Practicum Lesson Plan
Title: One-room School
Grade Level: 3rd Grade
Date: 2001
Purpose: This lesson further explains what a one-room school was like and gives the kids the chance to use what they know, and have fun using their creativity and imagination to create their own one-room school.
Objectives:
Procedure:
Introduction: Ask who can share one thing about the one room school, or what they liked the best about the story. The class shares interesting facts they learned through reading My Great Aunt Arizona. We acknowledge the likely variations n schools throughout the US.
Have students listen to excerpts form and carefully pay attention to the photographs in One Room School.
Activity:
Teacher reads marked excerpts in One Room School. Time is taken to make comments. Comparisons are made between the two books and to our schools today (1)
Teacher also pauses to let kids add what they are noticing that they want to discuss either because they know more about a part or they want to know more about a part. (2)
Kids will apply that they now know from these books and create a rough draft of their one room school. After this, they will move on to create their own shoebox one room school. (3)
Closure:
Ask for further comments. Allow for additional sharing of background knowledge or further comparisons. Talk about where the idea for these books came from and discuss the differences in how they are written (one is a biography and one is nonfiction)
Evaluation/Assessment:
Teacher Reflection:
All students were very excited to see One Room School. In fact, they wanted to see it before it was my day to do the lesson. This is one topic that truly sparked their interest, which made my job a lot easier. My Great Aunt Arizona was a biography. It talked more about the teacher than the school. Mrs. Long and I discussed that it would be great tot expand this story with authentic pictures and information about the schools themselves. I was surprised that many of the kids in the class have relatives who had attended one-room schools. Some of the kids had even been in one-room schools. This made our discussion richer, in that the kids not only asked questions, but they were able to share valuable information with the class. Luckily, Mrs. Long had planned extra time for this discussion and was not rushed. I called on students mostly, but when done in an orderly fashion, kids added ideas where appropriate. Of course, there were some questions like, “”Why did they ever have to invent school anyhow?” This did not really surprise me, and since this was not the overall mood of the class we quickly dismissed such comments and moved on to others.
When it came time to create the shoe box schools, the children went right to work, and it didn’t matter that the resources were not really that plentiful. They used their imagination and their creation came out beautifully. They incorporated many of the common things you would find in a one-room school (wood stove, flag, bell, books, desks) demonstrating that they had been listening. They also were so eager to share with each other when it came to the art materials. I notice children asking to borrow items. At times they even gave each other ideas.
Overall, this was a successful and beneficial lesson for this class. I find that this class is busy doing paper and pencil activity much of the time. It was a great break for them to use their creativity and apply what they have learned. Afterward, the teacher expressed to me that she probably should do these types of activities more often. I think this was evident in how well they cooperated. It was as if they were so glad to do something different.
Looking back, I would have added a writing exercise to this lesson. The students displayed their boxes in the hallway. I would have had them write a short excerpt to hang under their boxes.