Kindergarten-2nd Grade
Subjects:
Language Arts, Library / Technology, Math, Philanthropy and Social Studies
Key Words/Concepts click to view
| ELA: | Stone Soup; Interview; Writing Process |
| MAT: | Estimation; Numbers; Patterns |
| PHIL: | Cooperate; Feelings; Giving; Need; Respect; Survey; Tolerance |
| SOC: | Common Good; Diversity; Rules; Volunteerism |
Purpose:
Students will plan a service project for children in their community, celebrating respect through understanding diversity, selflessness and cooperation.
Duration:
Six Forty-Minute Class Periods One additional class period for the final reflection, evaluation and celebration does not have to be immediately following. You may need several days to tally responses and prepare for the Stone Soup preparation.
Objectives:
The learner will:
- plan an academic service-learning project to increase awareness of respect for others.
- design and conduct a survey to determine awareness of behaviors and rules.
- demonstrate math skills greater than 70% competency in graphing and interpreting data.
- develop cooperative behaviors for group dynamics.
- conduct on-going reflection.
- evaluate the service learning process.
- participate in a celebratory activity using Stone Soup.
Service Experience:
Although this lesson contains a service project example, decisions about service plans and implementation should be made by students, as age appropriate.
Learners will design and conduct a needs assessment survey evaluating awareness of the behaviors in Lesson Five: I Feel Angry or Sad When… They will select a service-learning project to improve student awareness of how these behaviors, if improved, would contribute to greater tolerance, respect and cooperation. By recreating the experience in Stone Soup, they will reflect on what they have learned throughout this unit about tolerance, cooperation and the common good.
Materials:
- Paper, markers and crayons (for invitations)
- Hand-made decorations
- Digital camera (for keepsake book)
- Food/paper products (for Stone Soup)
- Book titled, Stone Soup by Ann McGovern (see Bibliographical References)
- Attachment One: Different! Diverse! Dynamic! and Attachment Two: Sample Survey
- Handout 1
- Recipe
- Handout 2
- Sample Survey
Instructional Procedure(s):
Anticipatory Set:
Write the terms tolerance, respect and cooperation on the board. Review with learners the previous lessons in which they explored the words in terms of:
- Respect or tolerance for others who are learning challenged.
- Respect or tolerance for others in a diverse community.
- Respect for the common good when in the halls, gym, auditorium, going on field trips by observing school rules.
- Cooperating with others.
Discuss how each one's behavior can influence others in positive and negative ways.
Day One:
- Tell them that today they are going to hear a story about a group of people that treat others differently just because of where they were born.
- Read Stone Soup by Ann McGovern. Discuss the main problem in the book. Why did the villagers treat the soldiers poorly? How do you treat people who are different than you? Make references to “Leo” from Leo, the Late Bloomer and “Tricia“ from Thank you, Mr. Falker .
- Make a chart with three columns, one for each story, and have the learners write how each story deals with tolerance, respect and cooperation.
- Discuss the terms philanthropy and giving as they relate to tolerance, respect and cooperation.
- Discuss how we can bring about positive change in our school community by tolerating our differences and cooperating with each other.
- Talk about ways that we, as a community (class), can help bring about positive change in our community towards people that are different than ourselves.
Day Two: Planning the Academic Service-Learning Activity
Instructor Note: Contact one to two other teachers, obtaining permission for your class to conduct a needs survey.
The Needs Assessment: A sample is included as Attachment Two.
Review the scenario cards with the class from Lesson Five: I Feel Angry or Sad When… Ask the learners how they can use those cards to determine if other learners in the school believe there are problems relating to cooperation tolerance and respect in the school.
- Have the class determine:
- What they want to find out.
- How they want to inform others of their findings.
- How are they going to help correct the problems they discover?
- Develop a survey with the class.
- Discuss how the survey will be conducted and the behaviors they should demonstrate.
- Reflect on the day's activities by recording in a keepsake book: poem, picture, photo and words. Each student should make an entry each day.
Day Three:
Divide the learners into interview groups to conduct the needs survey. Give each group enough pencils and survey sheets for each learner to be surveyed from other classes. You may either have your learners go into the other class or have the other class come into your room.
- Conduct the needs survey. This should not take longer than 20 minutes.
- Guide the learners on the method you decide to tabulate the findings.
