Lesson Plan Format

School of Education
The College of New Jersey
Minds in Motion- Lower School- June 27, 2017

1. Title or Topic of the Lesson and Grade Level

Minds in Motion: A Lesson on Recycling
Lower School

2. Lesson Essential Question(s):

What is recycling?
How can a person recycle?
Why is it important to recycle?
What are the three Rs of recycling?

3. Assessments:
Ms. Sytsma will assess student learning in several ways. One way is through listening to
students verbal responses to questions.
Students can also be assessed through their contributions to the what we know about
recycling list.
Another way in which student learning can be assessed here is through the completion of
the three Rs recycling sort.
Lastly, the completion of the repurposed used CD craft as well as providing a reason
behind repurposing the CD will serve as an assessment for this lesson.

4. Materials:
Projector and Power Point
Used CDs
Gems
Googly Eyes
Bottled Elmers Glue
Scissors
Printed Outline of Fish Parts
Colored Pencils
Assorted Color Sharpie Markers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaFpv03hq-4&app=desktop

5. Pre-lesson assignments and/or prior knowledge:

Students will likely come into this lesson with a concrete or vague knowledge of what
recycling is and how it might work.

6. Lesson Beginning:
To begin this lesson, Ms. Sytsma will show her students a photo of a recycling symbol.
She will ask her students to raise their hands if they have ever seen this symbol before,
where they have seen this symbol, and what they think it means.
 Ms. Sytsma will ask the class to help her make a list of things they think they know about
recycling already.
Ms. Sytsma will then explain that today they will be learning a little bit about recycling,
how it helps our planet, how to recycle, and the Rs of recycling.
The lesson will begin with a short video about recycling. (Listed under materials.) Ms.
Sytsma will stop the short video a few times throughout and after to ask the students
questions.

7. Instructional Plan:
After watching the short video, Ms. Sytsma will explain the importance of recycling. She
will explain to students the process that our garbage goes through once it is taken away
on the garbage truck.
Information:
o Once the garbage men take the garbage away, they bring it to a place called a
landfill. There are many, many landfills. When it arrives at the landfill, the
garbage is squished to as small as it can be. Then, it is buried under ground. Some
garbage that we throw away like food decomposes easily. Ms. Sytsma will use an
example of leaves decomposition to explain what decomposing means. Other
things that go into the landfills do not decompose for a long, long time. It takes
450 years for 1 water bottle to decompose. It can take anywhere from 200 to 500
years for an aluminum can to decompose. It can take up to 1 million years for a
glass bottle to decompose.
Students will have the opportunity to reenact this process. Students will be
broken into 4 groups (The house, the garbage men/ garbage truck,
compacting, and landfill). One student will act as the garbage and travel
through each station. As the student travels through each station, the
students at that station will act out what is happening to the garbage. Once
the acting is complete. Ms. Sytsma will ask students to repeat the process.
This will strengthen students sequencing and working memory.
o How can we help? People can help lessen the garbage in our landfills by
following the three Rs. The first R is reduce. We can reduce the about of garbage
we make! For example, instead of using a plastic water bottle, we might be able to
use a refillable water bottle we buy at the store. The next R is reuse. This means
before throwing something away, we must stop and think, can I use this for
anything else? For example, if you have that same plastic water bottle, maybe
instead of throwing it away, you can make a craft with it or refill it with mater to
use again. The final R is recycle. When we recycle, we put things we want to
throw away into a special bin called the recycling bin if they can be recycled.
Then those things are shipped off to a factory where they can be used to make
something new!
Next, the class will play a short 3 Rs game. Ms. Sytsma will give her students various
scenarios of reducing, reusing, or recycling. The students will need to identify which
category each scenario fits into and why.
Finally, Ms. Sytsma will introduce the craft to her students. She will explain that she had
some old CDs that were going to be thrown out, but instead she thought she could reuse
 them and have her students make a craft. Ms. Sytsma will complete the craft step-by-step
with the students.
Differentiation:
Step-by-step and teacher-led instructions given by the teacher will
aid students with poor working memory and sequencing.
Teachers will constantly be attentive to students while they are
completing the craft task and provide assistance when needed.
Within the 3 Rs game, some scenarios will be more challenging
than others. Higher functioning students will be given more
challenging scenarios while lower functioning students will be
given scenarios that are easier to understand and identify.
This lesson is multi sensory for students who learn best in different
ways. This lesson includes music, traditional lecturing, and a
hands-on activity.
Questions:
Who has seen a symbol like this before? (Recycling symbol)
What do you think this symbol might mean?
Where have you seen this recycling symbol?
What are some things you already know about recycling?
How did using the CD for our craft help to reduce garbage?
What are some more things we learned about recycling today?
Classroom Management:
Ms. Sytsma will highlight the importance of appropriate behavior
during this activity. She will explain that students must try their
best to work quietly so that they do not pose as a distraction to
other students in the class. She will also explain that when students
need help or have a question, they can raise their hand until a
teacher comes over to help. Lastly, she will explain that it is
important to try and stay on task in order to complete the craft in a
timely manner.
Transitions:
Ms. Sytsma will guide students in the transition from the video, to
the Rs game, to completing the CD craft.

8. Closure:
As a closure for this lesson, Ms. Sytsma will ask students how using her old CDs for the
craft helped to reduce garbage waste. Finally, students will be asked what things can be
added to our list of things we know about recycling.
 How to Make a CD Fish

1. Turn your CD over to the shiny, silver side.

2. Use sharpie markers to draw scales on your CD.

3. Color your fish parts.

4. Cut out your fish parts.

5. Glue your fish parts onto the backside of the CD in the correct spot.

6. Turn your fish back to the shiny side with scales.

7. Glue on a Googly eye.

8. Glue on gems if you wish.