Social Studies Lesson 2 Reflection

Last Wednesday, I taught my second social studies lesson at Salem Elementary. The lesson I used, Web of Life, was one that I found and adapted from the software that the Population Connection representative provided us with when she came to speak to our literacy class in the Spring. The software, entitled Teaching Population: Hands-On Activities, is an outstanding resource for finding great, interactive lessons and activities for K-12 students. The CD included the complete lesson plan and materials for the Web of Life lesson. I chose to use Web of Life, since it stresses community and how the different parts of a community are connected and interdependent. The representative who presented these materials to us had us engage in this activity, and I felt that it was an excellent way for students of any age to realize just how connected everyone and everything is in a community.

To adapt this lesson to the third grade classroom I taught in, I incorporated discussion questions relating to their classroom community, school community and town/city community. Using the forest community really helped the students to understand that there are all different kinds of communities, but they all have similar characteristics. The discussion with the students went quite well, and I was excited that before I even mentioned the fact of there being different types of communities, one student in the class brought this up. When he did, I was thrilled, because this led right into further discussion of different types of communities and the students came up with many great ideas.

The activity where we created the web was a hit. The students loved getting out of their seats, moving around and being able to take on a role other than 'student in a classroom' for a brief time. As the web came together and I read the story, the students were observing the creation and I was delighted to hear "oohhs" and "aahhs" as they began to realize just how connected their roles were. All of the students were engaged and seemed to be having a great time.

If I were to change one thing about this lesson, I would have asked the teacher beforehand if I could arrange the room in a way that students had more room to form a circle. Since the time I had to complete this was only 35 minutes, there was not much time to move desks and chairs around. The students were not uncomfortable, but if we could had a little more room, we could have spread out a bit more. Because there was a lack of room, I had the students stand up instead of sitting down, which may not have been the best for third graders. They kept wanting to close in the circle, and at times the circle was very oblong and misshapen. Although this did not hinder the students' understanding or the success of the lesson, it would have been nice to have students sitting down in a proper circle with more room.

Overall, this lesson proved to be an excellent choice for this particular class. The discussion went well, the students were excited, and the purpose of the lesson really hit home and allowed the students to understand the interconnections of communities.