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GRADE LEVEL: Kindergarten Social Studies Unit

TEACHER OF MINI-UNIT: Dee Sandau

BRIEF OVERVIEW:

I will be conducting several different lessons and activities focusing on the skills of reading, art, math, science/health, and social studies in my Kindergarten classroom the week before and the week of Thanksgiving. The activities will involve use of fine and large motor skills whether my students are participating cooperatively in the whole group or working individually at their tables.

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PRIOR, LEARNING INTERESTS, MISCONCEPTIONS AND CONCEPTUAL DIFFICULTIES:

I decided to do my MDU on Thanksgiving and concentrate mainly on five curricular areas because although I wanted to plan for a million and one activities, I could only concentrate on a few.

I wanted to teach my students some basic knowledge about Thanksgiving and explain the story to them in the simplest way possible. Students coming to school for the first time do not have very little, if any, prior knowledge. I would hope that they all would have learning interests, it is my job to make my classroom a world of interesting things to learn and do.

I will stay away from any possible differences and stereotypes that may come up. For example, we will not sing the song 1,2,3 little Indians.

I predict that I will encounter some students who will have difficulties with my lesson, but I will deal with them as they arise.

It is not practical to have kindergarten students sit and listen to story after story, because it will not capture their attention, they would not be able to sit still and remain interested in the discussion for a great deal of time because their attention span is rather short. For this reason, my main focus was to use various hands-on approach lessons and activities, which would give my students the opportunity to explore their environment and surroundings and discover how and why this national holiday is significant and very much a part of a family tradition.

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GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:

GOALS ACCORDING TO CONTENT STANDARDS:

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ASSESSMENT:

MAJOR LEARNING ACTIVITIES:

  1. We will discuss Thanksgiving – What does it mean to you? Why do we celebrate it?
  2. I will present my Thanksgiving PowerPoint to the students and thoroughly discuss the different slides and discuss the Thanksgiving story.
  3. I will have a picture of a cornucopia on my bulletin board. I will ask the children to raise their hand if they have seen a cornucopia before. We will discuss what foods are in this. We will discuss what things we are thankful for.
  4. I will ask the students to explain the word “Pilgrim.” I will attempt to explain to my students that a Pilgrim is a person who travels to a far off place because of his or her religion
  5. We will discuss the differences in turkeys between their color and shape, etc. I will have pictures of different turkeys around the room. What do we notice about the colors, patterns, and shapes. We will graph our results.
  6. We will review the Thanksgiving story. We will discuss why the Pilgrims might had left England and where they were going. We will discuss how they arrived there, by car, airplane, etc. We will have a discussion on the Mayflower. I will discuss the art projects that we will be doing later in my MDU.
  7. I will read and share the book The First Thanksgiving by Lou Rogers out loud and discuss who was involved and how Thanksgiving actually came about.
  8. We will discuss how the Pilgrims and Indians celebrated their new friendship.
  9. We will discuss the idea of being thankful like saying thank you and being glad to have something or somebody. I will place pictures of home, family objects, family members, pets, food, houses, etc and let the students select their choice of pictures. I will help them cut around the pictures and paste it onto construction paper. I will print on the page: “I am thankful for ...We will assemble all of the pages together for a Thankful Book.
  10. Read the book Thanksgiving Day by Gail Gibbons. Discuss the difficulties the Pilgrims faced on their trip and the hardships faced in their new land.
  11. My students will also be exposed to new vocabulary such as gobble, sauce, dressing, stuffing, Pilgrim, Mayflower, thankful, cornucopia, and harvest.
  12. Explain to the students that a good way to tell a story is to decide on three basic things, a character, an object, and a setting where the story takes place. I will have available pictures of a turkey, Pilgrims, and Indians, the Mayflower, and a table filled with food. I will have the students take turns giving their own version of the first Thanksgiving.
  13. For an art activity, I will place the child's hand on a piece of paper and trace around it. The students will finish the turkey by adding a wattle and feather details. The students will color in the feathers and other features.
  14. We will mix a little Thanksgiving treat called Cranberry Delight. We will first measure and then mix the different ingredients and enjoy. We will discuss why we eat certain food on Thanksgiving and each child will get a chance to participate in cooking.
  15. I will introduce and describe the Tom-Tom Dance and we will practice in my classroom.
  16. We will play the Thanksgiving Feather Game.
  17. For an art activity, I will have the students draw their hand on a piece of construction paper and then color the outline of their fingers with crayons, markers or design with colorful feathers of tissue paper. The children can create their own face, and give their turkey whatever expression they choose.
  18. I will take a class on a fall walk to discuss the various changes with the seasons.
  19. We will make Indian vests out of paper grocery bags. The students will color and decorate them.
  20. In order to corporate map skills, we will discuss some of the map skills, such as showing on a map the Pilgrims' voyage and where the different Native Americans lived.

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MATERIALS AND RESOURCES:

BOOKS:

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POEMS AND SONGS:

TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES:

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