Michelle Loomis

EDU 378 – Graphic Organizer

Due: 10/27/08

Chapter 8 – History

§ Concept 1 – Time

o What Needs To Be Taught:

§ Purpose of Time – To provide sequence or order.

§ Children often are confused on the topic of time. Learning the order and the sequence of a school day can often be difficult for young children to grasp. This is because they do not understand what a clock is and the purpose of having a clock.

o Creative Ways To Teach:

§ Write out the schedule of the school day on the board. Make it colorful so that each subject looks different. This will be good because it will show a difference from one subject to another. Then give the students cut outs of each time block of the day. With those, have them match up theirs with the time blocks on the board. This will show sequence.

§ Give the children each a clock to use. Practice different times of the day. Show that 10pm it will be dark and 4 pm it will be light. Also, go through the schedule of the day and the time each subject starts.

§ Use a stopwatch, cooking timer, alarm clock or an hour glass. All of those manipulatives show time, and the purpose of it. They would all be very helpful when introducing children to time.

o Assessment:

§ Students will be assessed informally. This will be done through observing how well they complete tasks. If more time needs to be spent on a topic, another tool will be brought in to help. Some examples of the manipulatives are listed above.

§ Concept 2 – Change

o What Needs To Be Taught:

§ Children need to understand that change is inevitable. They need to be able to adapt to changes and accept them as they occur. Keeping children away from fearing change is the number one goal.

§ Examples of Change:

o School – The change from living at home, to going to day-care, to pre-school, to kindergarten, to first grade can be extremely difficult for students to understand. Also changes in the atmosphere of the classroom can be confusing and hard for students to adapt to.

o Neighborhood – When the atmosphere around a child’s house changes, children can often become scared and timid. This can be because of new neighbors, new houses, the tearing down of buildings, etc… All of those changes can affect a child.

o Nature – The environment is constantly changing. From the temperature changes, to leaves falling off trees, to all the talk about global climate change, children are often confused.

o Children – During childhood many changes occur to each individual. They grow, their age increases, they lose teeth, learn new traits and develop new skills. All of these aspects and many more are often difficult for students to understand.

o Creative Ways To Teach:

§ School – If children know what to expect from a change they are more likely to accept that change. Therefore, it may be good to have students visit a new school, or classroom, before they start the school year. Or it might be useful to have the students help move around a classroom so they know what to expect.

§ Neighborhood – Take walks around the community the school is located in. Point out fun, safe spots, such as parks, playgrounds, or basketball courts. Show pictures of how the town used to look. Explain that there may be new things developing and new people coming in. Also explain that every town has changes.

§ Nature – Take the students to a nature center in the fall and show them the changes that are occurring. Bring pictures of what the trees look like in the spring, and show them the difference. (This can only work for areas where the seasons are prominent.) Also, introduce global climate change to them. They are not too young to understand problems outside of their community. Show how places use to look at that particular time of year and how they look today. One good example would be Niagara Falls. The Falls use to freeze completely where people could walk on them. Now they barely freeze.

§ Children – Make a height chart for each student. Every few months measure them so the children can see the changes. Ask the students to bring in their baby pictures and take a current picture of the student. Place both of the pictures next to one another and have the students write a paragraph, or explain out loud, what has changed about them.

o Assessment:

§ Children will be assessed by asking them to identify other examples of change. They will be asked to explain that change and how it affected them.

§ Concept 3 – Continuity

o What Needs To Be Taught:

§ Children need to know that not all things change, some things will continue on year after year, decade after decade.

§ The concept of family history and how that child is a result of many people before them is very important for children to grasp. This is often difficult because they can no visually see their history.

o Creative Ways To Teach:

§ Develop a worksheet for students to take home and work on with their families. The sheet should contain information about who lives in their house, where those people were born, family traditions, etc…

§ Have the children develop a family tree. This does not have to be an in depth one, but it should include the ancestors who came to America and every generation after that. By doing this children will be able to see that the people before them have impacted who the child is today.

o Assessment:

§ Assess the detail into which students filled out their family history worksheet. Take into consideration how much that student had to write about, and their effort that went along with that.

§ Assess how well the students completed their family tree. Take into consideration that not all students will be able to complete a family tree and offer them an opportunity to make one up. The primary grade will rely on the student’s interest and understanding of family history.

§ Concept 4 – Holidays

o What Needs To Be Taught:

§ There are many holidays throughout the year. However, not everyone celebrates every holiday. Many holidays only certain religions celebrate, for example Christmas, and Passover.

§ Show that holidays are the result of history. Explain the significance of several holidays:

o Martin Luther King Jr. Day

o Columbus Day

o Independence Day

o Easter

o Hanukah

o Kwanza

o Valentine’s Day

o Halloween

o Thanksgiving

o Creative Ways To Teach:

§ Try and stay away from changing up the routine of a day for a holiday. Use that holiday to still teach math, English, science, etc… This can be done by having math word problems with information about a particular holiday in it. For example, Valentine’s Day. “George made up 14 valentines to give to his classmates. He wanted to give every classmate one valentine. George had 19 classmates. Does George need to make any more valentines?” This could also be done by reading a story about the history behind Thanksgiving.

§ Have parents and the community help to develop the teaching of holidays. This will ensure that a variety of holidays will be taught, unless the diversity of the community is very low, and will help keep the parents informed of what their students are learning about. Another idea would be to have a parent or a community member come in during the history time slot of the day, and tell a story to the class about an aspect of that holiday.

o Assessment:

§ Formal assessment for holidays will occur depending on how much the holiday was emphasized. If the students spent a week learning about Thanksgiving in social studies then a formal assessment will be given. If a holiday is not stressed and informal assessment will occur by having students write reflections, observing how the students interact with the activities for that holiday, and by looking at their interest and understanding in the purpose of that holiday.

