What Affects Our School Community
Unit Overview:
Our unit plan has been developed for a first grade classroom, and focuses specifically on the theme of “School Community.” We have taken this theme and based it on the school community present at “The Potter’s House,” a Christ-centered school located in Grand Rapids. The big idea we will be exploring during this unit is, “What affects our school community?”. Within this big idea the students will be specifically exploring three questions: “How did The Potter’s House start in 1981, and what has its history been since?; “What is The Potter’s House like now in comparison?;” and “How can I contribute to The Potter’s House community today?”.
While creating our unit on school community, we strived to introduce each of the five threads in social studies: history, geography, economics, civics, and culture. Each of these threads is explored specifically in one lesson of the unit. These threads also influence each other, and therefore interconnect within these lessons as well. Our first lesson is on the history of The Potter’s House. In this lesson we have students explore various aspects of The Potters House history by exploring, in groups, historical artifacts. The class will then share what they learned through the artifacts, and will create a timeline on the board that shows the history of The Potter’s House. To end this lesson, the students will be writing a narrative on what they learned about the history of The Potter’s House. This lesson naturally incorporates each of the threads, as the students explore changes in the school’s geography, economic choices, civics and school governance, and culture.
Our second lesson looks more explicitly at how history and the physical geography of the school connect. In this lesson, students will learn about the geography of The Potter’s House by exploring and mapping out its separate hallways in groups. The class will then come together and share what they learned in their explorations. Following this, the students will piece together their separate maps to create a complete map of the school. Using this map, and explanations from the teacher, the class will have the opportunity to imagine how the school’s geography may have been different in the past. The class as a whole will then learn about map legends and will create a legend for their map of The Potter’s House.
Our third lesson will connect geography and culture. A unique characteristic of The Potter’s House is the school’s diversity. A large number of countries and cultures are represented within the school. For this lesson, students will come to class with a “family heritage worksheet” completed. This sheet will be completed with the students’ parents, and asks questions related to family history, culture, and traditions. The students will each get a chance to share some of this information about their family heritage with the class. As each student shares, a star will be placed on a world map in the classroom, showing the number of places represented in one classroom. Following this, the students will work in partners, using the data on the number of countries represented in the classroom to practice math related concepts.
The fourth lesson in our unit is on economics, however, this lesson also incorporates aspects of civics and culture. This lesson starts with the teacher reading “Sam and The Lucky Money,” by Karen Chinn to the students. This book introduces the idea of scarcity, while also giving the students examples of key vocabulary such as goods, services, producers, and consumers. The class will then transition into a role play, with half of the class portraying the school board, or the consumers, and the other half portraying producers of goods and services. The students who are on the “school board” will make choices about what goods and services to purchase for the school; while the people who are producers try to convince the consumers that their product is necessary for school life. Through this activity, students will get a taste of school governance, by learning more about the purpose of a school board. They will also explore how culture, or the way you are raised, can affect the choices you make.
The last three lessons in this unit will be focused on civics and its connection with culture. We included civics as a large portion in this unit. This will be beneficial, because after learning about their school community in the first three lessons, we feel that it is important for students to take ownership of The Potter’s House and learn how to contribute as a citizen. Therefore, the fifth lesson in this unit begins the study of civics and culture. Students in this lesson will learn about power with and without authority, and how this power structure functions in the school. This lesson will begin by having the students make an “authority tree.” In this authority tree the students will identify and rank the authority figures of The Potter’s House. Following this, the class will read the book “Too Many Tamales,” by Gary Soto. This book will further introduce concepts related to power with and without authority, and will give concrete examples of the topic. The class will then be split into groups where they will be given their own example of power with or without authority, which they will act out in front of the class. After each presentation, the audience of students will identify the situations as showing power with or without authority. To finish this lesson, each student will create a poster that shows an example of both power with authority and power without authority. By the end of this lesson, students will understand the structure of power in their school, and how this structure is a characteristic of their school culture.
In lesson six the students will also be exploring civics and culture. The students will be learning what it means to be a good citizen in the school community. To start the lesson, students will define and give examples of what it means to be a “good citizen.” They will also brainstorm what the rewards and consequences might be for being a good or bad citizen in each example. The students will then be split into groups where they will come up with their own example of something a good, or bad, citizen would do. The students making up the audience will then guess which type of “citizen” they are depicting, similar to previous lesson. To end the lesson, students will learn about how being a good citizen can positively affect the culture of the school community. They will then write down one idea of how they could be a better citizen in The Potter’s House community.
