1. Mr. Younker’s Lesson Plan
Subject: Geography
Grade 8
Unit: States of the United States
A Geographical Study of the U.S

2. Objective
Standard 5.B
Locate states of the United States

3. Materials and Resources
1 iPad for teacher use
12 student laptops
Class SMART Board
Microsoft Office
ELMO document camera
Whiteboard
1 Laser Printer
Wireless router

4. Anticipatory Set
To engage the students and introduce them to the material, we will be watching a video on our SMART Board. This video will take the students on a tour throughout the U.S. With this video students will begin to understand the location of states in relationship to each other.
Berman, Francoeur, Markus, Taylor, 2012

5. Input (Formal Assessment)
Students will be using their laptops to play this U.S geography game. After each student has finished their game, I will walk around with my iPad to record each score using Excel and take note of areas where students struggle the most and what they already know.
p-the-50-states.html

6. Model
This is the web address that I am using for the teaching aspect of our lesson.
I plan on briefly browsing through the site on the SMART Board and covering each specific state.
I also plan on passing out a "My United States Map" that is basically a black piece of paper initially and when we learn a state they will physically draw that outline of the state on their map. It gives them the idea of the physical shape of each state along with where it is situated on the map. Their knowledge will build as each state is taught and when our lesson is done they will have drawn the entire United States map. The blank paper is made in word with the title and a place for the students name.

7. Check for Understanding
Students will play bingo to determine if they are making sense of the material. I will call out different state names from my Excel sheet and students will need to place their pieces on that corresponding state. When a student completes a row on their card I will check to make sure those states were called and reward them with a piece of candy for their success.

8. Guided Practice (Informal Assessment)
Students will be divided into 4 groups (A, B, C, and D). I will use the ELMO document camera to project a blank map of the U.S (printed from Microsoft Word) on our whiteboard and each group will be asked to label one state at a time from a given list (created in Excel). At the end of each cycle, I will award a point if the group gets the state correct and deduct a point if they get the state wrong. This will be an informal assessment method and notes will be recorded in the gradebook using the iPad.

9. Closure (Formal Assessment)
For closure, after each tour of 2 states the students will be given an exit slip created in Microsoft Word. They will need to turn it in by the end of class for grading.

10. Independent Practice
Students will use their laptops to practice and review for their quiz at the end of the unit. They will use this website and need to work until they get 60% or better (Informal Assessment).
A second independent practice will be a quiz over the 50 states. This was created in PDF format and will be printed off for student use. (Formal Assessment)

11. Citation
Berman, C., Francoeur, R., Markus, D., Taylor, B. (2012 June 29). Tour the States – Official Music Video. Retrieved from 
states.html
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