LESSON PLAN 3: Mae Jemison - Timeline

Learning Segment Focus or Big Idea:

This lesson plan is part of a 5-day unit for Mae Jemison. The big idea is for students to learn about Mae
Jemison and how she persevered in her life goals to achieve her dream of becoming an astronaut. After
attaining her dream, she continued to dream bigger and accomplish other goals. The big idea is for
kindergartners to be exposed to the concept of hard work, determination, and setting goals for themselves.

This lesson plan is Day 3 of the 5-day unit. The main learning focus for this lesson plan is for students to
remember the major events in Mae Jemisons life, place the event on a timeline in chronological order, while
further embedding the character trait of perseverance.

Grade: K Content Area: Social Studies and English Language Arts

Time Allotted: 30 minutes Classroom organization: Class instruction is on the carpet and students
will come up to the whiteboard to place the magnetic strips onto the timeline.
Then students will go to their seats and practice the timeline activity at their
desks with partners.

Resources and materials:

Teacher prep work:
Write the learning target statement on the whiteboard: I can identify important events in Mae Jemisons life. I
can place events in the correct order.
Make sure you have completed the Read Aloud lesson with the suggested book, if you want, you can choose
another biographical book at your students instructional level (that has a timeline) prior to implementing this
lesson.

Make larger sized milestones cards, laminate, and place adhesive magnets on back (save for future use) to
use as whole class activity for students to place on the timeline on the whiteboard. You will need to draw a
timeline on the whiteboard. Then draw dots for the appropriate dates listed on the template (image below) and
lines that go up and down to show how sometimes timelines have information that are placed in an up and
down position. Remember to teach students to pay attention to the dots and matching lines.

Make letter-sized templates for students to use at their desks. You can choose to print on cardstock, cut,
laminate, and add velcro for long-term use (high prep). You can make it easy on yourself and use the paper
version and have students cut out the pieces and glue it to their timeline (low prep).

Suggested books:
Calkhoven, L. (2016). You Should Meet Mae Jemison. New York, NY: Simon Spotlight.
Colins, L. (2014). Mae Jemison. North Mankato, MN: Capstone Press.
Teacher materials: Chart paper, markers expo markers, eraser, magnets, timeline templates in both large size
and letter size, list of 5 major events to refer to

Student materials: Pencils, scissors, glue sticks, timeline templates

Content Standard(s):
HSSCS. K.1.2.: Learn examples of honesty, courage, determination, individual responsibility, and
patriotism in American and world history from stories and folklore.
HSSCS. K.5: Students put events in temporal order using a calendar, placing days, weeks, and months in
proper order.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about

kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.1.A: Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others and taking
turns speaking about the topics and texts under discussion).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.4: Describe familiar people, places, things, and events and, with prompting and
support, provide additional detail.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.6: Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.1: With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a
text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.2: With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a
text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.3: With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals,
events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.8: With prompting and support, identify the reasons an author gives to support
points in a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.9: With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in and differences
between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures).

Specific Academic Learning Objectives:

What do you want students to learn in this lesson? Students will learn:

Students will learn some main events in Mae Jemisons life in chronological order.

What should students be able to do after the lesson? Students will be able to:

Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of temporal order by placing the events in
chronological order on the whiteboard and on their own timelines.

In terms of differentiation, the table below identifies what I expect students will be able to do after this lesson:
What all students will be able to do Identify 2 main events in Mae Jemisons life and place them on
the timeline in chronological order.

What most students will be able to do Identify 3 main events in Mae Jemisons life and place them on
the timeline in chronological order.

What some students will be able to do Identify 5 main events in Mae Jemisons life and place them on
the timeline in chronological order.

Prerequisites:
What skills, knowledge and prior experience do students need for this lesson?
Students will need to have participated in both read alouds from Day 1 and Day 3. Students will need to have
participated in discussions about similarities and differences in the timelines from both books and identify the 5
major life events as outlined in the read aloud for Day 3. Students will need to be able to identify 4-digit
numbers and understand cardinality, greater than, less than, so that they can order the dates in chronological
order. Since we have read other biographies that included a timeline (Sacagawea, Sitting Bull, George
Washington, Ruby Bridges, etc), students have seen and been exposed to discussions and activities revolving
around timelines. Students will need to have participated in collaborative discussions with classmates and
adhere to class norms. Students will need to know how to properly hold a scissor and cut in a straight line,
move the paper and keep their wrists straight. This is a fine motor skill that we are still working on in my class.

