FIRST GRADE
WENDY OLSEN
BRANDY BOURNE
FIRST GRADE
WENDY OLSEN
BRANDY BOURNE
My Family
The students will understand that there are many types of families.
The students will understand that families provide us with basic needs.
The students will understand that family structure, ideals, and traditions vary according to culture.
What is a family? A family is the people who love and care for you. They don’t necessarily have to be the people you live with. There are many different types of families. The nuclear family consists of a mother, a father, and children. A family made up of stepparents and/or stepchildren is called a blended family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins make up an extended family. Sometimes some of these family members live together. The single-parent family includes one parent, either a mom or a dad, and the children. Other children live with their adoptive parents, rather than their birth parents. Every family is unique!
Our families help take care of us by providing us with some basic needs. These needs include physical things such as shelter, food, and clothing. Families also fulfill our emotional needs by giving us love, care, and security.
Families around the world have different ideals and traditions. Students may celebrate different holidays or the same holidays in different ways. These differences may come from their ethnic background, religious beliefs, or other personal reasons. It is important to make students aware of a variety of ways families celebrate in our world today. Make plans to research and teach about the different traditions that are specific to your students.
Every family is different. As you teach this unit, be aware of these differences and the emotional ties to the subject. Be considerate of your individual students and their unique situations.
FAMILY TREES
Materials: book- Family Tree by Pierre Coran, paper with tree on it, construction paper, scissors, glue, markers, pencils
Time: 30-40 minutes
Discuss family relationships with the children and how they can be shown with a chart called a family tree. Read the book Family Tree and refer back often to the family tree in the book as you read the story. Allow the students to make family trees by drawing on their own or using the materials the teacher has provided. Allow them to use names of their own family or to just use terms such as mother, father, etc.
MEET ME FAMILY
Materials: paper, pencils, crayons, camera
Time: 20 minutes
Children draw pictures of their families. Or, take an instant photo of each child and have him draw his family around it. Hang them up on a bulletin board.
MY FAMILY MOBILE
Materials: paper, crayons, scissors, hanger, paper punch, string
Time: 30-45 minutes
Children draw pictures of each family member. Cut out each one. Paper punch a hole in the top of each picture. Tie a string to this hole and attach to hanger. Display mobiles around the room.
FAMILY ROLES
Materials: Paper, crayons
Time: 30 minutes
Discuss who makes up a family and different roles these members can have. Each child chooses one family member and draws a picture of them. Add words or sentences that describe that person and their role in the family. Share the drawings with the class.
FAMILIES AROUND THE WORLD
Materials: World map, globe, pictures of families throughout the world
Time: 20 minutes
Show pictures of families throughout the world. Talk about what each family is doing. Ask students if their families do any of the same things. Use a globe or map to locate countries where these families live. Divide students into small groups and have them sort, then group their photos. (Ex: activity, place, family members shown.) Each group draws or writes how they sorted the photos. They might also want to write simple captions for each picture. Display photos on a "Family Groups Photo Wall."
SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
Materials: paper, crayons, pencils
Time: 30 minutes
Children plan and make a chart showing ways families are similar and different. Each child folds a paper in half (hotdog style) to make to columns. In one column, children write ways that families are the same. In the other column, children illustrate ways families are different. (Ex: Write- Families live in homes. Draw- different types of homes people live in; Write- Families eat food. Draw- food eaten in different countries.)
SAME WORDS/DIFFERENT LANGUAGES
Materials: Banner paper, markers
Time: 20 minutes
Ask children what families say to each other to show they care. Teach children ways to say "I love you" in different languages. Ex: Te Amo in Spanish, Je T’aime in French, Ninikupenda (nee-na-koo-pen-da) in Swahili. Locate these places on a map or globe. Have children make banners of these sayings.
GUEST SPEAKER- LOCAL OR SCHOOL COUNSELOR
Materials: speaker and any materials they may need for their lesson
Time: 20-30 minutes
Invite a local or school counselor to speak to the children about different kinds of families. Ask him or her to discuss the differences and similarities among traditional, nuclear families, single parent families, foster families, step families, etc. Ask them to stress that families come in many shapes and sizes. Encourage children to ask questions and participate in the discussion.
ALL ABOUT FAMILIES
Materials: chart paper, photographs, marker
Time: 20 minutes
Share photographs of families which show diversity in size, race, and different roles. Ask children to describe the families. Write responses on a chart paper. (Ex: Some families are big. Some families are small. Families love. Families play.) Add and refer to this list throughout the unit.
