3FN4 – Social Studies – Physical Features of Geography: Bodies of Water

How do FreeNode lessons work?

FreeNodes are instructor-led schooling lessons with a unique approach, granting you the freedom to independently teach using a personalized lesson plan. This autonomy enables you to tailor your lessons to suit students’ individual needs, learning styles, and interests.

To use a FreeNode, read the provided class outline & follow the formatting provided for each class. Make sure to touch on the Theocratic Connection in each class. Follow the outline closely so it is aligned with our main at-home curriculum.

How Do I Use the FreeNode?

Read this lesson plan before class to familiarize yourself with the ideas and concepts you’ll be teaching the students. You may print this page out if you need to use it as a reference point during live classes.

This lesson is a guide, but feel free to expand on the content or decrease/increase what you teach depending on the learning levels of the students in your class or the amount of time you have to cover the material.

Can I show videos in FN classes?

Yes, feel free to include additional material to supplement the class lesson material. Videos, Physical Objects, Games, Activities, etc. are okay to share in live classes.

Videos should have no advertisements or logos and should be viewed by you before showing them to the students to ensure no offensive or questionable content is included.

The video should make up only 1-3 minutes of the live class and should not take the place of instructor-led instruction. Videos should be supplementary only.

How do bookmarks work?

Bookmarks help you keep track of lessons you’re going to teach in future live classes. The bookmarks you see are for all your bookmarked lessons across all grades.

You can bookmark a lesson by visiting the lesson you want to bookmark and clicking the “bookmark” button in the bookmark section.

You can remove a single bookmark by visiting a lesson you’ve bookmarked and clicking the “bookmark” button again to unbookmark it.

You can clear all of your bookmarks by clicking the “clear all bookmarks” button. Be careful, this will erase all of your bookmarks.

Class Lesson Plan

Objectives:

Students will learn about the different types of bodies of water, understand the importance of water in human life, and identify freshwater and saltwater sources.

Materials:

Whiteboard
Visual aids (pictures of rivers, lakes, oceans)
Interactive online resources such as videos and games (optional)

Introduction (5 minutes):

Begin by asking students where they’ve seen water in nature (rivers, lakes, oceans). Introduce the idea that water is a crucial part of Earth’s geography and communities are often built near water.

Theocratic Connections:

Reference Psalm 1:3, which compares a person who loves Jehovah’s guidance to a tree planted by streams of water. (e.g. Just like people who live near water are nourished by its resources, being close to Jehovah’s guidance provides us with spiritual nourishment and strength. This is similar to how communities thrive near water sources.)

Activity 1 – Types of Bodies of Water (10 minutes):

Introduce rivers, lakes, ponds, oceans, and streams. Explain the difference between freshwater and saltwater, and discuss how people use these water sources for drinking, farming, and transportation. Use visual aids to show bodies of water.

Optional: Have students draw and label a simple map showing different bodies of water.

Activity 2 – Communities and Water (10 minutes):

Explain how humans build communities near water for convenience and survival. Discuss ports and how they’re used to transport goods across oceans and rivers.

Optional: Have students research or share examples of towns or cities near water (e.g., New York near the Hudson River).

Conclusion (5 minutes):

Recap the importance of water for human life and communities. Ask students to share how their community uses water.

Assessment:

Evaluate students’ participation and understanding of different bodies of water through class discussion and map activity.