This lesson is for : Kindergarten:
Summary
The kindergarten students will learn about the famous Americans: George Washington, Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan, Abe Lincoln, Betsy Ross, and Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the American holidays: President’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Thanksgiving, and Independence day. Our kindergarten students will research these Americans and holidays during Library as well as in their individual classrooms through read-alouds, videos, and interactive activities. Students will learn about multiple famous Americans and American holidays and get to teach others what they have learned through creative videos they made using their ipads. They will use graphic organizers to collect their findings and organize what they have learned. Finally, we will Skype with a pre-k class to evaluate the effectiveness of our videos.
TIPC Ratings
Research & Information Fluency
Rating: Developing – Explanation: Students used PebbleGo on the internet to do research about the Americans/holidays in library. Students created graphic organizers to record their information. Students also read stories in their classroom and did hands-on activities such as art projects and creating written stories about the Americans/holidays.
Communication & Collaboration
Rating: Developing – Explanation: Communication and collaboration were used throughout the project. Students worked with their classroom teacher, our media specialist, classmates, and finally communicated through the internet to teach a pre-k class. Finally students are communicating with the pre-k class through Skype to evaluate if their videos were successful in teaching the students new information about the Americans/holidays.
Critical Thinking & Problem Solving
Rating: Entry – Explanation: Although the students had to develop their own project and use graphic organizers there was not a multitude of problem solving in this project. Certain groups that chose to work together used critical thinking and problem solving to solve problems such as how to work together as an effective team and to divide up job responsibilities.
Creativity & Innovation
Rating: Developing – Explanation: Students had to draw and write important facts about each famous American and holiday. They were then asked to develop their own project. They were able to draw a picture, take a picture from the internet, a book or of an object for their video. Students wrote out their script that they were going to record. Some chose to be the famous American, speaking in first person others chose to just tell a fact about the American/Holiday.
Lesson Materials