The last civics and culture lesson is also the last lesson of the unit. In this lesson students will brainstorm school issues within The Potter’s House community. The students will then write an opinion piece on one of these school issues, explaining why it is important. The students will then be split into groups where they will develop action plans on how to address these school problems. Through this, the students will learn how they can directly affect the school community, or culture, and make positive changes. The class will work together to complete one action plan a week, extending the student’s thoughts on school community beyond the specified days of the unit.
Math and language arts are two important subject areas in school standards and testing right now. It is for this reason that we strived to incorporate as many math and language arts crossovers as we could into the unit. For our math crossover, we focused on the areas of addition and subtraction as well as place value. In lesson three, for example we have students interact with the data on how the number of countries represented in the classroom by having them add and subtract the number of students belonging to particular countries. This will help them better understand the data, as well as have practice with their addition and subtraction skills. Lesson four, our economics lesson, also provides students with practice in these math areas. Students on the “school board” will also be provided with a limited amount of money. They will then need to use this money to make choices, deciding how much they want to spend on each good or service presented. Students can spend their money all on one product, or can split their money between the three products presented. These options will give students real life word problems that they can use to practice math concepts.
Language arts is the other cross-curricular connection we made throughout this unit. The main area of language arts we wanted to integrate into this unit was writing. In the Common Core English Language Arts Standards there are three text types outlined for students to learn: opinion, informative, and narrative pieces. Throughout our unit we guide students in writing for each of these purposes. In lesson one, students will be writing a narrative piece on the history of The Potter’s House. Following this in lesson three, students will be writing an informative piece using what they learned from the lesson about school diversity. Then, in lesson seven students will be asked to write an opinion piece on a school issue they care about and why it is important. As these first grade students are introduced to each of these different styles of writing, the teacher will be providing guidance, instruction, and scaffolding to support them.
This unit will also be providing students with experience in listening and responding to literature. Lessons four and five both incorporate grade-level literature that introduces key concepts in each of the lessons. Lesson four, our economics lesson, for example uses the book “Sam and the Lucky Money” by Karen Chinn. In this lesson, students will be required to answer questions related to key details in the text, a Common Core State Standard (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.1). These key questions will be related to scarcity, and how it is shown in the literary work. The next day, in lesson five, students will have more experience with literature. During the first civics lesson of this unit, the book “Too Many Tamales” by Gary Soto will be used because of its relationship to concepts related to power with and without authority. After this book is read, students will be asked to identify a situation in the book where someone used power without having authority. While doing this, students will be fulfilling another Common Core State Standard (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.2) by retelling the story and demonstrating knowledge of the central message. Overall, this unit’s reading crossover has students better develop in their ability to describe key details and events in literature.
While developing this unit, we approached our teaching of these outlined concepts through a few pedagogical approaches. The first approach incorporated into this unit is that of collaborative learning. Teachers and students, as well as students and peers, will work together in a number of situations with a particular learning goal in mind. Many of these collaborative learning activities are hands-on, while others incorporate group discussion. In lesson one, students work in groups while exploring historical artifacts. In lesson two, small groups of students will work together to create a map, depicting a portion of the school. Students will also work together in these groups to both create and follow written directions to a particular area in the school. The map crossover, included in lesson three, will also incorporate collaborative learning. Students will work in groups to add and subtract the number of students represented from various countries. Lesson four, the economics lesson, incorporates collaboration when students acting as the “school board” have to work together in pairs when making their choices on particular goods or services. Lesson five and six both incorporate activities requiring groups to role play particular situations. These situations will be related to power with and without authority and what it means to be a good, or bad, citizen in the school community. Lastly, in lesson seven groups of students will collaboratively create an action plan that addresses a particular school issue. Throughout these collaborative activities the teacher will be guiding the students, helping them understand that each member of the group has an important role and helping them learn how to effectively work together as a team.
As students work both individually and collectively throughout lessons, the teacher will be providing a variety of scaffolding options. Modeling, graphic organizers, examples, and prompts are just a few of the instructional scaffolding options that will be provided for students. As the unit goes on the teacher will gradually provide less scaffolding for students, allowing them to learn and be creative on their own. An example of this gradual drop of scaffolding occurs in the role play activities outlined in lessons five and six. In lesson five, students are given a specific situation to act out while in lesson six students are required to think of a situation to act out on their own.
