Week 2 : January 22nd - January 25th

This past week, the students in the 1st grade classroom where I am completing my practicum continued their unit on “Families Near and Far”. The inquiry question of this unit is: How can we bring families together to form stronger communities? Through each module and sub-less, students explore this idea through a different lens to help them further understand the inquiry question of the unit. 

This week, we are in module 5 and students explored the question of “What does diversity bring to our communities?” Through this module's content, students explore how our differences- in terms of family structures, traditions, cultures, and backgrounds- add value to our communities. 

Hence, in the lesson I had the opportunity to teach this week, ‘what diversity brings to our communities’ was the compelling question that we were focusing on to help students further understand the focus of this unit. 

To start the lesson, students were shown different types of bread around the world (baguettes, challah, tortillas, pupusas, etc). When they were shown each picture, they were asked to share what they saw and what they wondered about each photo of the breads shown. When the picture of the tortillas came on the screen, many of the students wanted to share about their experiences either eating or making tortillas with their families. Activating students' background knowledge on the subject helps keep them engaged through the learning process and start inquiring about the guiding question for the lesson (The National Council for the Social Studies, 2013). I took this moment as an opportunity to guide students to further think about the compelling question for today’s lesson by explaining that I have never made tortillas before and that they could teach me how to make them. Students were excited by the idea of teaching me how to make tortillas, and I followed-up this remark by explaining that this was a difference that we had with one another and that teaching me how to make tortillas and introducing me to new foods helps make our community stronger. 

After engaging students with this exercise, we read a book called Everybody Bakes Bread by Norah Dooley.  It was about a little girl on a rainy day who was sent out by her mother to ask neighbors for a 3-handed rolling pin. On her journey, she went to multiple neighbors homes where they were all cooking breads that were representative of their cultural backgrounds. She had the opportunity to try many different breads and learn more about her neighbors, their cultures, and how their differences brought them closer together to create a strong community. As stated in this week's readings, picture books are a good tool to introduce students to new concepts and build their background knowledge- and, reading students this book did just that (Kopp, 2017).  

After reading the story, we discussed the book and talked about how the families were similar and different. Then, to continue to guide students into understanding the compelling question of the lesson, students were asked how diversity made the community stronger for the little girl in the book. Many students were willing to share their ideas and explain how what they heard in the story related back to how diversity makes communities stronger. 

Then, students had the opportunity to discuss with a partner a time where they tried something new in their communities- whether that be new food, music, game, or clothing. After discussing with a partner and sharing aloud their ideas with the class, students had the opportunity to draw a picture or write a sentence about a time where they had tried something new within their community. Due to time constraints, many students did not have time to finish this portion of the lesson; so, pictures are not included in this blog post- but a copy of what students filled out is included.

After students had the opportunity to participate in this formative assessment, we came back together and discussed what the story showed about things we can do when we have differences. Students had some interesting thoughts: 

• Student A: people can learn from each other

• Student B: We can try new things 

• Student C: We can share and play with each other

• Student D: I can teach Ms. Hannah how to make tortillas 

To close out the lesson, students were asked the compelling question that they were initially introduced to: “what does diversity bring to our communities?”. Students had the opportunity to share with their partners again, so they could learn from one another. As they discussed, I circulated the room to hear their ideas and check for their understanding of the subject matter. I used this turn and talk opportunity as the formative assessment for this lesson.

Overall, this lesson followed an inquiry-based lens. Students were coming up with the main ideas themselves rather than being lectured to and using hands-on experiences (reading the book) to further understand the concept. After reading the book and discussing, students further engaged in the compelling question by relating it back to their personal lives and activating their previous knowledge on the subject to answer the supporting questions and compelling questions. I am excited to continue teaching this curriculum and seeing inquiry based learning in action.