How will you determine whether students have these?

Throughout the school year we have read about other people in history using the Rookie Biographies books as
well as other books from our school library. Most of these books have a timeline in them and students have
seen and discussed what timelines represents. Cutting and pasting are common activities in kindergarten to
help develop students fine motor skills. Observation and guiding students to properly hold and cut is ongoing
throughout the school year. Students speak with each other everyday and discussion norms are monitored and
reinforced.

How will you connect to students' interests, backgrounds, strengths and needs, including their
cultural, ethnic, and socio-economic differences?
The part in this lesson when we review the notes of what students learned from 2 different KWL charts from the
2 different read aloud will serve to connect students backgrounds and interests because they will determine
what facts and events they found important or interesting to note. When we review these notes as a whole
class we will find commonalities and differences together. Students will use accountable talk to explain why two
notes match or add to the topic. The process of having students figure out the connections with their notes
from the L column (from the KWL chart) will keep them engaged as it will pull from their schema and
processing the new information from Jemisons life story.

Academic language demands:

What academic language is used in the lesson? (Vocabulary, language structure and conventions,
genres, symbols, etc.)

Genre: Nonfiction text, timeline

Convention: Chronological / temporal ordering
Vocabulary:
Word Definition

astronaut Person who travels into space in a spacecraft

astronomy Study of space and objects in space (such as the moon and stars)

chronological order Arrange in the order it happened

crew Team of people who work together

NASA A U.S. government agency that does research on space

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

professor A teacher teaching in a college or university

scientist A person who studies or investigates a field of science and does scientific work

space shuttle Reusable spacecraft

zero gravity Lack of gravity, causing objects to float in space

Strategies to help students understand vocabulary:
Visual cues for vocabulary
Students act out meaning of certain vocabulary words
Students explain the word to each other:
Students are explicitly taught the definition and then will need to restate the meaning chorally,
and verbally in pairs
Mentor texts and examples in previous lessons
Students have been exposed to most of these vocabulary terms in previous lessons in social studies and
science (scientist, professor, astronaut, experiment), as well as the lessons from Day 1 and Day 2. The two
new words from todays read aloud included: space shuttle and zero gravity. These are considered Tier-3
vocabulary words so mastery of learning these words is not essential todays lesson plan. Exposing students
to these words with a simple explanation and reading from the text is sufficient. These terms will be used again
in other texts and students will have more opportunities to learn these 2 words deeper.

What are the language demands of the task? Please address receptive (listening, reading) and
productive (speaking, writing) skills.
Students will use both receptive and productive skills in this lesson. They will need to be active listeners and
participants on the carpet when we review the 5 events in Mae Jemisons life. Students will need to
demonstrate their understanding and knowledge orally (raise hands, chorally, or partner talk).
Students will need to work cooperatively with their tablemates to glue the events on their own timeline
(listening, speaking, and fine motor skills of cutting and pasting).

Accommodations (to ensure all students have access to the curriculum):

How will you make the academic language accessible to all students?
How will address the specific needs of your English learners?
How will you address the specific needs of your students with special needs?

To set students up for success, the read aloud lesson should be completed prior to this lesson. Prior to the
reading, the 2 new words space shuttle and zero gravity, were defined and a visual cue was shown. Show this
short clip and discuss how the food and items are floating in the space shuttle. Ta-da, two vocabulary words in
one video clip.
Students practiced the body movements (TPR) for the words: astronomy, hardworking, and crew. This will
address the specific needs of all students and those with special needs as it involves whole brain teaching with
kinesthetics. English learners will also be closer to the teacher on the carpet and their table seats are closer to
the front of the classroom. At the end of this lesson students will also get to work together and speak to each
other. It is important to have structured time for all kindergarten and English learners to use and develop their
language with each other.

Assessment:
What evidence of student learning will you collect?
Observing and listening to students responses to major events in Mae Jemisons life will inform me of what
events in Mae Jemisons life the students remembered and understood.. Teacher can collect students
completed timeline at the end of this lesson to check students chronological order understanding.

How will you use this evidence?

