We finished up our history unit with Women's History Month by learning about Marcenia Lyle Stone at the beginning of this month. We then moved into Economics. Students learned what Economics is (buying and trading of goods and services). We reviewed what goods and services are, as we had been introduced to this during our unit on community at the beginning of the year where we talked about local goods and services. Students also learned about what this looked like a long time ago. Students learned that different countries had different goods to trade with other countries. They also learned how newer transportation and expansion changed how trading looked through the years. We then talked about how now we use money to trade for what we want/need. Students also learned about the word scarcity, when there is not enough of something for the amount of people who want it. We will continue learning about the topic of economics for the rest of the year. Our unit will end with students creating their own mock stores to sell goods or services to each other.
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March is Women's History Month so to go along with our S.S. unit on Important People Who Have Shaped History, we've been learning and talking about some amazing women. Students were introduced to Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner at just 17 years old.
We also tied this to our ELA units. We referred to Rosie Reveter and what she meant to women and how that started to change things. We also learned about Women's Suffrage (their right to vote) and how that came about. Students learned about Amelia Earhart, who was the first female to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. We reviewed Bessie Coleman who was the first female in the U.S. to get a pilot's license. We read about Jane Goodall who taught the world that apes are able to do many things that scientists thought only humans could do. We will next be moving on to Toni Stone, the first female to play professional baseball. I have quite a few books I've put out that are collections of remarkable women who have played an important part in history for students to look at/read when they have time. This unit of our S.S. curriculum is all about Then & Now and Important People Who Have Shaped History. This goes along very well with Black History Month and Presidents' Day.
We have been learning about the similarities and differences between what life was like in the past and what life is like now. Students were able to learn about changes in toys/games, fashion, technology, cars, and communication. Also through the biographies we've read about various Presidents and African Americans. Students have had the chance to learn about Presidents Lincoln, Washington, and Kennedy. We've also talked about Jefferson and both Roosevelts. The students were able to compare and contrast their lives and see the changes. Students also read and learned about: Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, Thurgood Marshall, Benjamin Banneker, Sarah E. Goode, Bessie Coleman, and Frederick Douglas. Students filled out information pages and why these people were important to create a paper bag book about these important people and why they were important. The students have been very interested in all of these biographies and their lives. Hopefully they will (or have been) share what they have learned. Every year the students create a family culture quilt square as a way for students to learn more about their culture, heritage, and traditions. They then present their squares to the class. This gives them the opportunity to learn about other cultures as well.
We also learned about various countries and how they celebrate the winter holidays. During Daily 5 time we used our class iPads to make a new word work center where students learned about St. Lucia Day in Sweden, Las Posadas in Mexico, Diwali in India, and Christmas in Italy. As a whole class we also reviewed Hanukkah in Israel and learned about Christmas in Germany. Students made a suitcase to pack for their trip. They were also given a passport that gave information about each country we would be traveling to. Then each day we'd catch a flight (our chairs moved to make airplane seats and a video from youtube of soaring through the clouds) to learn about the new country we'd be focusing on for the day. We also were able to get some souvenirs from some of the countries. Students brought back a tradition from Italy of a napkin note, where Italian children write a note to their parent and hide it in their napkin at dinner saying nice things to their parent and promising to be good during the holiday season. They also created a poinsettia flower while in Mexico, and got the supplies to make a lantern for Diwali in India. We started guided reading groups and learned even more about how other countries celebrate the holidays. One group learned about Christmas in Australia. Another group learned about Epiphany in Spain. A third group learned about Ramadan in the Middle East. After spending a couple of weeks learning about the holiday they had, we then split up into 3 groups and had them teach each other about their holiday. Students had a passport that they filled out. There was a page for each country (even the ones they did on the iPads) that they filled out and then they got a passport stamp. It was a fun way to learn about a lot of different countries and gave students the opportunity to be the teacher. :) For November we learned a lot about different Native American tribes and the First Thanksgiving. Students heard many books that told the history of the Pilgrims coming to the New World and the hard ships they faced here. They also learned that many of them died during that first year and how the Native Americans and Pilgrims were both afraid of each other at first and kept their distance from each other. Then students learned how Samoset approached the Pilgrims and then brought Squanto to them who decided to live with them and helped them. Students learned more about Squanto's life through a biography we had on him as well as Scholastic News. Squanto was kidnapped from his tribe and when he was able to get back, found his tribe had all be wiped out by a disease brought by explorers.
We also watched some videos that Scholastic has that shows a replica of the Mayflower and what life was like on the Mayflower as they traveled. We also saw what life was like at Plymouth through Plymouth Plantation, a site that re-enacts the pilgrim and Wampanoag life. We also talked a lot about how things have changed from then to now. We learned about the changes to clothing, transportation, housing, games, and communication through the years. Our first unit for the year was Geography. This went along well with our science unit as we talked a lot about maps. Students learned about map keys, different types of maps, and cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west). They worked towards being able to read and interpret maps. We also talked a lot about communities. Students talked about the basic needs that people have and how communities fulfill those needs. We talked about the different characteristics of our communities, the environmental or natural ones and the cultural ones. We also discussed goods and services that communities provide.
We will then move on to learning and talking about how communities have local governments and what they are for in our next unit, Civics. |