FAMILIES HELP MEET OUR NEEDS
Materials: Patterns of houses and construction paper for each child, magazines, scissors, crayons, and glue
Time: 30-40 minutes
Discuss with the children that we depend on our families to meet our needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. Define needs as things we must have to be healthy and safe. Discuss some of the basic needs of families. Allow the children to make pop-up books of the needs their families provide them with. They can each use a pattern of a home (or make their own) and draw members of their family in the window for one side of the book. Then they can draw or cut out pictures of food, clothing, furniture, etc. and paste them as pop-outs on the bottom half of their book.
HOMES AROUND THE WORLD
Materials: pictures of homes around the world, fiction and nonfiction books about shelters groups are researching, paper, pencils
Time: This activity would need to be done over several days-possibly a week (approx. 3-4 hours)
Discuss with the students the different kinds of homes families can live in. Talk about a few different kinds of homes within our culture such as apartments, mobile homes, cabins, etc. Then discuss with children how homes vary around the world depending on the culture and climate of where people live and the available natural resources. Show some pictures of different homes around the world. Come up with a list of different homes around the world with the class. Allow the children to divide into small groups of about four or five and research a particular home such as Arctic shelters, adobe homes, log cabins, etc. by looking at different books in the classroom and school library. Have the children present their research in the form of a story: what would it be like for a child their age to live in this particular shelter?
HOMELESSNESS
Materials: Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting, materials children donate
Time: 30 minutes for discussion and 1-2 hours or longer to go on field trip depending on how close the shelter is to the school
Read the book Fly Away Home to the children. This story is about a boy and his father who are homeless and live in an airport. Help the students understand how entire families can be without homes, but they are normal people too. Talk about ways we can help those who are homeless. Have the students bring in their own old clothes and old toys (or even some of their new ones) and then take a trip to a local homeless shelter if there is one available.
NEEDS WORD WEB
Materials: none
Time: 20 minutes
Remind children that people everywhere have needs. Write the words Needs in a circle in the center of the board. Together, name the four basic needs: food, shelter, clothing, and love. Take one need at a time and have the class add related words to the web.
THANKSGIVING: A FAMILY HOLIDAY
Materials: tape of song, words written on chart paper, pictures of first Thanksgiving
Time: 30 minutes
Talk to the children about the first Thanksgiving and show them some pictures of it. Also talk about how families today may or may not celebrate Thanksgiving and celebrate it in different ways. Introduce the song "Over the River and Through the Woods" to the children. Teach them the words to the song and sing it. Invite the children to share songs or customs their family does at Thanksgiving time (give them advance notice on this so they can talk to their parents about it) and list them on the board. Discuss how we all celebrate in many, different ways.
BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS
Materials: Pablo’s Tree, pencils, crayons, paper
Time: 30-40 minutes
Source: My World Hartcourt Brace & Company Teacher’s Edition Textbook Grade Level 1
Read Pablo’s Tree by Pat Mora to the class. This book talks about a Mexican-American boy who looks forward to seeing the way his grandfather decorates the tree that was planted on the day he was adopted. Ask the students to share any birthday traditions they might celebrate in their families. (Let the children and parents know about this in advance so they will have time to think of these traditions.) Have each child draw or write about a birthday tradition they have. Then put them together in a class book.
FAMILY CELEBRATIONS
Materials: pictures of families celebrating different holidays, speaker, different artifacts used in different family celebrations
Time: 30-40 minutes
Discuss with the children the different reasons families do (and do not) celebrate. Talk about some of the different celebrations different cultures have and why they celebrate them. Provide pictures for the children to see this. Invite students of a different culture or someone you know to do a small presentation on a holiday they celebrate such as Chinese New Year, Kwanza, Cinco de Mayo, etc. Help the students to recognize and accept the different ways families celebrate.
TRADITIONS
Materials: paper, crayons, pencils, objects from home
Time: 30 minutes
Have children write or draw about a favorite family tradition. Invite children to bring an object from home which represents a family tradition. Children can present the object and tell about their tradition.
FLOWER GARDEN
Materials: Flower Garden by Eve Bunting, chart paper, marker
Time: 20-30 minutes
Source: My World Hartcourt Brace & Company Teacher’s Edition Textbook Grade Level 1
Read the story Flower Garden to the children. Discuss with the children how families love and care for one another. Also discuss how families change. Make a word web with the word "change." Add to it as you talk about changes in the book such as birthdays and how families and children grow and change such as new babies, moving, new jobs, divorce, death, marriages, etc.
