Alex Swink

Indiana Wesleyan University

Elementary Education Lesson Plan Template
CAEP 2018 K-6 Elementary Teacher Preparation Standards

Teaching Date: November 20th Grade: 2nd

LESSON RATIONALE

People make decisions every day, multiple times a day. They consciously, and sometimes
unconsciously, make decisions based off of a certain intrinsic criteria. Students need to learn
about how to construct two objects to solve a problem, and analyze the strengths and weaknesses
so that they can do the same things when they make decisions in the future. They will be able to
confidently choose one option over the other because they have thought of the outcomes and the
strengths/weaknesses associated with the outcomes.

READINESS

I. Goals/Objectives/Standard(s)

A. Goal(s)— Students will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the structural design of
two boats and how well they kept coins afloat.

B. Objective(s)—

1. Using straws and foil, students will construct two boats in small groups and will
discover which boat will keep more coins afloat.
2. After designing and constructing the boats, students will fill out a recording sheet
that analyzes the information gathered during the creation of the boats.

C. Standard(s):

K-2.E.3 Analyze data from the investigation of two objects constructed to solve the same
problem to compare the strengths and weaknesses of how each performs.

II. Management Plan-

Materials: Tin foil, straws, painter’s tape, plastic wrap, scissors, change (pennies,
nickels, dimes, etc.), seven bins/buckets, water, towel, 21 recording sheets, and overhead
for a picture/beach sounds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKV5J5e9GX8).
Time: (Rough Outline) Anticipatory set = 2 minutes, Experiment and materials
explanation/expectations = 5- 8 minutes, Experiment =20 minutes, Clean up = 3 minutes,
Closure = 4 minutes
Space: During the anticipatory set and while I give directions, students will remain at
their seats. Once I give students their directions, they will be working in groups of three
at their desk clusters. They are able to move around during the experimentation time.
 During the closure, students will be at their desk.
Behavior: Students are expected to keep their voices at a normal level. Since the lesson is
inquiry based, the students are allowed to discuss and confer with one another. The
students are expected to be respectful of one another and are expected to listen to the
ideas of their partners. I will explicitly tell them of these expectations before they begin
experimenting.

III. Anticipatory Set

Play YouTube video of ship/beach sounds

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKV5J5e9GX8 ). I have some sounds playing in the
background and I want you to turn your imagination on. Close your eyes and pretend you
are on a pirate ship. Now open your eyes. As students open their eyes I will start the
simulation.
ALL ABOARD THE USS SWINK! ALL ABOARD! Well, hello, everyone! Welcome to my
ship! I am the captain of the USS Swink and these are my friends, Jake and Izzy. We have
some treasure that we found buried on the shore under a mysterious X. We dug and dug and
finally found the treasure. We are going to give all of the treasure away to help people who
need help. But, we cannot keep all of the treasure on our boat or it will sink, and I sure don’t
want to sink. So, we need your help! We need you to design a boat that will hold a lot of
treasure without sinking. You will design two boats of two different materials to see which
one will work better. I cannot wait to see what you come up with to help keep the treasure
afloat.

IV. Purpose: Today we are going to learn about how to make different types of boats to see
which one will sink or float when you try to put on a lot of treasure.

PLAN FOR INSTRUCTION

V. Adaptation to Individual Differences and Diverse Learners—

 Grouping – I will be intentional with the way that I group the students of Mrs.
Cunningham’s classroom. I will place students in groups with two other individuals
that will challenge them and that they work well with. In most cases, the students sit
in clusters of seats that are easy to split into two groups of students that will push one
another.
 Students with ADHD – There are many opportunities to work with materials. Those
that struggle with ADHD will be able to participate in an experiment that encourages
them to explore, touch, and design.