- Have the groups reassemble.
- Tabulate and rank order the findings from highest in concern to lowest.
- Report out the findings from the small groups.
- Create a graph representative of the total findings.
- Learners add to the reflection keepsake book.
Days Four and Five
- Summarize the findings with the class. Discuss estimating the findings, purpose and method of graphing; demonstrate pie, circle and bar graphs.
- Determine what the results mean to the school climate.
- Find out if there are any written school rules that apply to the behaviors.
- Based on their findings, ask the learners to plan an activity with the class(es) they surveyed to improve cooperation tolerance and respect for each other.
Examples may be:
- Write and perform skits for the other class(es)
- Video examples developed by class members of positive and negative behaviors portrayed by the class and then lead discussions with the other class on developing respect for rules and others.
- Write a school handbook based on improving school climate by tolerating differences and cooperation.
- Reflection: Each learner makes an entry in the keepsake book.
Day Six:
Planning the final reflection/evaluation and celebration
- Create letters of invitation for the “Celebrate Good Times/Stone Soup” culminating activity and mail them to the class(es) with whom you have partnered.
- Send letters of invitation to family memebers and the requests for donations to the Stone Soup recipe.
- Create decorations for the “Celebrate Good Times/Stone Soup” celebration (gear the difficulty of the decorations toward grade levels involved).
The recipe for stone soup calls for meat. By recognizing diversity issues, it is NOT necessary to include it in the recipe. As a point of discussing diversity when you and your students prepare the soup, you should discuss dietary laws, vegetarian and vegan diets as a matter of choice and practice.
- Prepare the soup.
- Share the class experiences throughout the unit. Have family members who attend join in the discussions with their children.
- Final entries into their memory books where they have been entering their reflections.
Assessment:
- Teacher observation of student behavior and participation during the preparation of the service project.
- Evaluate group participation.
- Quiz on math concepts
School/Home Connection:
Students will be asked to bring in an item to contribute to our "Celebtrate Good Times/Stone Soup" culminating celebration. This should be sent home in the form of a letter (See Attachment One: Different! Diverse! Dymanic!)
Bibliographical References:
McGovern, Ann. Stone Soup. Scholastic Trade Books, 1987. ISBN: 0590416022
Lesson Developed and Piloted by:
Amy Peters
Mona Shores Public Schools
Lincoln Park Elementary
Muskegon, MI 49441
Handouts:
Recipe
Dear Families,
Our classes have been learning about the differences among us. We have focused on dealing with those differences in a positive, selfless way. Together we have discussed various characters in literature that have dealt with “being different” and are learning techniques to handle diverse situations. We read three great stories about how children our ages learned to respect, be mindful about differences and cooperate. In one of our activities we discovered what we believe tolerance and respect look like, feel like and sound like. Your child will be eager to share the activity with you.
Your child helped plan an academic service-learning activity to encourage others to be cooperative and be better school citizens. One of our stories, Stone Soup, gave a great recipe for helping all of us become tolerant. We have invited our partner class(es) to help celebrate our successful academic service-learning activity. We would like you to come.
Our celebration is planned for ____________(time) on___________(date) in the ______________(where).
As part of our culminating activity we will be making Stone Soup, a representation of our differences blending together, and how cooperative behavior makes us successful people. In order for this project to be successful, we do need help from everyone. Please let us know if your child could bring the item that is checked to class on our party day.
Thank you!
_____ 1 cup chopped carrots
_____ 1 cup chopped celery
_____ 1 cup chopped onions
_____ 1 can of kernel corn
_____ 1 package of pasta
_____ 25 plastic or Styrofoam bowls
_____ 25 plastic spoons
_____ 1-package napkins
_____ 1 loaf of quick bread or package of rolls
_____ 1 small tub of soft butter or margarine
_____ 1 plastic container of apple juice (no drink boxes please)
_____ 1 package of cups
Sample Survey
Directions: Check the way you feel
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How do you feel about this: |
Really a problem |
A problem |
Not a problem |
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Kids take cut in line in the lunchroom |
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Behavior on the school bus |
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Getting to the water fountain when there is a line |
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Getting through the halls |
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Kids walking past our room |
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Listening to others when we are sharing thoughts |
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Others, making noise when the teacher gives directions |
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When two of us are talking, someone interrupts |
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Respecting visitors in the class |
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