Click here to explore:
Lesson 1
Lesson 2
Lesson 3
Lesson 4
Lesson 5
Lesson 6
Lesson 7
Our unit plan has been developed for a first grade classroom, and focuses specifically on the theme of “School Community.” We have taken this theme and based it on the school community present at “The Potter’s House,” a Christ-centered school located in Grand Rapids. The big idea we will be exploring during this unit is, “What affects our school community?”. Within this big idea the students will be specifically exploring three questions: “How did The Potter’s House start in 1981, and what has its history been since?; “What is The Potter’s House like now in comparison?;” and “How can I contribute to The Potter’s House community today?”.
While creating our unit on school community, we strived to introduce each of the five threads in social studies: history, geography, economics, civics, and culture. Each of these threads is explored specifically in one lesson of the unit. These threads also influence each other, and therefore interconnect within these lessons as well. Our first lesson is on the history of The Potter’s House. In this lesson we have students explore various aspects of The Potters House history by exploring, in groups, historical artifacts. The class will then share what they learned through the artifacts, and will create a timeline on the board that shows the history of The Potter’s House. To end this lesson, the students will be writing a narrative on what they learned about the history of The Potter’s House. This lesson naturally incorporates each of the threads, as the students explore changes in the school’s geography, economic choices, civics and school governance, and culture.
Our second lesson looks more explicitly at how history and the physical geography of the school connect. In this lesson, students will learn about the geography of The Potter’s House by exploring and mapping out its separate hallways in groups. The class will then come together and share what they learned in their explorations. Following this, the students will piece together their separate maps to create a complete map of the school. Using this map, and explanations from the teacher, the class will have the opportunity to imagine how the school’s geography may have been different in the past. The class as a whole will then learn about map legends and will create a legend for their map of The Potter’s House.
Our third lesson will connect geography and culture. A unique characteristic of The Potter’s House is the school’s diversity. A large number of countries and cultures are represented within the school. For this lesson, students will come to class with a “family heritage worksheet” completed. This sheet will be completed with the students’ parents, and asks questions related to family history, culture, and traditions. The students will each get a chance to share some of this information about their family heritage with the class. As each student shares, a star will be placed on a world map in the classroom, showing the number of places represented in one classroom. Following this, the students will work in partners, using the data on the number of countries represented in the classroom to practice math related concepts.
The fourth lesson in our unit is on economics, however, this lesson also incorporates aspects of civics and culture. This lesson starts with the teacher reading “Sam and The Lucky Money,” by Karen Chinn to the students. This book introduces the idea of scarcity, while also giving the students examples of key vocabulary such as goods, services, producers, and consumers. The class will then transition into a role play, with half of the class portraying the school board, or the consumers, and the other half portraying producers of goods and services. The students who are on the “school board” will make choices about what goods and services to purchase for the school; while the people who are producers try to convince the consumers that their product is necessary for school life. Through this activity, students will get a taste of school governance, by learning more about the purpose of a school board. They will also explore how culture, or the way you are raised, can affect the choices you make.
The last three lessons in this unit will be focused on civics and its connection with culture. We included civics as a large portion in this unit. This will be beneficial, because after learning about their school community in the first three lessons, we feel that it is important for students to take ownership of The Potter’s House and learn how to contribute as a citizen. Therefore, the fifth lesson in this unit begins the study of civics and culture. Students in this lesson will learn about power with and without authority, and how this power structure functions in the school. This lesson will begin by having the students make an “authority tree.” In this authority tree the students will identify and rank the authority figures of The Potter’s House. Following this, the class will read the book “Too Many Tamales,” by Gary Soto. This book will further introduce concepts related to power with and without authority, and will give concrete examples of the topic. The class will then be split into groups where they will be given their own example of power with or without authority, which they will act out in front of the class. After each presentation, the audience of students will identify the situations as showing power with or without authority. To finish this lesson, each student will create a poster that shows an example of both power with authority and power without authority. By the end of this lesson, students will understand the structure of power in their school, and how this structure is a characteristic of their school culture.
In lesson six the students will also be exploring civics and culture. The students will be learning what it means to be a good citizen in the school community. To start the lesson, students will define and give examples of what it means to be a “good citizen.” They will also brainstorm what the rewards and consequences might be for being a good or bad citizen in each example. The students will then be split into groups where they will come up with their own example of something a good, or bad, citizen would do. The students making up the audience will then guess which type of “citizen” they are depicting, similar to previous lesson. To end the lesson, students will learn about how being a good citizen can positively affect the culture of the school community. They will then write down one idea of how they could be a better citizen in The Potter’s House community.
