Description
What our Galaxies lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Galaxies explores these amazing parts of the universe. Students will learn what exactly a galaxy is and be able to recognize, identify, and compare the three main types. They will also discover more details specifically about our galaxy, the Milky Way. This lesson is for students in 4th grade and 5th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. For the activity portion, you will need to get assorted colors of construction paper, glitter, scissors, string, glue, tape, and cardboard squares.
Teacher Notes
The paragraph on this page gives you a little more information on the lesson overall and describes what you may want to focus your teaching on. It suggests you teach this lesson in conjunction with others about outer space and the universe. The blank lines are available for you to write out any thoughts or ideas you have as you prepare.
GALAXIES LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Galaxies lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. Each one will help students solidify their grasp of the material they learned throughout the lesson. You can refer to the classroom procedure guidelines to know when to hand out each worksheet.
GALAXY MOBILES ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity, students will get to create mobiles of different galaxies. They will use the materials and supplies you provide to create and assemble their mobiles. First, they will trace or draw different galaxy shapes onto the construction paper, which they will then cut out. Using a marker, they will label the shape and the name of the galaxy. They can use the other supplies to embellish their mobiles.
Once they assemble their mobiles, students will share them with the rest of the class and explain the different shapes and names. You can display their galaxies in the classroom or other location in the school.
MATCHING TIME PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet divides into two separate matching sections. For the first section, students will match descriptions to the correct term they represent. There are 12 descriptions and 12 possible options in the word bank. The second section requires students to match characteristics with the correct type of galaxy. There are eight total descriptions in this section.
GALAXIES HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
For the homework assignment, students will first answer a series of 10 questions that relate to the facts they learned during the lesson. Next, they will name the three shapes or types of galaxies. At the bottom of the page, they will get to create a new galaxy type and name. There is room for them to sketch a picture of it, name it, and name a specific galaxy.
Worksheet Answer Keys
The lesson plan document includes answer keys for the practice and homework worksheets. All the correct answers are in red to make it easy to compare them with students’ responses. Only the last prompt of the homework assignment should have any variation. All other responses should mirror those of the answer keys. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