VI. Lesson Presentation (Input/Output)

As I mentioned before, today we will be designing some boats. We will be answering the
question: How can I design a boat made of straws or tin foil to hold the most treasure?
Question will be written on the board. Right off the bat, we are going to take a poll. I want
you to raise your hand if you think that a boat made of straws will hold more coins. Okay,
raise your hand if you think that a boat made of tin foil will hold more coins. Write number
of students that believe one or the other on the white board. Who can explain to me why they
think one way or the other? Allow students to share. Although the material is important that
you use, how you design the boat matters as well. You will have to design a boat using straw
or tin foil to hold the most treasure. Now we are going to answer the first question on the
recording sheet I gave to you. As you can see, there is a place for a thing called a
“Hypothesis”. A “hypothesis” is an educated guess. So under “Hypothesis”, you are going
to write, “I think that a boat made of _________ will hold more coins because…”. Write
sentence starter on the board. In your sentence, try to describe how the way you design your
boat may affect how many coins it holds. In a little bit, we are going to see if you were right
about your guess. First, I need to tell you what we will be doing today.
You will be working with two other people, and you will be designing two different boats.
I have some tin foil, straws, plastic wrap, and coins up here. I will give your group of three
(groups written on the board) a certain amount of each thing. Every group will have the same
amount. I will first give you straws and plastic wrap and then every group will get tin foil
later.
Explain instructions/model how students will complete the experiment: Your group
will first design a boat made of straws. You may cut the straws any way you like and put them
together in any way. Remember to design the boat in a way that will hold the most treasure.
When you are done designing your boat, draw the design in the box on your recording sheet
called “Draw Your Design”. After your group draws the design of the boat in the box, you
will all guess how many coins you think will stay afloat on your boat. Your group will write
this number under “Guess how many coins this design can carry without sinking”. Then you
and your group will raise your hands and I will give you an all clear to place your boats in
the water and then stack coins on top of the boat. Your group will place coins on the boat
until it sinks. When it sinks you will count all of the coins that stayed afloat on the boat and
write that number under “Number of coins boat carried”. DO NOT count the coin that sunk
the boat. After you write the number down, raise your hands and I will come to give you the
instructions for the second boat. Does anyone have any questions? Okay, can someone tell
me what I have to do first? Ask students to repeat back the instructions through a series of
questions so that I can gauge whether they understand the instructions or not. Make sure the
three of you in a group work together to come up with the best design. Go ahead and get
designing.
Tell students they have around 5 minutes to design and then instruct them to move on.
Then give another 5 minutes to place coins on their boat. Once students raise their hands
after completing the first boat and after they have counted the coins, I will give them
directions for how to make the second boat. Okay, now I am going to give you tin foil. You
may fold, bend, scrunch up, or whatever you would like to do with this tin foil to keep it from
sinking and to hold the most coins. After you all have decided how you would like to make
the boat, draw what the boat looks like under “Draw Your Design”. Then make a guess
about how many coins you all think your groups’ tin foil boat can hold, like you did for the
straw boat. After you have made a guess, everyone must raise their hands and I will come
give you the all clear to put your tin foil boat in the water and start putting coins on it.
Remember; do not count the coin that sunk the boat when you are counting how many coins
stayed afloat on the tin foil boat. Do you have any questions? Answer any questions and give
the students the materials. Allow students 5 minutes to design their boats, and then instruct
 students to begin stacking coins on their boats. I will answer any questions or repeat
instructions however many times it is necessary.
Now that you are all done making boats and counting coins, you will have one minute
to answer the questions at the bottom of your recording sheet. It says, “My hypothesis was
right/wrong”. You will circle which one you agree with and then finish the sentence
explaining how you know your hypothesis was right or wrong. Then you will answer the
questions, “Which boat held more coins? Why do you think that boat held more?” with at
least two sentences. Give students a minute to write their answers.
Okay, let’s clean up! Throw away your boats and any other trash like straw pieces
and extra tin foil. Put the coins on this towel that’s at the front of the room so that the coins
can dry. Empty the water in the sink. When you and your partners are finished cleaning up,
please sit quietly at your desk.
Once students have finished cleaning up, we will move on to the closure.

VII. Check for understanding.

I will know if the students have learned if they, first, are able to design a boat and
complete all of the necessary tables in the recording sheet. After, I will be able to see if
students were able to understand the information they collected over which boats held
more coins after we graph the results as a class and answer questions based off the graph.
For the students that did not seem to understand the findings, I will reteach to the small
group of students that needed additional help. If most of the class had similar
misconceptions, I will reteach to the whole class and correct the misconceptions.

VIII. Review learning outcomes / Closure

Thank you for working so hard on designing your boats. Let’s take a look to see
how many coins everyone was able to keep afloat. On the white board I wrote down some
numbers. I’m going to give the groups a PostIt note, and once you all get one, send up
one person to put the sticky note above the number that represents how many coins your
group was able to put on the STRAW boat. Allow students to put the sticky notes on the
whiteboard. Alright, what do we notice about the sticky notes on the board? After
students answer, I will guide them through a conversation about what they noticed about
the number of coins on the straw boats and then for the tin foil boats. Then I will ask the
students what seemed to work really well and what did not work as well when they were
designing their boats. Way to go! You all answered our question that we started with: will
a boat made of straws or tin foil hold more treasure? Jake, Izzy, and I are so thankful for
your help! We now know to use the _________ blank boat to keep our treasure safe
before giving it to people that need help.

PLAN FOR ASSESSMENT

I will formatively assess the students over their comprehension of the experiment they
completed on making two objects to solve the same solution of keeping the treasure afloat. First,
I will be able to assess the students through the completion of their recording sheets. I will see
the designs they made and check to see if they understood the process and the experiment they
participated in. Also, I will formatively assess the students by having them graph their results
during the closure and analyzing the data it shows.

REFLECTION AND POST-LESSON ANALYSIS

(CAEP K-6 3.b)
1. How many students achieved the lesson objective(s)? For those who did not, why not?
2. What were my strengths and weaknesses?
3. How should I alter this lesson?
4. How would I pace it differently?
5. Were all students actively participating? If not, why not?
6. What adjustments did I make to reach varied learning styles and ability levels?
7. What materials were considered a distraction?
8. What were the benefits/drawbacks of students working in groups of three?
Name: ______________________

Recording Sheet

Hypothesis: I believe a boat made of _______________ will hold more coins

because _______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________

Guess how
Type of Design Your many coins this Number of
design can coins boat
Boat Boat
carry without carried
sinking

Straws

Tin Foil
My hypothesis was right / wrong. ___________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
______________________

Which boat held more coins? Why do you think that boat
held more?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
____________________________________________