The last civics and culture lesson is also the last lesson of the unit. In this lesson students will brainstorm school issues within The Potter’s House community. The students will then write an opinion piece on one of these school issues, explaining why it is important. The students will then be split into groups where they will develop action plans on how to address these school problems. Through this, the students will learn how they can directly affect the school community, or culture, and make positive changes. The class will work together to complete one action plan a week, extending the student’s thoughts on school community beyond the specified days of the unit.
Math and language arts are two important subject areas in school standards and testing right now. It is for this reason that we strived to incorporate as many math and language arts crossovers as we could into the unit. For our math crossover, we focused on the areas of addition and subtraction as well as place value. In lesson three, for example we have students interact with the data on how the number of countries represented in the classroom by having them add and subtract the number of students belonging to particular countries. This will help them better understand the data, as well as have practice with their addition and subtraction skills. Lesson four, our economics lesson, also provides students with practice in these math areas. Students on the “school board” will also be provided with a limited amount of money. They will then need to use this money to make choices, deciding how much they want to spend on each good or service presented. Students can spend their money all on one product, or can split their money between the three products presented. These options will give students real life word problems that they can use to practice math concepts.
Language arts is the other cross-curricular connection we made throughout this unit. The main area of language arts we wanted to integrate into this unit was writing. In the Common Core English Language Arts Standards there are three text types outlined for students to learn: opinion, informative, and narrative pieces. Throughout our unit we guide students in writing for each of these purposes. In lesson one, students will be writing a narrative piece on the history of The Potter’s House. Following this in lesson three, students will be writing an informative piece using what they learned from the lesson about school diversity. Then, in lesson seven students will be asked to write an opinion piece on a school issue they care about and why it is important. As these first grade students are introduced to each of these different styles of writing, the teacher will be providing guidance, instruction, and scaffolding to support them.
This unit will also be providing students with experience in listening and responding to literature. Lessons four and five both incorporate grade-level literature that introduces key concepts in each of the lessons. Lesson four, our economics lesson, for example uses the book “Sam and the Lucky Money” by Karen Chinn. In this lesson, students will be required to answer questions related to key details in the text, a Common Core State Standard (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.1). These key questions will be related to scarcity, and how it is shown in the literary work. The next day, in lesson five, students will have more experience with literature. During the first civics lesson of this unit, the book “Too Many Tamales” by Gary Soto will be used because of its relationship to concepts related to power with and without authority. After this book is read, students will be asked to identify a situation in the book where someone used power without having authority. While doing this, students will be fulfilling another Common Core State Standard (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.2) by retelling the story and demonstrating knowledge of the central message. Overall, this unit’s reading crossover has students better develop in their ability to describe key details and events in literature.
While developing this unit, we approached our teaching of these outlined concepts through a few pedagogical approaches. The first approach incorporated into this unit is that of collaborative learning. Teachers and students, as well as students and peers, will work together in a number of situations with a particular learning goal in mind. Many of these collaborative learning activities are hands-on, while others incorporate group discussion. In lesson one, students work in groups while exploring historical artifacts. In lesson two, small groups of students will work together to create a map, depicting a portion of the school. Students will also work together in these groups to both create and follow written directions to a particular area in the school. The map crossover, included in lesson three, will also incorporate collaborative learning. Students will work in groups to add and subtract the number of students represented from various countries. Lesson four, the economics lesson, incorporates collaboration when students acting as the “school board” have to work together in pairs when making their choices on particular goods or services. Lesson five and six both incorporate activities requiring groups to role play particular situations. These situations will be related to power with and without authority and what it means to be a good, or bad, citizen in the school community. Lastly, in lesson seven groups of students will collaboratively create an action plan that addresses a particular school issue. Throughout these collaborative activities the teacher will be guiding the students, helping them understand that each member of the group has an important role and helping them learn how to effectively work together as a team.
As students work both individually and collectively throughout lessons, the teacher will be providing a variety of scaffolding options. Modeling, graphic organizers, examples, and prompts are just a few of the instructional scaffolding options that will be provided for students. As the unit goes on the teacher will gradually provide less scaffolding for students, allowing them to learn and be creative on their own. An example of this gradual drop of scaffolding occurs in the role play activities outlined in lessons five and six. In lesson five, students are given a specific situation to act out while in lesson six students are required to think of a situation to act out on their own.
Click here to explore:
Lesson 1
Lesson 2
Lesson 3
Lesson 4
Lesson 5
Lesson 6
Lesson 7