern is that there is a chance you could have a student(s) that are not from this country, so they won’t know anything about the states (the location, the capital).