Friday, February 24, 2017

World War II - How I Integrate the Study Unit

The Introduction to WWII Studies
To begin the unit, I created a fun and engaging activity (that also makes for a really cool bulletin board!) for students to identify the Allies and Axis powers as well as a brief overview of important events in the form of a timeline. I read from a book entitled, The Attack on Pearl Harbor by Katherine Krieg which shares a diary entry from a US Marine soldier during the attack and one from a Japanese Fighter Pilot. This book stirs up a great discussion when students consider each person's point of view.





Reading Circle 
The book I chose for my students to read independently and discuss as a class is called Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Watasuki Houston. I can't say enough about how this book teaches about the internment camps and creates a sense of empathy for what is mostly an unknown truth about our nation's history. When Jeanne was 7 years old, her family was forced into an internment camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This book goes into great detail of the struggles her entire family faced while in the camps and the discrimination and prejudice and struggles they experienced after leaving the camp in 1945. 

The book provides insight as well as many talking points for a class discussion. It also is a great go-to "hook" and connection for when I want to teach about a specific topic within this subject. For example, when I wanted to teach my students about the roles and sacrifices of the Japanese American soldiers, I connected it to when Jeanne's older brother left the camp to join the US Army.

When students are finished with this reading, they are assigned a project to complete. They get to choose from a list of options that they think would be most fun!


Write a news article where you interview someone from the book

Make a map of Manzanar 

Make a family tree depicting Jeanne's family

Books Use for Direct Teaching
These books are wonderful resources! Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans During WWII by Martin W. Sandler works well for this unit because the chapters are specific to experiences that Japanese Americans had starting with Pearl Harbor and the fight for justice up until the 1990's. The real pictures and side stories are extremely helpful to paint a full picture of the history. The layout is fantastic and students often borrow this book during Independent Reading to flip through and read sections I don't teach in class. The Children of Topaz by Michael O. Tunnell and George Chilcoat is another perfect book for this unit because it is a collection of diary entries from students within the detention camps. After each entry, there is an explanation of it which helps with creating a better understanding of what life was like for school children. Japanese in America is a book I randomly found as a library withdraw. It is a textbook-like book that describes what life was like for Japanese Americans prior to WWII.






Writing Workshop
During Writers Workshop, students create Historical Fiction Picture Books. Because I taught about segregation and the Civil Rights Movement earlier this quarter (in preparation for our participation in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade), I allow for students to choose whether they want their books to take place during that time period or WWII. Among other things, I help prepare them by reading published historical fiction picture books to them. This works really well because while I am reading the books, students are completing activity sheets where they are asked to identify the fictional elements and historical facts. We discuss how the author intertwined fact and fiction. They learned more about the time period and they are thinking about how they will structure their own pieces of writing! 

Although Lucy Calkins does not do a Historical Fiction writing unit, I structure my lessons as so. The revision stage is where even more history learning takes place. This is the part of the writing process where kids are fact-checking their stories. I often am guiding students in finding answers to questions like, "How did the Nazis know who was Jewish and who wasn't?" "Did any of the Japanese have friends who could take care of their homes while they were gone?" "What happened to kids who were too young to work in the concentration camps?" Also, during the publishing stage, when kids are illustrating their books, they are researching exact details such as, what the soldiers uniforms looked like and what the scenery was for the internment camps. 




Free Reading from the Theme Box
Every unit, I fill up a Theme Box in our classroom library. This is a box full of books students can choose to read on their own. Here are the books I've collected that specifically relate to WWII. 


This is how I like to set up each of my unit studies! The more integration, room for student inquiry and project based learning - THE BETTER! How do you set up your units?

Friday, February 17, 2017

WWII Studies and integrating the Japanese Language!

During the second part of the third quarter, I teach students about WWII and specifically about the Japanese internment camps during Readers Workshop. Today, to honor the Japanese culture, students worked on an activity to learn some Japanese words!

First they received a list of words and their meanings. I.e. Hai - Yes, hata - flag 

Next, they gathered the supplies needed to make the cards: cardstock paper, scrapbooking paper, scissors, glue, crayons, markers and colored pencils

Students cut the cardstock paper into smaller rectangles and then cut the scrapbook paper slightly bigger to fold over and glue to the back of the cardstock card in order to make them look like "playing cards". Within their groups, the kids divided up the work among each other. Some students were creating cards with written words and others were drawing pictures on the cards.








By the end of the activity, each group had a set of cards to play Memory by matching the picture with the correct Japanese word. 

I knew that 8th graders were planning to visit our classroom today (my first class I had when I arrived to this school!). I thought it would be a fun idea to have my 5th graders and 8th graders play the game together! They ended up playing a few rounds! When I walked around the room and asked for them to tell me the Japanese words they know, I was surprised at how many they had already learned! It turned out to be a really wonderful afternoon! 






Monday, February 13, 2017

5th Grade Takes Washington, DC!

We had another very successful 3 days, 2 nights trip to our nation's capital! I changed some things up from last year (my first year ever taking on this adventure!) and everyone had an amazing time!!

I replaced the Spy Museum with an activity and tour of the Newseum which teaches kids about the media. This museum was great because during the 4th quarter, students will be writing and reporting our G.H. Owl Newscast!


Reading from a teleprompter 

Even the teacher can have fun, right?!

Civil Rights Expo - they were locked up for protesting!

An old WORKING typewriter! This was great because we had just finished the book "Stella by Starlight" which takes place in the 1930's and the main character describes, in detail, what it was like to write on a typewriter. 

I added in a visit from a Secret Service Agent. He joined us at the Quaker house on Capitol Hill (which was where we were staying), and told us all about his job. He facilitated a great activity which involved counterfeit money. At the end, he surprised three kids with Challenge Coins and everyone got an SSA pin!



Afterwards, everyone went to sleep to rest up for the long and exciting day ahead. First stop: Arlington Cemetery! 



JFK Memorial 

Reflection Writing 


A little collage action - they loved that this soldier was protecting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 

Next stop, was the White House and then onto the Holocaust Museum




Last thing on the agenda for the day was a Night Bike Tour of the memorials. Even though it was FREEZING outside and everyone was pretty much reminding me of that every 5 minutes (haha!), when I later asked about their favorite activity, this was at the top! Such a neat experience and we were so lucky to have gotten a chance to do it! 



In front of the Washington Monument 

As soon as everyone got back to the house, we all were ready to crash! For our last day, we took part in a Service Learning project which involved making breakfast and serving it to the poor and homeless. Priority Task: Sit and talk with the people we were there to serve. This was my favorite part of the trip because I got a chance to see how moving it was for my students. The results of this project continues to show up in the classroom, whether students are responding to a quote in Morning Meeting or discussing something from a book or part of our history lessons, I can see threads of what they learned from serving those who are less fortunate in life. 








Afterwards, the students had a chance to talk to Rob, the man who started this breakfast. He told us that it all began because someone asked him for a cup of coffee. 

This picture says it all


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