Lesson Plans

The lesson plan activity was a lot of fun! Carrie Sorensen and I worked on the lesson together, since we are both in the Early Childhood program. As we began to brainstorm ideas, we quickly decided that a social studies lesson would be easy to incorporate technology into. Having seen Google Maps presented a few weeks earlier during the Web 2.0 presentations, we thought it would be fun to do a lesson on maps and use the Google maps technology. We titled our lesson learning about maps and planned it specifically for kindergarteners. The lesson would take place over the course of 1 full week.

Our idea to use Google maps was short lived. Once we realized level of skill required to use the technology, we decided that kindergarten studnets might find the activity too difficult. Instead, we decided to create and use a WebQuest about maps. Still, we wanted to include Google maps so we planned for a group activity on the SmartBoard later in the week. This way, the students would have some experience with maps before being introduced to a mapping technolgy.

The webquest we created was very simple and age appropriate. It includes games and other interactive activities that will teach the children how to use simple directions read map symbols,and use a map. We made the WebQuest on zunal.com. As we constructed the site, we used resources we found on the web and in the textbook. It was a fairly easy process to design the WebQuest. Carrie and I were actually suprised by how simple and quick it was to create a site. This is definitely something I can see myself using again in the future.

All in all, I was very pleased with the way our lesson turned out. Carrie and I enjoyed working on the assignment together, and I definitely feel like this is a lesson we could use in our future classroom.