Kathleen C. Rende
Unit Sequence
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1. First the students will review with their families their own traditions and customs by filling out a survey.
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2. Then they will report to the class what their families do traditionally and find common customs among the class.
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3. After they will begin to explore other cultures and compare those customs to their own.
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4. Finally, they will wrap up the unit by participating in a weeklong exploration of how other cultures eat lunch.
Activity Plan: Introduction to Unit: All about my family
Content Objective: The students will discuss with their families how they perform daily routines and family traditions by filling out a survey at home.
Language Objective: The students will report to the class how their families perform
daily routines and family traditions.
Materials: All about my family survey (See Appendix 2)
Chart paper
Markers
Film:
Children of Heaven
Procedure: To introduce this unit, getting to know where the students come from will help contextualize the unit. Send the "Family Finding" survey home to your students' families. When the children return with them collect them and the photograph of their family. This lesson may take a few days, because children that would like to talk about their family should be allowed to. Do this lesson in a small group to allow students to feel more comfortable and secure.
With the chart paper and the family surveys, discuss with the students what their families have reported. Ask the students to elaborate on any of the point and have them use their family photos to tell the group more about their families. Begin to record all statements made by the students (i.e. "______'s family eats dinner in the kitchen at the table. Her dad cooks for everyone.") These statements will be used to review the matrix with the class.
Then briefly view the eating a meal scene in
Children of Heaven
and have the students describe what they see. Ask them to think about what is the same about the family in the film and their family and what is different.
Activity Plan: Finding Families: Introduction to the matrix
Content Objective: The students will activate prior knowledge by generating a list of
common family activities.
Language Objective: The students will use oral vocabulary provided by the teacher to
generate a list of common family activities.
Materials: Chart paper with student responses from previous lesson
Markers
Family Findings Matrix (see Appendix 1)
Procedure: In whole group, read what was recorded about the students' families and ask the students if they are hearing some of the same activities and routines. Begin to underline common phrases. Then show the students the matrix and explain to them that they are all different but they are all special because they have a family that loves and takes care of them. This part of the unit should take no more then 10 minutes considering it is the beginning of the year and it is whole group. It is not developmentally appropriate to make students sit for much longer then that. Explain to the students that they will be seeing other kinds of families doing many of the same things they do like eat, go to school and do homework. Read the matrix to the children.
To conclude the lesson sing the following song and have the students add in activities they like to do with their families.
Song: With My Family (sung to the tune of "Muffin Man")
Tell me what you like to do,
like to do, like to do.
Tell me what you like to do, with your family.
(Child's name) likes to (activity, i.e. cook dinner
cook dinner, cook dinner.
(Child's name) likes to (cook dinner)
With his family!
Activity Plan: Who lives in your house?
Content Objective: The students will demonstrate an understanding of the people who live in their home by reporting to the class from their family survey.
The students will compare their family members to those of the class.
The students will participate in creating and analyzing a graph.
The students will compare their class families to those in a multicultural film from a different part of the world.
Language Objective: The students will report on who lives in their home.
The students will discuss the results of the graph.
The students will discuss their comparisons of families.
Materials: "Who lives in your house?" graphing grid. (See appendix 3)
Markers
Circles to fit in graph grids
Television with a DVD or VCR
Films:
Yi Yi, The Secret of Roan Inish
Mostly Martha The Red Balloon
Vovochka Children of Heaven
Maborosi.
Procedure: With the students, review the matrix and what they had found out about different families. Then ask them to think about who lives in their home. Have the students find a partner and talk about the people that live in their homes. As the students speak to each other, you may want to circulate and stimulate conversation. Ask questions like, "who sleeps in your home" or "who cooks dinner?" questions about members of the family. Then have the students use their fingers to tell you how many people live in their home. Explain to the students that you are going to give them circles to draw their family members faces on and give each student whatever number they are showing with their fingers. As the students draw on the circles back at their seats, ask them whom they are drawing as they draw on each of their circles. The students may draw a mom on one circle, and a grandma on another circle. Give them as many circles as there are people in their home. When they are done, have the students place the circles in the appropriate row on the grid, (all the grandmas go in the grandma row, all the fathers in the father row, etc). When everyone has placed their circles on the graph, discuss the results of the graph, asking questions like, "how many people live with their aunt, uncle, mom, etc?"
Instructional Conversation: In a small group, have the students view the selected scenes from the films. In between the scenes use the matrix column titled "Who lives in your house?" to have the children discuss who they see in the film. Have them talk about who the people are in the film and what their role in the family is. Then have them draw a picture of the members of their families in the writing center. Assist them with labeling their illustration.
Activity Plan: Everybody Celebrate!
Content Objective: The students will demonstrate an understanding of different cultures celebrating occasions by comparing their own family celebrations to the families shown on film.
Language Objective: The students will describe how their family celebrates.
The students will describe how the families in the film celebrate.
Materials: Family surveys
2 hula-hoops
sentence strips
markers
scissors
Films:
Vovochka; The White Balloon; Mostly Martha
Procedure: In small groups read to the students what their families have written about holidays and celebrations. Write key words about the family traditions on the sentence strips, and then cut up (i.e. If the family states that they exchange gifts, draw or write the word "gift.") Then have the students view the scenes from the films where the families are celebrating. Ask the students to describe what they see. Record statements on the sentence strips (i.e. "they have fireworks!" just write the word "fireworks"). Try to get the students to describe the scenes or talk about the traditions of their celebrations. Pausing the film and having the students talk about a scene may generate a lot of vocabulary.
When all statements have been made, take the two hula-hoops and create a Venn diagram. Label one circle, "My Family" and the other side "International Families". Have the students help you place the cards on the appropriate sections of the diagram. Then have the students talk about some of the activities both their families and the other families. The cards that were created and placed on the "Other Families" section should be labeled according to countries and can placed on the appropriate parts of the matrix.
Authors Note: This lesson can be used for any of the activities on the matrix if time permitting. The children can discuss how other families eat together, how they do their homework, etc.
Activity Plan: Multicultural Lunch!
Content Objective: The students will celebrate other cultures by eating their lunch in the traditions of international families.
Language Objective: The students will describe what they have noticed when the families in the films share a meal.
Materials: Finding Families Matrix
Index cards to fit in the cells of the Finding Family Matrix.
Chopsticks
Blankets and pillows
Camera
Films:
Yi Yi The Secret of Roan Inish
Mostly Martha Children of Heaven
Maborosi
Procedure: In each of the five films above there is a scene of a family eating. Each day of the week (Monday through Friday) before lunch, show those scenes to the whole group and ask the students to draw a picture of how those families all eat together. For example, in
Mostly Martha
the girl and her aunt cook together but they eat sitting at a table with forks and knives. In
Yi Yi
the family sits at a table but they use chopsticks to eat. As mentioned earlier, in
Children of Heaven
the family eats on the floor. Then each day of the week, have the students eat lunch in the classroom in the traditional style of the country of the day. Then at the end of the week have the students "write" about their favorite way to eat lunch. Collect responses and bind into a class book titled "Our favorite custom lunch!"