Title.
Prairie
Prairie Lesson Plan
Prairie Lesson Plan
Date of Lesson: Aug.-Sept., any year Teacher: Tara Bunner
Grade Level: Kindergarten Subject Area: Social Studies
Time Needed: About 10 class periods) Topic: Prairies
Essential Questions: 1. What is a prairie like?
2. Where do we find prairies on the globe/map?
3. Why are prairies important and how can people preserve
them?
What School of Education standard/s did you try to address in this lesson?
· Standard 4: Demonstrates pedagogical knowledge in specific domains
· Standard 6: Connects school and community.
· Standard 7: Understands and adapts to multiple forms of communication
· Standard 8: Employs varied assessment processes
· Standard 9: Manages learning environment
· Standard 10: Employs varied instructional strategies
· Standard 12: Accommodates for all students.
MMSD standards:
· Examine pictures of different environments to describe how they are similar and different from their own
· Explain how people’s actions can have an effect on the environment.
NCSS Social Studies Theme:
#3 People, Places, and Environments
Materials Needed:
· Books listed in the bibliography
· Various books found in the school or public library by the teacher that are about various animals that live on the prairie for the library shelf in the classroom.
· A journal for each child
· Crayons or markers for drawing
· Pencils for writing
· Long sheets of newsprint or butcher paper to hang for a mural
· Glue
· Chalkboard and chalk, white board and markers, or large sheets of paper for the teacher to write on
· Folder for each child to hold his/her work
· Several topographical globes/and or world maps
· Three pans of soil: clay, sand, topsoil
· ear of corn, a stem of oats and wheat, and a sprig of alfalfa.
· Grains of wheat, corn, and oats
· Contact with DNR for a guest speaker
Objectives:
· TSWBAT name at least two characteristics of prairies (i.e. they have few trees, they have grasses, and they have plants).
· TSWBAT find areas on the globe where prairies are located.
· TSWBAT tell two other names for prairies (savannah, grassland).
· TSWBAT identify several animals that live on the prairie.
· TSWBAT identify a few plants that grow in their prairie.
· TSWBAT explain why prairies are important.
· TSWBAT tell how people can help preserve the prairies.
Lesson Context:
This lesson takes place during the first month of school. The students will be studying the life cycle of monarch butterflies and working in the prairie beside the school to find milkweed and butterfly adults, larva, and pupa. These students live in the Midwest, so they live near or on prairies. They will be able to understand their own environment and compare it to other prairie environments in the world, including the African Savannah.
Lesson Opening:
The teacher reads A Child’s View of a Prairie by Susan C. McDermott, and leads a discussion about a Wisconsin Prairie with the children. At appropriate places during the read aloud, the teacher asks, “Where have you seen a place like this before?” The students will do a Turn and Talk with a partner. If, at the end of the read aloud and discussions, the students have not realized that the prairie by their school fits the description in the book, then the teacher will lead them to the window or outside to point it out to them.
Procedures:
1. What is a prairie?
a. The children will take their journals outside and record what they see, hear, smell, and feel in the prairie, by either writing or drawing pictures. They may work together or alone.
b. In addition to their writing, the children will draw in their journals 10 stems from the prairie to bring inside.
c. After returning to the classroom, the children will volunteer to show their pictures and/or read their journals to the class.
d. The teacher will record their observations on the board.
e. The children will make a large mural of a prairie using paper, glue, and their drawings of the different plants from the school’s prairie.
2. Where do we find prairies?
a. Children will sit in groups of four. Each group has a globe or map that is color coded to show different environmental features.
b. The teacher will show them where we live on the globe/map and ask each group to find it on their globe/map.
c. Once children find where we live, the teacher will ask them what color our area is on the globe/map.
d. When the children answer, then the teacher will ask them to find other places on the globe that are the same colors.
e. The teacher will ask the children to put their globes on the reading table and join her on the carpet.
f. The teacher will explain that prairies have other names, too.
g. The teacher will read Grasslands by Laura Purdie Salas. The children will listen for other names for a prairie (grassland and savannah). When they come to different names, the children will raise their hand to tell the different name. The teacher will write the names on the chalkboard.
h. The children will discuss the similarities and differences between the African prairie (savannah) and their prairie.
