The five themes of me

Students will demonstrate their understanding of the five themes of geography through literature-based integrated activities to spotlight how they are represented in each. They will also work on language/writing skills and computer competencies while enjoying a little art along the way!

A lesson plan for grade 4 English Language Arts and Social Studies

By Catherine Hazelton

Learn more

• The Five Themes of Geography From National Geographic, this website provides a brief overview of each of the five themes of geography and activities for each theme. This is a great review for teachers!

Related pages

• The five themes of geography: In this lesson for grade six, students will explore different career paths based on the five themes of geography.
• Landform adventure: This lesson will enable students to learn the types of landforms and bodies of water. Then they will use geographic terms to describe landforms and bodies of water in Mexico. Activities in this lesson can be taught during a period of 2-3 days.
• Along the Trail of Tears: A part of history is often forgotten when teaching younger students. This is the relocation of the Cherokee Indians when the white settlers wanted their property. The US Government moved whole groups of Indians under harsh conditions. This trip became known as the Trail of Tears. Using this as a background students will explore and experiment with persuasive writing as they try to express the position of Cherokee leaders.

Related topics

• Learn more about geography, human/environment interaction, language arts, location, movement, place, read-alouds, region, and social studies.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• understand each of the Five Themes of Geography.
• Read and listen to literature as a springboard for instructional activities.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

6 Hours

Materials/resources

• Social Studies Text
• Drawing paper (12″ x 9″)
• Copy paper
• Colored pencils and/or crayons
• Pencils
• Scissors
• Glue
• Books:
• Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson (movement)
• The Armadillo from Amarillo by Lynne Cherry (location)
• My Place by Nadia Wheatley (place)
• Mrs. Katz and Tush by Patricia Polacco (region)
• Brother Eagle, Sister Sky by Susan Jeffers (human-environment interaction)
• Postcards
• Construction Paper
• Flower planting supplies, bulbs or seeds

Technology resources

• Computer (lab or station)
• Microsoft Works (or similar word processing program)
• Internet access is needed for relevant sites, but not required for lessons

Pre-activities

Have a discussion of the Five Themes of Geography with the whole class. Define and identify examples of representations of each theme. Background knowledge of writing process and word processing would be helpful.

Activities

1. Read a book aloud to reinforce each theme (one per day). Gear discussion towards personal relevance to the students.
2. Distribute the drawing paper to the students, have them draw 3 lines to make 6 even boxes, write “The Five Themes of Me” in one box, and draw a picture of themselves in the box for the theme of the day (ie. Location - students will draw a picture of themselves at home). Make sure they leave space for their sentences so they can cut and paste in the squares.
3. Have students take out a sheet of notebook paper and write a few sentences to describe their location in absolute and relative terms (I live in Westwood Estates. My address is 3504 Location Street. I am in the second house on the left and two blocks from the Pantry.)

   NOTE: Have them keep up with the sheet of paper, as they will need it for all lessons (notebook/folder). You can meet with students to proofread/have them proofread with student partners (use computer editing symbols).

4. When all days and pictures have been completed, students will need to type sentences on the computer, focus on corrections using editing symbols, save, and print (explore different fonts and sizes).
5. Glue sentences to the posters in the spaces provided.
6. Project presentation day - have each student share and explain each theme (or a few) and his/her drawings for each.

Enrichment/Follow-up activities

• Location: students write and send postcards to another 4th-grade class in another region of the state.
• Movement: students create a class quilt using construction paper, each individual square should represent something unique to the student.
• Human/Environment Interaction: students can plant flowers in a designated spot on the school grounds; execute a clean-up school grounds day in conjunction with EarthDay, the Keep America Beautiful Project, and/or ‘The Big Help’ program via Nickelodeon; make various pieces of artwork using recyclable materials.
• Regions: students make a relief map of the state using common household food items (flour-mountains, dried peas-piedmont, sand-coast, etc.) to illustrate the major regions of NC.
• Place: students will create a travel brochure for their home (similar to specific brochures for state historic sites) that highlight certain aspects of their daily lives.

Assessment

Develop a rubric for scoring the final project product with points given to the students for completion of each part - points to be awarded on completion of each required element of the assignment.

Create and give a teacher-made quiz on the five themes of geography (matching, fill-in-the-blank, oral.….use your imagination!)

Supplemental information

Rubric: wps | rtf

Poster Mat: wps | rtf

Quiz: develop one based on your students and your needs

Comments

My students really enjoyed this lesson. I chose to do this mini-unit on the five themes at the start of the school year. The lesson will run smoothly as a 45-minute lesson, but you may want to give yourself the extra 15 minutes for clean-up of materials. Allow one day per theme and one day for presentations, with one 30-minute period for computer lab work (typing, saving, printing sentence/descriptions). If you don’t have a lab, make a schedule and allow students to go to the computer throughout the day.