Autumn and Mindy

Article Used:  Davis, J.D.  (2003).  Identifying with ancestors:  Tracking the history of America.  Social Studies and the Young Learner, 16(2), 13-16. 

The Big Picture (overview of the whole unit):

• Letter is sent home to parents explaining to them that the students will be exploring and sharing about their ancestry.  Parent participation is much needed.  (NOTE:  take into consideration adopted children and children living in a foster home).
• Students learn how to conduct an interview and they will interview parents about their lives.
• During small group discussion, point out commonalities, as well as, the uniqueness of each life.
• Explore the lives of family members beyond parents (i.e. grandparents, great grandparents, etc).
• Do this through interviews and exploring primary and secondary information (i.e. artifacts, wedding certificates, birth announcements, etc.).
• To make project more manageable, the students could research one side of their family or only go back several generations.
• Students draw a family tree
• Put a map on the wall have students place a picture of themselves on their family’s country of origin.  If a lot of children came from one place then the students could put their initials on the map and have a key with all the pictures next to map.

Title:  “What happened next?”

Grade:  3^rd - 4^th

Subject:  Social Studies

Content Area: Society, history, family

EALR’s: 1.1 Understand and analyze historical time and chronology

1.1.1a Group personal, local, state, and national events in terms of past, present, and future, and place in proper sequence on a timeline.

Unit Goal: 

·        Children arrive at an objective yet personal understanding of history, culture, and society.  They will discover themselves to be both historical and cultural beings.

·        The past will gather meaning for the children as they explore their own particular ancestry through the use of genealogical research.

Key Concepts:  Timeline, order of events, sequencing

Learning Target: Comprehension: Order and group

Lesson Objective:  Given a teacher led demonstration of how to construct a timeline swbat construct two timelines on their life.

Rationale:  The purpose of this lesson is for students to be able to construct a timeline as a means to show an order of events.  Most children at this age can tell a story and they understand a sequence of events (i.e. socks on before shoes) but now they need to be able to create a visual representation of an order of events.  Seeing the events on the timeline makes it easier to visualize and understand the order of events, especially when there are several dates and events.

Accommodations:

1.      In completing this unit, students coming from foster families or adopted children may research the life of a famous person’s family instead of their own.  If the family prefers.

2.      Students that truly struggle with sequencing the dates could either 1) number the dates and then have assistance either from the teacher or a peer in placing the dates on the actual number line or 2) they could have the dates down on the paper and have students match cut-outs of those dates to the correct date on the number line.

3.      Students that have limited fine motor skills could number the events in order and then, very specifically, could tell another student how they wanted them displayed on the timeline.  The student could also use a computer to complete the assignment.

4.      The teacher needs to be sensitive to the fact that, possibly, some of the students are not accustom to reading and writing left to right.

Pre Assessment:  For the pre assessment the students were given a piece of paper with 5 events (with their dates) that the students were familiar with and told to construct a timeline.  From these instructions some students numbered the events in a correct order.  Some of them listed the events in order vertically.  And only a few students listed the events horizontally, left to right, but did not space them accurately.  From this information I decided to do a lesson on constructing a timeline before we construct our large classroom one to go on the wall.

Intro.: 

1. (10 seconds) “Today we are going to be working on sequencing events.  Can anyone tell me what it means to sequence events?” (From the pre assessment, is seems as though the students don’t know what it means.  They might have a general idea but in the end the teacher will show them examples and non examples of sequencing and the students will arrive at the definition).
2. (3 minutes) Call on 3 students to share
3. (5-10 minutes) Show students several examples and non-examples of sequencing (i.e. abcd NOT cbda, first your socks then your shoes NOT shoes then your socks, first you buy food then you make it then you eat it NOT make it then buy it then eat it).  The students should arrive at a definition of:  sequencing is when you put events or things in the right order (or something close to that).
4. (20-30 seconds) Put the class definition up on the board

Procedure:

5. (2 minutes) “Sometimes when people sequence events they will put them on a timeline as a way to display the events visually.  A time line is a line that runs left to right (draw this on the board).  I am going to show you how to do this then you will each try it on your own.”
6. (10 minutes) Have the students watch as you now take a list of 5 events that that the students are familiar with and move them from being a list on an overhead to being on a large timeline on the board.  Emphasize the importance of putting them left to right (the order we read) and spacing them according to how much time has gone by between them.  To help keep students engaged during this time the teacher could call on students to come up to the board and put, or help put, the events in order.
7. (4 minutes) When done, ask for 2 students to summarize the steps you took to do this.
8. (1-5 minutes) Ask if there are any questions
9. (5 minutes) “Now I am going to hand out a list to each one of you.  The list has 5 events on it just like my overhead had but they are different events.  I want each one of you to silently work on putting them in order.  Remember when we sequence events on a time line we put the events left to right and space them according to how much time has gone by between them.”  (NOTE:  these lists could be comprised of a classroom schedule, holidays, or events in history that the students are familiar with).  During this time the students will take their piece of paper that the events are on, decide on the order they should go in, and then rewrite the events, on a longer piece of paper on a timeline that they construct.
10.  (10 minutes) the students silently work for 10 minutes.  The teacher goes around and checks on students work.  If preventable do not give any suggestions or feedback.
11.   (3 minutes) When students are done, or close to done, instruct them that they have 2 minutes to work with their history buddy and compare timelines and to give each other feedback.  If they think they need to make any changes they need to do it in a different color.
12.   (5-10 minutes) At the end of this time call on several groups to share what their timeline looks like (if the classroom has an ELMO or other means for displaying the timelines on a projection resource it can be projected from that).
13.   (1-15 minutes depending on the degree of confusion) As a class discuss any differences that were seen.  If there are discrepancies between the timelines then the teacher might need to do another example, show more examples and non examples, or give the students more time to practice.  At this point it is important to not go on unless the students are understanding the steps in making a timeline. 
14. (10 minutes) After the discussion, if the students are ready to move on give them another list of events but now there is 8 items on it and have them, on their own, make a timeline.  This list is a bit longer which maybe more challenging but the items are all things that the students are familiar with.  Again, during this time the students will take their piece of paper that the events are on, decide on the order they should go in, and then rewrite the events, on a longer piece of paper on a timeline that they construct.

Closure:

15.   (2 minutes) When finished the students are to turn in their first timeline stapled to their second.
16.   Once all of the timelines have been turned in tell the students that tomorrow they are to bring 7 events, with the dates, from their lives written down.  Tell them that we are going to continue practicing making timelines and doing a whole class project with them.  Explain to them that this is building up to a very big exciting project that will go with our genealogical research.

Formative Assessment:  Students are evaluated on their ability to sequence the events in order from left to right and to be able to space them according to how much time went by between the events.

Summative Assessment:  This lesson is leading up to when students will work with their parents/guardians to create a timeline of their families past.  The students will make a huge timeline in the classroom with all of the families intermixing.  The timeline will have dates and events on it as well as artifacts underneath it with a date and caption about it. 

Homework:  Students are to bring 7 events, with the dates, from their lives written down to class tomorrow.  We will be doing a whole class project with these to help crystallize how to make a timeline and what they are used for.

Future Lessons:

1. Family timeline
2. Family tree
3. Time line of when the class’s families came to the United States
4. Map of where families came from