Chapter 9 – Geography

§ Concept 1 –Environment

o What Needs To Be Taught:

§ The environment is a complex subject. However young students should understand that land and water make up the earth, that we need to care for our earth, that there is such a thing as outer space, and they need to understand climate.

o Creative Ways To Teach:

§ To show land and water have the students play with both. Set up a section in the classroom for the students to play with water sand and dirt. Then take the students outside and put those three materials in context. This will show the students what makes up the earth.

§ Most children have heard from their parents of caregivers that they should not litter. However, children probably do not know why. Therefore, explain that garbage does not just go away. An idea would be to put some garbage, such as a crumpled piece of paper, or a candy wrapper, in their water and sand area. Leave it there and show that stuff like that does not just go away. Also put in a plastic can wrapper and show the affects of that in the environment.

§ To show outer space have the class develop a model of the planets. Emphasize that we live on earth and its relative location to every other planet.

§ There are many aspects to climate. However, young children need to know the basics. One basic is the purpose of the sun. Take the children outside and have them stand in the sun. Ask them how it feels. Then take them under a tree. Ask them the difference. Then explain that the purpose of the sun is to heat up earth. Without it we would all freeze.

o Assessment:

§ The students will be assessed as to how well they interact with the different activities. Explain to the students that questions are good, and that they should ask about anything they are confused on. The teacher should monitor how well the students point out different things as they go through the different parts of the environment.

§ Concept 2 – Direction and Location

o What Needs To Be Taught:

§ The children need to understand movement, how long it will take to get to one place from another place, and map skills.

· Movement is the action of going from one place to another. Students need to understand different ways of moving (up and down, right to left.) Also emphasize different manipulatives to move things from one place to another, cars, trucks, planes, bulldozers, etc.

· Distance is an aspect children use in everyday life, but may not realize it. Students use distance to know how far to throw a ball to one another, the boundaries of a game, how far they have to walk to school or to the bus, etc… Therefore, it is an important concept for them to understand.

· Locating places on a map is a very difficult concept. Maps usually have keys, different colors, indicators and many other confusing aspects that children often do not understand. Therefore it is important to introduce students to parts of a map that will help them find what they are looking for.

o Creative Ways To Teach:

§ A way to teach movement would be to have the students do anything but walk to get to the other side of the room. Some examples of movements would be to slide, shuffle, hop, skip, jump, jog, etc… Then put obstacles in the way. Some obstacles would be water, mountains, forests, etc… seeing what mode of transportation they would choose.

§ To show distance a teacher could introduce different way of measuring things. For example, a yard stick could be introduced, the teacher could have the students count the number of steps they use to get someone, or students could be asked to look at a map and tell how far away some countries are from others.

§ For mapping, have a variety of different types of maps, physical, landform, political, etc… Show the similarities of the maps and the differences. Ask the students what maps are used for and then show them that a map could be as simple as making the layout of the room. Have the children map out their classroom, then their house at home.

o Assessment:

§ A way to assess movement would be to see how quickly and how correctly the students chose what mode of transportation they would take. This would show if the students understood or not. If not, a debriefing explaining the process will be necessary.

§ The way to assess distance would be to follow their progress through the three concepts. See if the they can put the concepts together. Have the students develop a school map that shows distance.

§ Mapping will be a skill that the students will keep developing as the years go on. For this lesson the students will be assessed by their ability to map the classroom and their home. They will need to include important aspects such as labeling and distance. All will be taken into consideration for assessment.

§ Concept 3 – Spatial Interactions

o What Needs To Be Taught:

§ Students need to be able to understand that we interact, on a daily basis with people all over the world.

§ Ask the students if they have ever spoken with a person from Africa, Asia, Mexico, Australia, ect… Then explain that even if no one has spoken to a person from those countries we are interacting with theme very day. The United States imports most things. We import food, oil, clothing, toys, and many more things.

o Creative Ways To Teach:

§ Take the class on a trip to a store. Have the students look on the lables where the toys, clothes, or food came from. Students will then be able to realize that most things do not come from the United States.

§ Once that is establish ask the students how those materials go to the store. Have them develop a picture showing the path from the start country to the store.

o Assessment:

§ Look at what the students used for transportation. See if they understood that the materials would have to be driven to the boat, shipped, and then driven to the store.

§ Concept 4 – Regions

o What Needs To Be Taught:

§ Students need to understand that a region is a group of places that all have something in common.

§ The two major types of regions are physical and cultural. Physical represents what the area looks like and where it is located on a map. Cultural represents the regions traditions, such as in art, music, games, and the language spoken.

o Creative Ways To Teach:

§ For physical – Take the students for walks around the neighborhood. Point out differences from one side of town to the other. Show how one area might be very old looking and another area completely made up of new buildings. Another idea would be to show on a map where different regions in the world are located. For example, the Middle East, Asia, the Islands, etc..

§ For Cultural – Visit museums that show different cultures. Also, introduce the class to different types of music, different languages, folktakes, and games that were played. Each tradition should be practiced by the students. By doing this the students will be able to engage first hand in that culture.

o Assessment:

§ The assessment will occur by having the students identify what makes up a region. Also, by observing the students respect and desire to learn about specific regions.