1st Grade Social Studies - Geography
1st Grade Social Studies - Geography
1st Grade Social Studies - Geography
Beaver Falls, PA
EDU 343
I. Topic
Culture: Learn the seven continents and describe differences between some of the
cultures on those continents.
IV. Materials
Geography PowerPoint
Google Earth
iPads
Continent coloring page
Crayons
Color key & word bank
V. Lesson Development
A. Introduction
Project the geography PowerPoint on the Smart Board. Ask students to name
the seven continents. Click to the first side and walk through the seven
continents. Ask students which continent we live on (North America). Explain
to students that they are going to visit a country from each of the continents
and see some different people and cultures from those places.
Process: Students can use the word bank to spell the different continents.
They will also still have their iPad out with Google Earth pulled up. They can
speak into the iPad to find where each continent is and label it on their
coloring page.
D. Closure (Summary)
Pass out the continent coloring page. Ask students to label the seven
continents and color them according to the color key.
VI. Assessment/Evaluation
Students will participate in discussion of differences between people on different
continents. They will also discuss physical characteristics of each continent when
viewing through Google Earth. Students will correctly label the continents on the
coloring sheet.
IX. Self-Evaluation
I understand that ELs need extra support for reading, writing, listening, and speaking as
well as opportunities to grow in these areas. This lesson and adaptations were created
based off class discussions and readings. This lesson was a walkthrough of the seven
continents and several different countries. I discussed different surface culture
components with the students and explained differences between them. This was to
create a comfortable and welcoming environment for an EL. The adaptions were made
to support the EL in reading and writing while focusing on their listening and speaking.
Since this is a social studies lesson, I wanted the EL to learn the content without their
ELP preventing them from participating. The speech-to-text adaption helped students
who struggle spelling to search for the continent on Google Earth quicker and keep at
pace with the lesson. This also helped them practice pronunciation of these places. They
were able to locate the continent without having to look up at the board to type out the
word. The word bank helped students with labeling the coloring page. They could cross
off the word once they wrote it and not have to ask for the spelling. The EL would have
been able to cut and paste the words onto the correct continents instead of writing. The
EL would have participated in the group discussion and be encouraged to share their
culture with their peers. The students used the word bank and were able to correctly
spell the continents using it. Next time, I would give clear expectations for the speech-
to-text strategy. I would model for students the volume level the room should remain
at. I would also express that they can speak into the microphone or type the word by
looking up at the board. The lines on the worksheet to label should be larger. The
students were able to correctly color the continents based on the coloring key. The
students were excited to ‘visit’ the different continents and countries. A few students
expressed their feelings towards some components of other cultures, and I explained
that they are different than us. That some cultures have different beliefs, holidays, food,
clothes, or even look different than us. I expressed that it is okay to be different and that
everyone lives on the same planet despite being on a different continent.
X. Justification
This lesson promotes the inclusion of my EL because it walks through several different
cultures and countries from around the world. The students will visit each continent and
look into one of the countries from that continent. They will see a few different
components of cultures as well as their own culture. This will show that there are
people around the world who are different from them but that share some similarities.
This will create a welcoming environment for the EL to share about their culture and the
country their family came from. They could express the differences or similarities with
their peers. It brings attention to the students that there are even other cultures within
the classroom. These adaptations would support the EL in reading and writing. The
speech-to-text strategy would allow the EL to search on Google Earth without having to
spell the names of countries or continents. She would be able to speak it into the
microphone. This would also have given her practice pronouncing the academic
vocabulary from the lesson. The word bank would have helped the EL with
remembering all of the names and labeling the worksheet. She could cut and paste the
words instead of writing.