The students work will inform the teacher whether students understand chronological order and that a timeline
is like a number line -- infinite.
Formative assessment: During the whole class activity, I can observe students and also during their
independent work time, I can circle the room and talk to students to see if they understand the events and
chronological order.
Summative assessment: I can review each students timeline and check for understanding at the end of the
day.

What criteria will you use to interpret the evidence?

The criteria will be that students need to be able to verbally say at least 2 major events from Mae Jemisons
life. I am also looking to see if students are able to order the dates in chronological order on the timeline. This
will demonstrate to me whether students understand temporal ordering and sequencing.

How will the evidence affect your next steps in teaching?

If students exceed the learning target as outlined in the differentiated learning chart, then I can extend the
lesson and have students identify additional important events in Mae Jemisons life and have them place the
dot and line in the correct order on the timeline and write the event.
If students are struggling during the independent work, I will assist in small groups or one-on-one depending on
the situation.
If students demonstrate lack of understanding in chronology and sequential order, I will reteach this concept in
a math lesson that cross-cuts with this Social Studies timeline activity.

Instructional Sequence:

Set or introduction:
How will you begin the lesson? How will you engage and motivate learners, connect to prior
Time
experience, activate prior knowledge and/or share learning outcomes?
5 mins

Warm up with TPR vocabulary definition of: crew and hardworking

crew
Starting point: Standing straight and tall
Say: A crew is...
Physical movement: Hold up both hands, palms facing outward, and show 3 fingers on
both hands (index, middle, and ring finger)
Say: a team
Physical movement: Move hands together so tips of fingers are touching and it looks like
a mountain or teepee
Say: working together.
Physical movement: Interlace fingers together

hardworking

Starting point: Standing straight and tall

Say: Hard
Physical movement: Make muscle arms with both arms
Say: working
Physical movement: Take both hands and make a hammering, pounding movement
Say the definition: to work with energy and commitment
Have students sit down on the carpet.

1. 2B, we have been learning about Mae Jemison all week long and today I want you to be
able tell me at least 2 important events from her life. We are going to look into our KWL
charts from both our read alouds and lets compare our L column. What did we learn
 from each book?

Start a new chart titled: Facts about Mae Jemison

2. Look at how hard you have been working. Look at all these bullet points from both the L
columns. You know, I think it will be easier if we can circle in yellow the same facts from
both columns.

Read aloud the facts that match from both columns and circle in yellow the 2 that match. Take
special note whenever you circle something that is related to the 5 major events. You will need
to make sure to write it on the new chart and highlight it.

Read the learning target for todays lesson.

22 mins Developing Content/Body of Lesson: What instructional strategies and learning tasks will you
use in the main part of the lesson?

Modeling:
3. Lets do one more together. I will read the notes we took and you raise your hand when
you hear or read something that means the same on both charts.
4. Can you tell us why you think those two facts are similar?
5. Do you think these notes are about the same event, do they add more details?
6. Why do you think that?
7. Thats a great connection. Please come up here and circle the two bullet points.

The key to developing the lesson is to read the bullet points and notes that are related and ask
clarifying questions to pull students to think further and express their reasoning. You should also
read two facts that are not alike (circle in red or different color) and ask whether they are similar
or not so that you can push students to see differences, too. Make sure students use
accountable talk and reinforce conversation norms as needed.

This part of the lesson is organic but the goal is to make sure students explain why and show
reasoning in their associations. Your role is to facilitate and make corrections when needed.
You also need to make sure you connect the notes so that you can end up with the new chart
that highlights the 5 major life events in addition to any other facts that your class found
important or interesting about Mae Jemison.

Guided Practice:
8. Look at our new chart, class! There are so many interesting facts about Mae Jemison on
this list here. Its a great place for us to find important information about Mae Jemison. I
was wondering if we could add some dates to some of these facts. I dont expect you to
know these dates, so how can we solve this problem?
9. Where do you think we can find the dates if we dont know it?
10. Thats right, in our books here. Lets look at the timelines together and add these dates
next to some of the important events in Mae Jemisons life.

Call on students to write dates on chart paper.