3. Why are prairies important?
a. Prairies are home to many different plants and animals.
i. The teacher will read A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet by Claudia McGeHee. As she reads, the children will look at the pictures and see if they can find any plants that are in their prairie or animals they have seen.
ii. When the children find plants that are in their prairie, they will raise their hand and wave it gently back and forth, as a tall grass waves in the breeze, and wait for the teacher to call on them.
iii. When the child finds a prairie animal with which they are familiar, they will put two fingers on their head and wiggle them back and forth like animal ears, and wait for the teacher to call on them.
iv. The teacher will make list of prairie animals mentioned in the book and a list of familiar plants mentioned in the book on the board.
v. The students will copy the list from the board into their prairie notebooks.
vi. The students will draw and color a picture of their favorite prairie animals on a sheet of paper. They will cut their pictures out and glue them onto the class mural.
b. Prairies provide good soil for growing crops.
i. Teacher will read the chapter about prairie soil from Soil, Get the Inside Scoop by David Lindbo
ii. The teacher will place three pans of soil around the classroom for the children to look at and touch. One will be sand, one will be a thick clay soil, and one will be topsoil. The teacher will allow the children will be given time to observe and touch the soil
iii. The children will discuss what kind of soil is best for growing plants and why.
1. Sand does not have the plant food that top soil has
2. Clay soil is harder for the roots to grow through
3. Top soil is loose soil so the roots can get through and it is very high in plant food. The teacher will remind the students about their science unit on plants.
iv. Farmers can plant food crops that take a lot of room to grow on farms located on the prairie.
1. The teacher will show the children an ear of corn, a stem of oats, and a sprig of alfalfa. She will explain that these plants grow well on farms on the prairie and farm animals eat them.
2. The teacher will show the children a stem of wheat and explain that we use wheat to make flour and that we use flour to make our bread. Wheat grows on farms on the prairie too.
3. The children will glue pieces of wheat, corn, and oats to their mural
c. Plants grow on the prairie that feed many of the prairie animals as well as farm animals such as cows.
i. The children will review the animals they saw in A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet by Claudia McGeHee.
ii. Children will work in pairs or groups of three. Each group will choose a prairie animal and their assignment will be to find what it eats.
iii. The teacher will provide a variety of books about prairie animals for the children to research their animal. These books are for young children and show clear pictures of animals eating, and so they are appropriate for children who have not learned to read.
iv. Each group will draw a picture of an animal and the food it eats. As they finish, the teacher will help them label their pictures.
v. As each group presents their pictures to the class, the teacher will fill in two columns on the chalkboard. In the first, she will write the name of the animal. In the other column, she will write what it eats.
vi. By the end of the presentation, the children will understand that some animals eat other animals and some animals eat plants.
vii. The teacher will explain and show by using the columns, that even prairie animals that eat other prairie animals depend on plants, because those animals eat prairie plants.
viii. The teacher will collect the children’s pictures and put them into a classroom book about Prairies.
4. How can we protect the prairies?
a. The teacher will read Jackrabbit and the Prairie Fire: The Story of a Black-Tailed Jackrabbit by Susan Saunders.
b. The teacher will introduce the guest speaker to the class. This person is a person who works for the DNR. He will talk to the children about what people do to protect and care for the prairie, including spring burns.
c. The children will draw a picture of what they would like to do to protect the prairie. The teacher will collect the pictures for the class Prairie book.
Closure: The children will form a circle on the rug and discuss what they learned about Prairies. They will identify their favorite parts of the lesson and anything that bothered them about the lesson. The teacher will teach the children the song Home on the Range.
Special Considerations:
1. A child may need wheelchair assistance to go out to the prairie.
2. A child may have allergies to some of the plants. The teacher may use pictures or artificial plants in place of the real plant.
Assessment:
Assessment will be ongoing. The teacher will assess the children’s understanding by what they write in their journal, the questions they ask, the answers they give, and the observations they make during class discussions. The teacher will be able to read the journal entries and the things the students recorded in their prairie notebooks. She will also have their plant and animal drawings on the mural to help her assess the student’s understanding.
Annotated Bibliography
Fredericks, A. (2011). P is for prairie dog: A prairie dog alphabet. Farmington Hills, MI:Sleeping Bear Press.
This alphabet book includes many prairie animals and plants.
Lindbo, D. (2008). Soil, Get the Inside Scoop. Madison:American Society of Agronomy.
A scientific book geared to kindergarten children, this book explains what children need to know about soil. The book divides into sections according to environment including a section about prairie soil.
McDermott, S. (2008). A child’s view of a prairie. Bloomington:AuthorHouse.
This is a wonderful book for introducing young children to the prairie. It takes place in Wisconsin, so it is very well suited to this lesson for Midwestern students.
McGeHee, C. (2004). A tallgrass prairie alphabet. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Beautifully illustrated, this book shows pictures of the plants and animals on the prairie and includes their names.
Salas L. (2002). Grasslands. Minneapolis: Picture Window Books.
This informative book tells the difference between a prairie and a savannah. It also tells about the animals that live on the African savannah.
Saunders, S. (1995). Jackrabbit and the Prairie fire: The story of a black-tailed
jackrabbit. Norwalk, CN:Soundprints
A fictional story about a jackrabbit trying to escape a fox and a prairie fire, this book is a great segue into a lesson about how to care for a prairie and the importance of fire for preserving it.
