Lia Atherton
EDUC 2285 Kindergarten Social Studies Unit Unit Concept: Community
Step 2
What?
Why?
How?
Explore the rewards and responsibilities
of community membership.
To understand that a com-
munity takes care of the people who belong to it.
In whole group, students will use a teacher-facilitated affinity grouping process to develop class rules. For each rule, students will provide rationale grounded in personal experience. Students will participate in shared reading of David Goes to School by David Shannon, "turn and talk" about what it would be like to have David as a classmate, then return to whole group to develop criteria for good citizenship in the classroom community.
Students will bring paper towel and toilet paper tubes from home and contribute them to the shared resource box from which they will design and build a class tree in the performance alcove, applying their knowledge of good citizenship as they work in small groups of 4-5. Once the tree is assembled, whenever students observe classmates displaying good citizenship, they can choose to affirm them by recording their names and, with adult support as necessary, a description of the act on paper leaves. After sharing the affirmation in a whole group setting (or other setting, as culturally appropriate), the student affixes the leaf to the class tree.
Students will hear several folktales, including but not limited to “The Ginger Bread Man,” “The Little Red Hen,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” “The Smell of Soup and the Sound of Money.” Students will form groups of 4-5 based on their choice of story from among the folktales they have heard. In small group, students will first identify the main problem in their chosen story. Next, with adult facilitation as necessary, they will compare the behavior of each character to the class’s previously generated list of traits of good citizens and discuss what different choices the characters might make as members of a community within the story. With an adult taking dictation, the students will then re-write the folktale, incorporating the community-minded choices into the new version. Finally, each group of students will rehearse its adaptation and perform it for classmates and parents from beneath the class tree.
Hi Lia, This has the look of a first-unit-of-the-school-year sort of unit, complete with laying the foundation for future group work and collaboration, the need to be a strong class community built upon understandings of relationships outside of the school confines, and the big idea that community is built through a process of dialogue and interaction, which I think many adults need to learn. This adheres, of course, to the "what", "why" and "how" stipulation, is content-based and hinges on an understanding of the big idea of community. It looks like the final assessment of "understanding" is the adaptation and performance beneath the class tree. Just for your purposes, as we begin the next phase of planning, you will want to look at that as the performance task/assessment, and the prior pieces about activities which lead up to that (ie, assembling the tree) will be "steps" leading up to that unit assessment. Let me know if you have any questions. Best, Josh
Lia Atherton
EDUC 2285 Kindergarten Social Studies Unit--Revision 1 Unit Concept: Community
Step 2
What?
Why?
How?
Explore the rewards and responsibilities
of community membership.
To understand that a com-
munity takes care of the people who belong to it.
Students will form groups of 4-5 based on their choice of story from among the folktales they have heard. After they hear their story again, students will first identify the main problem in it. Next, with adult facilitation as necessary, they will compare the behavior of each character to the class’s previously generated list of traits of good citizens and discuss what different choices the characters might make as members of a community within the story. With an adult taking dictation, the students will then re-write the folktale, incorporating the community-minded choices into the new version. Finally, each group of students will rehearse its adaptation and perform it for classmates and parents from beneath the class community tree.
EDUC 2285
Kindergarten Social Studies Unit
Unit Concept: Community
Step 2
of community membership.
munity takes care of the people who belong to it.
Students will bring paper towel and toilet paper tubes from home and contribute them to the shared resource box from which they will design and build a class tree in the performance alcove, applying their knowledge of good citizenship as they work in small groups of 4-5. Once the tree is assembled, whenever students observe classmates displaying good citizenship, they can choose to affirm them by recording their names and, with adult support as necessary, a description of the act on paper leaves. After sharing the affirmation in a whole group setting (or other setting, as culturally appropriate), the student affixes the leaf to the class tree.
Students will hear several folktales, including but not limited to “The Ginger Bread Man,” “The Little Red Hen,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” “The Smell of Soup and the Sound of Money.” Students will form groups of 4-5 based on their choice of story from among the folktales they have heard. In small group, students will first identify the main problem in their chosen story. Next, with adult facilitation as necessary, they will compare the behavior of each character to the class’s previously generated list of traits of good citizens and discuss what different choices the characters might make as members of a community within the story. With an adult taking dictation, the students will then re-write the folktale, incorporating the community-minded choices into the new version. Finally, each group of students will rehearse its adaptation and perform it for classmates and parents from beneath the class tree.
Lia Atherton
EDUC 2285
Kindergarten Social Studies Unit--Revision 1
Unit Concept: Community
Step 2
of community membership.
munity takes care of the people who belong to it.