This lesson is adapted from the ttaconline.org website given to us from the Dan Mulligan presentation using the Enhanced Scope & Sequence PLUS lesson plans given there. Wow, was it ever a cool website with lots of great ideas to pull a lesson plan together with. I also used some of the engineering concepts that were modeled for us in the Tamyra Rosen presentation.

Grade/SOL: K.9 The student will recognize the American flag of the United States. ~ The student will recognize the American flag and the Pledge of Allegiance and know that the president is the leader of the United States. K.1 The student will recognize that history describes events and people of other times and places by b) identifying the people and events honored by the holiday, Independence Day

Objective: TSW be able to create an American flag based on its attributes (red and white stripes, white stars on a rectangular blue background) with paint and technology.

Ask students if they can find the American flag hanging in our room. Bring flag down off the wall and have students say what they observe about the flag. Read aloud book Stars and Stripes: the Story of the American Flag by Sarah L. Thomson. Talk about what they observe now that they have heard the book. Encourage discussion around the importance of it as an American symbol and touch on the fact that we say the pledge of Allegiance to the flag every morning and the correlation with the Fourth of July as a holiday. Show students their blue construction paper that is pre-marked with the upper L corner for the stars and lines for the stripes. Discuss the math concept they have already been taught on patterning ABAB style and show with unifix cubes how the red/white pattern will look. Direct students to the piles of art supplies they can use to create their flag. Any object can be used to fill in the stripes of the flag by gluing them down and painting over them in red and white. Each set of stripes must be done separately so they don’t get confused with the lines and colors. Students will choose from beans, noodles, buttons, ribbon, yarn, feathers, etc. (anything with a paintable surface) what they want to glue into each section of stripes and once the ‘red’ stripes are glued down they may paint over them in red paint. Once those are dried they will do the same with white. The remaining section of stars on a blue surface will be filled in with individual objects that can represent stars. (for differentiation, students that can count to fifty could try to mimic the pattern of the stars with small enough objects to acquire 50 pieces) These will also be painted white on their surface leaving a blue background. This activity will take more than one day to complete and could be used as an art center or choice time activity. Students will use their flags to hang around our real flag for when we say the pledge every morning making it a more meaningful experience.