Unit Plan: Hanif and Gethera |
Kindergarten
Spring Term |
Project Idea: Students will identify a problem in their community and work to create a product that will raise community and global awareness while taking steps to solve the problem at the local level.
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Subjects: ELA (reading comprehension and fluency) Writing, Social Studies, Science
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Driving Questions:
How can we inspire our community to build food security?
How can we inform a global audience about ways to end hunger?
ISTE Standards Addressed:
1. Creativity and innovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
1. Creativity and innovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
- Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes
- Create original works as a means of personal or group expression
- Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media
- Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats
- Develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures
- Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media
- Evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks
- Identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation
Culminating Products
Hanif and Gethera Book
Hanif and Gethera Video
Community Garden
Global Garden Network
Food Pantry PSA
Community Showcase
Process:
Traditional lesson plans are based on the assumption that the teacher drives instruction. In my class, however, I am the facilitator, mentor, coordinator, and tech support person that enables my students to realize the goals and vision they create. Lesson planning is organic and authentic.
I begin by building a strong relationship with students and identifying both their needs and passions. I often use a fractured fairy tale format to help students structure their project. This class was interested in Hansel and Gretel and had already made plans to re-tell it in their own way. I planned a walking field trip to our town food pantry early on in this process and the children quickly connected the tale of hungry children to the resource of the food pantry. I built on this insight and drew from my global professional learning network to connect the students to a teaching farm in Kenya. At each phase, I evaluated the interest and relevance of a connection to determine what connection might help move the process to the next step. Given the success of that experience, I worked to connect my students to other school in Kenya. We even went on a virtual safari to learn more about the environment. These elements all helped the students create a story line that met their goals of re-telling Hansel and Gretel in a new way that exposed more positive solutions to food security. When the students struggled with how to write the part of the villainous step mother, we Skyped the the broadway cast of Matilda the Musical and determined that Roald Dahl-esque dark humor could make our villain evil, yet not too scary. When we needed feedback on our writing, we sought feedback from authors who worked with stories of social change.
With the writing done, the children were ready to create their book and movie. We used garage band to create the audio track as children worked on reading fluency. We borrowed green screen equipment so that our movie could incorporate elements from our book along with live action. We addressed reading comprehension as we created illustrations using our scanned drawings and uLead Photo impact and acted out the story in from of a borrowed green screen.
We gave back to the community by local beginning a community garden project that would help supply our local food pantry. We made our garden global by partnering with other school garden projects to create a global garden collaborative. We also drew on our connection with Wondergrove Animation studios to create a public service announcement for our local food pantry.
We displayed all of our work at our annual community showcase called Arts in the Barn. All individuals in the class made meaningful contributions to the project that built on their passions while allowing students to gain skills at an individualized pace. In this learning environment all student know they are valued and working for a real audience and purpose.
Traditional lesson plans are based on the assumption that the teacher drives instruction. In my class, however, I am the facilitator, mentor, coordinator, and tech support person that enables my students to realize the goals and vision they create. Lesson planning is organic and authentic.
I begin by building a strong relationship with students and identifying both their needs and passions. I often use a fractured fairy tale format to help students structure their project. This class was interested in Hansel and Gretel and had already made plans to re-tell it in their own way. I planned a walking field trip to our town food pantry early on in this process and the children quickly connected the tale of hungry children to the resource of the food pantry. I built on this insight and drew from my global professional learning network to connect the students to a teaching farm in Kenya. At each phase, I evaluated the interest and relevance of a connection to determine what connection might help move the process to the next step. Given the success of that experience, I worked to connect my students to other school in Kenya. We even went on a virtual safari to learn more about the environment. These elements all helped the students create a story line that met their goals of re-telling Hansel and Gretel in a new way that exposed more positive solutions to food security. When the students struggled with how to write the part of the villainous step mother, we Skyped the the broadway cast of Matilda the Musical and determined that Roald Dahl-esque dark humor could make our villain evil, yet not too scary. When we needed feedback on our writing, we sought feedback from authors who worked with stories of social change.
With the writing done, the children were ready to create their book and movie. We used garage band to create the audio track as children worked on reading fluency. We borrowed green screen equipment so that our movie could incorporate elements from our book along with live action. We addressed reading comprehension as we created illustrations using our scanned drawings and uLead Photo impact and acted out the story in from of a borrowed green screen.
We gave back to the community by local beginning a community garden project that would help supply our local food pantry. We made our garden global by partnering with other school garden projects to create a global garden collaborative. We also drew on our connection with Wondergrove Animation studios to create a public service announcement for our local food pantry.
We displayed all of our work at our annual community showcase called Arts in the Barn. All individuals in the class made meaningful contributions to the project that built on their passions while allowing students to gain skills at an individualized pace. In this learning environment all student know they are valued and working for a real audience and purpose.