Saint Marys College of California

P.O. Box 4350, Moraga, CA 94575-4350

tel. 925.631.4700 fax 925.376.8379
www.stmarys-ca.edu/soe

LESSON PLAN #_3___

Learning Segment Focus or Big Idea: How much water do you use?
Grade: 4

Content Area: Science

Time Allotted: 45 minutes

Classroom organization: small group, whole class

Resources and materials: paper, markers, pencils, small notebooks.

Content Standard(s): NGSS - ESS3.A: Natural Resources: Energy and fuels that humans use are derived from natural
sources, and their use affects the environment in multiple ways. Some resources are renewable over time, and others are
not.
Specific Academic Learning Objectives:
What do you want students to learn in this lesson? Students will learn: Students will learn what they use water for
and how much water they use in a day.
What should students be able to do after the lesson? Students will be able to: Students will have a new awareness
of when they use water and how much water they use in their daily life.
Prerequisites:
What skills, knowledge and prior experience do students need for this lesson? This is the third lesson in the unit
plan. My hope is that all lessons build off of each other. At this point in the unit plan, students will be familiar
with the fact that there is a drought in California and they understand how much freshwater we have access to in
the world. Students will also need to familiar with how much water they use throughout the day and what they use
water for.
How will you determine whether students have these? I will review the previous lessons when I connect to
students prior knowledge at the start of the lesson. Students will begin the lesson by working and groups and will
be able to bounce ideas off of their peers when determining how much water they use.
How will you connect to students' interests, backgrounds, strengths and needs, including their
cultural, ethnic, and socio-economic differences? I will connect to students prior experience at the start of the
lesson. Since this is the 3rd lesson in a unit plan, all students have a similar prior experience. I will also have
students work in groups so they can rely on their peers for information instead of thinking independently.
Key ELD Standard(s):
Academic language demands:
What academic language is used in the lesson? (Vocabulary, language structure and conventions,
genres, symbols, etc.)
What are the language demands of the task? Please address receptive (listening, reading) and productive
(speaking, writing) skills.Students need to be able to work appropriately in a small group. They need to
listen to each other and produce ideas that bounce off their peers ideas. They need to read questions that
will be provided for them on the board. They will need to be able to refer back to the questions if they
need to. Students will need to listen to directions. They will also be expected to write down ideas on
paper and read the prompts in the water journals.

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

How will you make the academic language accessible to all students? I will repeat information, use sentence
stems and use charts for students to refer back to.
How will address the specific needs of your English learners? I will repeat information, make use of visual aids,
provide sentence stems, and have students work in small groups.
How will you address the specific needs of your students with special needs? I will repeat information, make use
of visual aids, provide sentence stems, and have students work in small groups.
Assessment:
What evidence of student learning will you collect? I will collect group posters and students water journals.
How will you use this evidence? I will use this evidence to see if students could answer the question that was
posed to them successfully. I will see if students understand how much water they use in a day and what they use
water for. I will check to see what students left off of their lists and what they decided to include.
What criteria will you use to interpret the evidence? I will refer back to the standards and my own unit plan.
How will the evidence affect your next steps in teaching? I will use this evidence to see if students are read to
move forward and onto the next lesson or if students need to spend more time learning what we use water for.
Instructional Sequence:
Time
8 min

20
min

Set or introduction:
How will you begin the lesson? How will you engage and motivate learners, connect to prior experience,
activate prior knowledge and/or share learning outcomes?
1. I will first connect to students prior experience.
2. I will ask students to summarize what we have learned so far in regards to our water use. I will let 5 students
share about the previous 2 lessons and what they have learned.
3. Once students have recapped about the previous days lessons, I will ask the whole class what they use water
for. I will pose the question, when do we use water? I will let 2 students share out ideas for what they use
water so students have 2 examples to refer back to.
4. I will write these ideas down on the front whiteboard under the question. After we have quickly
brainstormed 2 ideas as a class, I will split students into 5 groups of 5.
5. In their groups, students will continue to brainstorm all the times they use water.
6. In their small group they will be expected to produce a poster that records all the times they use water.
Developing Content/Body of Lesson: What instructional strategies and learning tasks will you use in the main
part of the lesson?
1. In small groups, students will answer the question, When do we use water?.
2. As students brainstorm ideas with each other about when they use water I will be walking around the room
listening and checking in on groups.
Checks for Understanding / On-going informal assessment:
How will you know what students are understanding? (questioning and observing throughout the lesson)
1. I will ask students when they are discussing with their groups, when do you use water?, when else do
you use water?.
2. If a group is stuck, I can offer ideas and times when I use water. Students and I will visualize a day together.
I will remind students that I use water when I flush the toilet, brush my teeth, drink water, take a shower (the
list continues). I will push student thinking as I wonder through the room and ask students Can you think
about any other times you use water?.

10
min

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)?
1. We will come back together and students will present their group posters.
2. Then to wrap up the lesson, I will ask students, What did you learn today? and What surprised you?.
Students will have a discussion about what they learned and what surprised them when discussing all the
times they use water.

7 min

Extending the Lesson/Homework (optional): To extend the lesson, I will pass out small journals. These
journals will provide an opportunity for students to record when they use water throughout the day. I will ask
students to bring these water journals home and record when they use water. Instead of recording how many
gallons they use, I will ask students to time their water use. If they take a shower, they should record how long
that shower took.

20
min
(the
follow
ing
morni
ng)

Reflection, Next Steps:

1. The next morning for a warm up, I will have students share with their own table group about how much
water they used once they left school the day before.
2. Together, we will create a bar graph about how much water (how many minutes a day) we each use water.
3. As a teacher I will be included in the drought, I want my students to know that we are learning together and
finding solutions together.