Mind Mapping Lesson Plan

January 1, 2019

Author: Trish Saccomano
Year: 2018
Artform: Visual Art
Grade: K-6
Duration: 1 or 2 sessions
Overview: Mind Mapping is a visual form of note taking that offers an overview of a topic and its complex information, allowing students to comprehend, create new ideas and build connections. Through the use of drawings, color, images and words, Mind Mapping encourages students to begin with a central idea and expand outward.

FINE ART STANDARDS
INTEGRATED STANDARDS
OBJECTIVES

VISUAL ART STRAND: CREATE (1.V.CR.) Students will generate artistic work by conceptualizing, organizing, and completing their artistic ideas. They will refine original work through persistence, reflection, and evaluation

K - 6 Literature Standard 2:
Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.

Using drawing and other Mind Mapping techniques, students will organize information that includes a central idea surrounded by connected branches of associated topics.

TEACHING AND TIMELINE

INTRODUCTION

Read various pieces of fiction and non-fiction selections to students that follow a certain progression or are organized around a “theme.” An example for younger students might be, If You Give A Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffee Numeroff. Point out to students the simple interconnectedness, circular feedback, unintended consequences, time horizons, and solutions that create new problems.

DEMONSTRATION

After the book is read once, have students retell the events of the story as they happened while you draw a large class map of the events.

WORK PERIOD

This demonstration can be completed in a one hour session. Then assign students different pieces of literature, topics, themes, life cycles, historical events, etc. and have students construct their own Mind Maps.

CLOSURE/SUMMARY

Students discuss and compare the details of their maps. Students Mind Maps could also be used as anchor charts in the classroom.

INTEGRATION INFORMATION
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
DIFFERENTIATION
VOCABULARY
OTHER INFORMATION
ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES
HISTORICAL ELEMENT

Mind Maps:

Help students brainstorm and explore any idea, concept or problem.
Facilitate better understanding of relationships and connections between ideas and concepts.
Make it easy to communicate new ideas and thought processes.
Allow students to easily recall information.
Help students take notes and plan tasks.
Make it easy to organize ideas and concepts.

What key details of the topic will you be able to capture in your Mind Map?

Differentiation happens automatically according to each child’s understanding of the assignment. Students who have difficulty with writing or reading may use only drawings to show understanding.

connections
central idea
expanding outward
conceptualizing
refining
organizing
overview

Mind Maps can be used for a wide variety of subjects and projects. All students will feel successful with these types of activities, and as stated above, there are many possible assessment benefits that can be gained from this type of integrated project.

Finished Mind Maps on any subject would be an authentic assessment of student’s ability to organize information and build connections.
Mind Maps would be an excellent artifact for student portfolios.

A Mind Map is a diagram used to visually organize information. A Mind Map is hierarchical and shows relationships among pieces of the whole. A similar concept in the 1970’s was “idea sun bursting.”