MAKING A GARDEN
Materials: flower seeds (marigold, chrysanthemum, etc.) soil, containers, such as those used for packing mushrooms, and water pitchers
Time: 20 minutes
Allow the children to make their own little flower gardens like the one in Flower Garden. Give each child a container to fill with soil and then help them put holes in the dirt and plant the seeds. Discuss with the students how they need to care for their garden. Discuss how taking care of a garden is like taking care of a family and helping it grow and change. Let children take the box garden home to surprise family members.
CHANGING FAMILIES
Materials: paper, pencils, "change" word web
Time: 20-30 minutes
Discuss with the children how every family changes. Bring out the word web they did earlier about changes within families. Ask them to think of a time of change within their own family. Ask them to record the event and their feelings by drawing or writing and then sharing it with their family.
GRANDPARENT VISITORS
Materials: grandparents, tables for items they may bring
Time: 30 minutes
Invite several grandparents into the classroom to talk about what they remember most when they were a parent with young children. Have them point out some of the changes they have seen over the years in families and the way children are cared for. Ask them to bring any items they have saved from their own childhood.
FAMILIES NOW AND THEN
Materials: old pictures of families from books, photographs the teacher or children bring in, paper, pencils, crayons
Time: 30-40 minutes
Provide the children with pictures of families from long ago and allow the students to bring in old photos of grandparents and great-grandparents. Allow them to explore the pictures and think about comparing them to their own lives using the words then and now. Have the children create their own story or drawing about things families might have done together in the past. Emphasize that although families were different long ago, they still provided the basic needs for one another.
OWNER STICKS
Materials: two sticks for each child (one about the length of a child’s body and the other the length of their outstretched arms), drawing paper, construction paper, magazines, scissors, glue, and other assorted materials (such as dyed macaroni, clays, empty milk cartons, beads)
Time: 60-70 minutes
Source: My World Hartcourt Brace & Company Teacher’s Edition Textbook Grade Level 1
The children will each make their own sticks that the early Americans used to make to tell about themselves and their families. The teacher will first explain how the early Americans used to use their sticks, then the students will make their own. They will cross the sticks and lash them together with yarn. Then they will draw pictures or make up objects that show something about themselves or their family, and then attach these to their sticks. The children share a part or a couple of parts of their stick with the class. Then the teacher helps the students draw conclusions about families.
CLASS BOOK
Materials: magazines, construction paper, writing paper, scissors, glue, crayons or markers
Time: 60 minutes
Have the children work in small groups to make a "Good Times" book about families having fun together. Have them write or dictate a story about their family. They can use pictures from home of their families or out of magazines to illustrate the book. Have the children record their stories on a tape recorder. Display the books in the classroom library and invite the children to listen to the tapes as they follow along.
FAMILY TRADITIONS
Materials: tables, whatever else the students need depending on the family tradition they are going to share
Time 60 minutes for actual day ( will take more time to plan in and out of class)
Have the children research their own family traditions. Suggest that they ask their parents and grandparents to describe holiday customs that have been passed down in their family for generations. They could be recipes, holiday decorations, storytelling, songs, dances, etc. Invite each child to bring something that represents its family to the "Family Traditions" day. They can set up their items around the room and family members and other members of the school can be invited to come and hear about the different family traditions of the children.
"MY FAMILY" BOOK
Materials: Unit portfolio, paper, crayons and markers, yarn or book stapler
Time: 45 minutes
Have the class recall activities they have completed about their families. Give children their portfolios of "family" work they have done throughtout the unit, and ask them to choose their favorite drawing or writing. This will be their first page in the "My Family" book. Have children select other pages to put in the book. Give each child a piece of paper for the final page in the book. Children can draw pictures and write about how they care for and love their families. When finished, have them make a cover for the book. Bind book together with staples, yarn, etc. Have children share their books with classmates and display them in the classroom before they are taken home to their families.
MY FAMILY DAY
Materials: Vary according to what students plan to do, refreshments (vary according to students’ plans)
Time: 1 1/2 hours
Children invite family members to school and introduce them to their classmates. Make invitations and let children decorate and personalize them. With children, plan activities that will take place during the family members’ visit.
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http://familyeducation.com/k12/student
http://www.bcsd.k12.ca.us/fremont/h5mayo.htm
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/SSFamiliesDiagrams12.htm
http://www.surweb.org/search/collections_classroom.asp
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