Mr. Giso's Room to Read: social studies

Showing posts with label social studies. Show all posts

Mr. Giso's Ways to Learn At Home #5

"Grandfather's Journey"

Read Aloud, Now and Long Ago Interview & Journal

Happy Friday!

Today, we tried a Zoom conference call. Boy, was it exciting to see so many smiling children-- and two of my teacher besties-- again. We even saw some parents, siblings and pets. One cat fell asleep. I guess not everyone was entertained? Our principal even made a guest appearance. I did a silly read aloud and another teacher lead us through an open-ended math problem. It felt good to do this. It felt like school again for the first time in two weeks.

The book I have to share with you is both written and illustrated by Allen Say. It's titled "Grandfather's Journey." It's about Mr. Say's grandfather's story. Both the author and his grandfather love their homeland Japan as well as their second home, America (California, in particular). After you listen to me read aloud this story, I have a project where you can have the chance to hear a story of a grandparent or older member of your family by making a phone call. It's perfect for this time when people older than us are staying home in order to keep safe and healthy. Click HERE to watch me read aloud "Grandfather's Journey."

Be a Journalist and Interview a Member of Your Family a LOT Older Than You

Call or FaceTime a member of your family. This person could be a grandparent, older neighbor or friend of the family--anyone older than you are. ASK the question and RECORD your answers in the Now and Long Ago book I put together. Just like the author, Allen Say, you can start thinking about your own family's history. How cool? You will be doing very important work!

There are two versions of the book. One has the "dotted" lines and the other has "regular" lines. Pick the one that will help you write the neatest. Click HERE to get the books. Feel free to send me pictures of your books. I'd love to hear the history you have recorded.

Write in a Daily Journal after Reading

Mr. Giso's Journal Idea #5

After reading and listening to "Grandfather's Journey," write about if you have a home away from home, too. Maybe you live in two households? Maybe you or your family were born in another country and miss it when you are not there like the grandfather in the story? You can even write about a country you'd like to visit because your family has roots there. For example, Mr. Giso would love to get to visit Italy someday because that's where his family is from.

Print out my "Journal Pages" by clicking HERE if you'd like to have some paper. There's a spot for an illustration, too. Have a great day.

Family Roots: A New Resource

This year, I am enjoying teaching our second grade social studies curriculum to my first and second graders. This is in part to a series of activities I have created featuring my projects completed both at home and at school. My newest unit (click HERE) incorporates these standards from the Massachusetts History and Social Sciences Curriculum Framework (2003).

•Explain the information that historical time lines convey and then put in chronological order events in the student’s life (e.g., the year he or she was born, started school, or moved to a new neighborhood) or in the history of countries studied.

•Explain what buyers and sellers are and give examples of goods and services that are bought and sold in their community.

•On a map of the world, locate all of the continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica.

•On a map of the world, locate the continent, regions, or and then the countries from which students, their parents, guardians, grandparents, or other relatives or ancestors came. With the help of family members and the school librarian, describe traditional food, customs, sports and games, and music of the place they came from.

•With the help of the school librarian, give examples of traditions or customs from other countries that can be found in America today.

•With the help of the school librarian, identify and describe well-known sites, events, or landmarks in at least three different countries from which students’ families come and explain why they are important.

To kick off our study of family roots and family history I sent my students home with a letter introducing our new unit and asking families to list countries from their roots. After that, we made a bulletin board with yarn and a map of the world with yarn depicting our roots.

Close Up of Each Student's Family Root Card

They really enjoyed studying flags and researching them in various atlases and online sources. After this kick off, I sent home an at home project where my learners had to research one country out of the many that make up their family roots. This at home project included making a family tree, placing their roots on a world map, listing historic landmarks from their country, describing foods, traditions and other cultural elements, etc. It also asked families to research the influence on America as well as goods and services found in their chosen country. When all were passed in, they were so excited and eager to share all that they have learned. It was fantastic!

Other projects we enjoyed were creating family flags and making a mobile with each member of our family represented on it. We made a class book of our "classroom family," designed family stamps and made personal time lines. Here are some finished projects.

Family Mobiles

My Family Flag

My student teacher came up with the idea to introduce graphing by putting together a class graph of our roots by origin. This product has a page for students to make their own graph--I liked this idea so much, I had to add it. All and all, we learned so much from each other during this unit of study. It's great to begin a new school year with it!

Mr. Giso's Room to Read Bright Idea #14

Make a Set of Stacking City, Country and State Cups

Well it's certainly been busy, busy, busy since we came back from February vacation. For those of you unfamiliar with this New England custom, we have a week off for President's Day. Spring is here, but is definitely NOT in the air, for we are getting snow and maybe a (fingers crossed) two hour snow delay tomorrow. I have been battling a three week sore throat--along with my students and colleagues as well. YUCK!

I started our mini unit in social studies covering "City, Country and State" today with reading the all familiar book, Me on the Map by Joan Sweeny. If you have not used it before to introduce this concept, you don't know what you are missing. In this book, we trace the many global "addresses" of a young girl from Kansas. Students are easily introduced to the theme that "we live in many places." The sequence of events build from the immediate location of the character (her room) to the entire world in this sequence.
•my room
•my home
•my street
•my city/town
•my state
•my country
•my world

From this read aloud, I continue my introduction by demonstrating this concept a step further using a set of those baby/toddler stacking cups. For this concrete model, I label the following using a permanent marker--starting with the smallest cup.
•room
•home
•street
•city or town
•state
•country
•continent
•planet
I know this varies slightly from Me on the Map, but I prefer to include the terms continent and planet (rather than world). As you can see, a set of these eight stacking cups works nicely. My young geographers can stack and unstack the cups saying their address, their state, their country, etc. It's great practice whole class, small group, with a partner or independently.

After this introduction, I make a flip book that I have customized to our city, state, etc. It's done with good old cutting out pictures and permanent marker. Sorry, I would love to post it for you. I did, however, really enjoy coming across these two ideas. Look at these nesting cans featured on Teach Beside Me's blog.