Description
What our All about Europe lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: All about Europe introduces students to the continent of Europe, including its countries, its varied climates and peoples, and more. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to locate the continent of Europe on a map, list some of the countries and characteristics of Europe, and explain some of its history. This lesson is for students in 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th 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 orange 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 this lesson, the supplies you will need are colored pencils, poster paper, internet access, and the handouts. To prepare for this lesson ahead of time, you can pair the students for the activity, gather all of the supplies, and copy the handouts.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One of these optional additions is to assign two countries to each student and have them compare and contrast them and then present their findings to the class. You can also ask students to identify various European languages and some common words in each language. You can find more optional additions and adjustments on the bottom right side of the Classroom Procedure page.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
ALL ABOUT EUROPE LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
The Continent of Europe
This lesson plan includes five content pages. The first section of the lesson teaches students about the continent of Europe as a whole. Students will learn that Europe is the second smallest continent on Earth, following Australia. However, it is the third most populous! Over 742 million people live in the roughly 50 countries that make up Europe. The Mediterranean Sea, the Asia Sea, the Arctic Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean all surround Europe.
Students will then learn about some of the major geographic features of Europe. These include the Ural Mountains in Russia; the longest and second longest rivers in Europe, the Volga and the Danube; and the Alps, which are the highest and longest mountain range that is found entirely in Europe.
Students will discover that though some people consider it to be Europe’s largest island — and the largest in the world! — we actually consider Greenland to be a part of the North American continent. Europe has many islands, some of which are very small and some of which are entire countries, like Iceland.
Next, they’ll learn some broad European history. This includes the Minoan civilization, Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, the creation of democracy, the Industrial Revolution, World War I and World War II, the European Union, and more.
Students will find out that Europe is quite densely populated, which means that more people are living in a smaller amount of space. The lesson also covers the very diverse wildlife, the climate, and the plants that grow in Europe. Students will learn that, unfortunately, due to the large amount of people and limited amount of space in the continent, people have destroyed many animals’ natural habitats. Europe also has multiple different climates, depending on the region, which in turn affects which plants can grow where.
The Countries of Europe
Next, students will learn about the different countries that make up Europe. There are more than 50 countries and many, many languages spoken in Europe. It’s very diverse and every country is different! In this lesson, students will learn more about six countries: The United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Vatican City, and Germany.
One interesting fact that they will learn is that the United Kingdom, actually includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Sweden, on the other hand, actually has the highest life expectancy in all of Europe, while Italy is home to a huge active volcano named Vesuvius. And the smallest country in the entire world — Vatican City — is located in Europe, inside the Italian city of Rome.
Attractions of Europe
Finally, students will learn about some famous and interesting European attractions. Students will learn that they built the Eiffel Tower, located in France, in 1889 and that it receives over 7 million visitors every year! The Acropolis, in Athens, Greece, houses the remains of multiple ancient buildings and people also call it the “City in the Air.” Rome, Italy’s Colosseum, used to seat 5,000 people! They built it in 70 A.D. Finally, the Grand Canal in Venice is one of the city’s main waterways and over 170 buildings line that waterway.
Students will also learn about the city of Istanbul, in Turkey, which is both the most populous city in Europe and is located on both Asia and Europe! Students will love learning about all of these places and attractions.
Key Terms
Here is a list of the vocabulary words students will learn in this lesson plan:
- European Union: a political union hoping to establish common economic, foreign, security, and justice policies
- Euro: the official currency of 19 European countries
- Minoan: the first civilization to establish trade during the Bronze Age
ALL ABOUT EUROPE LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The All about Europe lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
POSTER ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
Students will work with a partner to complete the activity worksheet for this lesson. They will create a poster with drawings or other representations of 10 different numbers related to Europe, such as how many people live in a specific country or how many miles across the whole continent is. They will find these numbers in the content pages of the lesson plan or can do additional research on the internet to find other numbers. One they’ve finished, they will share their poster with the class.
Students can also either work alone or in a larger group for this activity, depending on your preference. They can also vote for their favorite or most eye-catching poster once everyone has presented to the class.
WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet has students complete two similar exercises. The first exercise requires students to read a statement and name a country related to that statement. For example, the’ll pair the statement “I am the second largest country in Europe based on land size,” with “Ukraine.” Next, they will have do the same but with geographical features. They’ll pair statements like “I am the most important commercial waterway in Europe,” with “Danube River.”
ALL ABOUT EUROPE HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
For the homework assignment, students will first answer questions about Europe and its countries. Next, they will match specific information with the correct country.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet and the homework assignment. No answer key is provided for the activity worksheet because every student’s poster will be different. However, grading criteria for the posters are provided on the activity page. 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.