11. That was great sequencing work, class! Did that remind you of Writers workshop where
 we learned about sequencing words? Well, in history, because there are so many events
we use a timeline to help us order these events into chronological order.
12. Thats a big word! Chronological. What could that mean if we want to put these events in
sequential order, like in sequencing words first, second, third, next, finally?

Take several hands and discuss.

13. I noticed that you used accountable talk with each other. Thats respectful and kind
discussion for 2B. Because you all added and explained to each others definition, it
makes it easier for us to define the word, chronological - which means arranged in the
order it happened.
14. Lets do that together with these 5 events that we highlighted as important events in
Jemisons life.

Call on student to place event card on the timeline on the whiteboard. If student appears to be
struggling, allow student to pick one other student to come up to help.

Point out how the lines on the timeline are connected to a dot and go up and down. Explicitly tell
students how important it is to notice where the dot is on the timeline and follow the line to place
the correct event in chronological order.

Repeat until all 5 cards are properly placed on the timeline on the whiteboard. If a student makes
a mistake (which is what we are hoping for) it will make for a great enriching discussion to check
and read the dates to see if they are increasing. Reward students mistake by saying: Mistakes
are an opportunity for learning. I always thank a student when they make a mistake and tell them
that all great inventors, scientists, artists, mathematicians, and other famous people failed and
made mistakes before they became famous. It is learning from our mistakes that is the lesson.

15. Does anyone notice that Mae Jemison had so many different jobs?
16. Yes! What did she do first? [Take hands for doctor]
17. Then what did she do next? [Take hands for astronaut]
18. After she was finished with NASA what did she do next? [Take hands for professor]
19. Did she do anything else after that? [Take hands for start the Jemison Group, joined
NASAs 100 Year Starship program]
20. Mae Jemison did a lot of different jobs. Lets review all of the things she did. She was a
doctor, then an astronaut, then a professor, and then a member on NASAs 100 Year
Starship program. Wow, that sounds like so much for one person to do.
21. She really had to learn a lot to do so many different jobs. What do you think? Do you
think it was easy to be all those things? [Students do Think-Pair-Share]
22. I remember in the book it said she didnt get accepted into the NASA astronaut training
program when she first applied. Do you remember that? [Have students do thumbs up
or down at chest so their answers are private]
23. So it says here [Hold up book, Colins, L. (2014). Mae Jemison. North Mankato, MN:
Capstone Press.] Read page: 13
24. Then she tried again and then got accepted to the NASA astronaut training programming.
25. Did she give up? [Students should chorally respond, No. Make sure to give the signal
that they can all answer together versus the signal of raising of hand if you only want one
student to speak at a time.]
26. Ahoy! [Students respond with, We never give up!] (This is a call and response that we
 do in 2B as it is the heart of our character development throughout the school year of
perseverance)

Collaborative / Independent Practice:

Send students to seats, have class helpers pass out timeline templates.
Model taking out pencil, scissor, and glue stick on doc cam.
Give directions to students to cut out each event, cut along the line, and then paste the event in
chronological order on the timeline.

27. Class, do you notice that there is an arrow at the end of that timeline? Thats because
the timeline is still going, like a number line. A timeline goes on because time doesnt
stop.
28. Does this timeline look familiar to you? [Students should make connection to timeline on
whiteboard]
29. Alright, now you may talk with your tablemates and help each other read the dates and
events and order them in chronological order. Then paste the events on the timeline.

If there are early finishers, have them color in the timeline and add an additional event from Mae
Jemisons life to the timeline.

3 mins Closure:
How will learners summarize or reflect on what they learned (for example, share work, share a
strategy, share a process, discuss what they learned, raise a new question)?

Ring the bell, have students clean up, and stand up holding up timelines so that they can look
around and see everyones timeline.

As a whole class, review the main events in chronological order that shows Jemisons
perseverance.

1. Whole class: Mae Jemison was a doctor, an astronaut, and a professor.

2. She wanted to be a scientist when she was in kindergarten and made her dreams come
true!
3. Did she give up on being an astronaut? [Students respond, No!]
4. Will you give up? [Students respond, No!]
5. Ahoy! [Students respond, We never give up!]

5 minutes Extension (brief review later in the day)

[On carpet]
Review the 5 major events from chart or timeline (if you are able to keep up for the rest of the
day on the whiteboard).

Exit ticket: Can you tell me one major event from Mae Jemisons life?