Patriotic Symbols of the United States

This 13-page Promethean Flipchart is a great social living lesson for teaching the history of U.S. patriotic symbols. On the first page, it opens with four well-known symbols of the United States, with a link to a website that allows you to play several different patriotic songs (if your media player allows) - I chose to open with one that most of the students have heard before (e.g. "Yankee Doodle") as part of a motivating introduction, but you have several songs to choose from through this website. Next, the flipchart displays the daily objectives with a higher order thinking prompt. Next is a K-W-L Chart (what I know, what I want to know, and what I learned) - for those of you unfamiliar with this graphic organizer, the students will complete the K and W portion at this point, then following the lesson, the teacher will revisit it so students can fill in the L portion and reflect on if they found out what they wanted to learn, and if what they already knew before the lesson was accurate after the lesson. The next several pages gives pictures with great information and facts on the following symbols: Liberty Bell, United States flag, Bald Eagle, and the Statue of Liberty. At this point, the teacher would revisit the KWL Chart and fill in the L, to see what they've learned! Then, there is a page with the Star Spangled Banner lyrics with the link to the website so the teacher can play the music along with the reading/singing the lyrics. The teacher may open a discussion about what the lyrics in this song mean. The next page allows for review and closure of the lesson. Last, invites students to participate in a mural art project! They are to pick their favorite U.S. symbol (examples, pictures and names of symbols are provided for students on this page) and draw a picture on a piece of paper, then when everyone is finished, they can be collected to make a patriotic mural of U.S. symbols. This lesson was really a lot of fun - my students enjoyed it very much!