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K - Act. 24: Vacation Matrix

Main Core Tie

Social Studies - Kindergarten
Standard 3 Objective 1

Authors

Utah LessonPlans

Summary

After illustrating the place where they spent their summer vacation, students will place their picture on a teacher created matrix.


Materials

Attachments

One per class:

  • 1 large piece of butcher paper for the matrix background. Draw a 4x4 table on the butcher paper.
  • 1 set of near/far and water/land labels
  • wall map

One per student:

  • 4x4 sheet of white art paper
  • pencil
  • crayons
  • tape or glue stick
Additional Resources

How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague
Where Are You Going? by Kimberlee Graves and Rozanne Lanczak Williams
Maps by Joellyn Thrall Cicciarelli


Background for Teachers

A matrix is a tool for organizing information. Students will use prior knowledge of where they spent their summer vacation and transfer that knowledge to the matrix. Students will identify if their summer vacation locale was near/far from their home and if it was near land or water.

Teacher preparation includes making the matrix and the headings prior to the lesson presentation.


Intended Learning Outcomes

Intended Learning Outcomes
1. Demonstrate a positive learning attitude.
5. Understand and use basic concepts and skills.
6. Communicate clearly in oral, artistic, written and nonverbal form.

Process Skills
Observation, description, symbolization


Instructional Procedures

Invitation to Learn
Ask the students: “Where did you go on your summer vacation?” Allow the class to discuss the various places that they visited.

Instructional Procedures

  1. As a class, read aloud The Best Vacation Ever by Stuart J. Murphy.
  2. On a wall map locate various vacation spots. When locating the various vacation spots, use mapping vocabulary (near, far, land, water) to describe where the students took their vacation.
  3. Give each student a piece of 4x4 white art paper and have him or her illustrate the place where they spent their summer vacation. Have each student dictate/write a statement describing his or her vacation.
  4. Have each student report whether their vacation location was near their home and had water, near their home and on land, far from their home and near water, or far from their home and on land. The student will then place their illustration in the appropriate quadrant of the matrix. Count or tally and record how many vacations were taken to each location.


Extensions

Family Connections
Invite students to bring an item or picture to school that shows where they went on their vacation. Students may tell the class about their vacation. Describe the locations with the mapping vocabulary of near/far and land/water.


Assessment Plan

Ask the students, “What can you tell me about our matrix?” Students should be able to talk, using basic graphing terms, about their summer vacation spot. They may include information about the number of choices in each quadrant and how their vacation spot is the same/different from the class choices. Students should use the vocabulary near/far and land/water in their description.


Created: 08/07/2003
Updated: 02/05/2018
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