This week in our first-grade classrooms I was able to continue participating and observing teaching about notable Americans. This week we wrote about Rosa Parks and learned about Jackie Robinson.
We took our learning and notes about Rosa Parks from last week and did some informational writing about Rosa Parks during our writing block. I love when teaching crosses curriculums, the learning feels so much deeper! Kathleen Kopp explains this well, she said "when students write to explain something they've learned, they often ask questions and reread texts to clarify ideas because they need full understanding about the subject before they can teach it to someone else" (Kopp, 2017, p.84).
A couple strategies we used during writing included helping the students brainstorm with an idea web and also scaffolding a support for my ELL student with a direct copy from a whiteboard. The student had to come up with the sentence and help me spell the decodable words but then was able to copy the full sentence to their paper. Writing time often feels overwhelming to this student and this was a good support. The classroom teacher also showcased some exemplary writing for the class on the smart board.
This is a student sample that is a good example of an on-level first grader. They do a good job with most writing conventions. Most sight words and decodable words were spelled correctly, and they did a great job recounting some informative facts!
During the Social Studies block this week I was able to help teach about Jackie Robinson. First, we showed a BrainPop about Jackie Robinson. We then began to fill out our note catcher. I had a student who writes well filling out their note catcher under the document camera as I wrote on a large note catcher on the board so students could look at either source for reference.
Wednesday I was able to read I am Jackie Robinson by Brad Meltzer to two of our classes. The kids were so captivated! The books in Brad Meltzer's I am series are so good; I highly recommend them! They bring to life the events and voices of these historical figure's lives. I love the discussion that can come out of reading these books as well. Kathleen Kopp talks about asking the "who, what, when, and where questions about the content, which are important questions for students at the primary grade levels." However, she also says that, "Teachers must move beyond these questions, also asking 'why is this important to learn?' or 'what is the significance of this information?'" (Kopp, 2017, p.115). It was easy to incorporate this deeper line of questioning after reading this book. The student's answers were amazing!
The following day we completed our note catchers and worked on our timelines of Jackie Robinson's life events.
Due to our reading this week I asked if we could show the students some actual photographs of Jackie Robinson as well as watch a few videos of him playing baseball. Kathleen Kopp says, "students of all ages enjoy looking at photographs, which are perfect for introducing very young children to the concept of primary sources" (Kopp, 2017, p.90). These photos and videos helped the students understand that Jackie Robinson was a real person. They loved seeing the videos of him playing baseball, it really brought his story to life for the students.
This week each shared Science/SS block was taken up with learning about notable American's, but I am excited to begin our science unit on animals this next week!
References
Kopp, K. (2017). Teaching Social Studies Today (2nd ed.). Shell Education.
Jess- how wonderful that you are getting so many opportunities to teach lessons! I think you did a nice job of relating our readings with what's happening in the classroom. I'll probably say it often, but reading/seeing examples of theory played-out in the classroom is really helping my learning. So, thank you.
ReplyDeleteIn first grade, what are some of the other strategies used for ELL students? Sounds like a very supportive strategy-one I didn't know about.
I like what you said about how primary sources, and in the case of your class, Jackie Robison became more real to the students once they saw pictures and videos of him. Learning about history can be difficult when the delivered information only relies on a list of facts.
Thank you for sharing what's happening in 1st grade! All that writing is impressive! The note catchers are fantastic as well!
Great questions about ELL strategies Anna, thanks for asking! Our student does get 1:1 support from an ESL teacher twice a week for a small block, but outside of this, some of the strategies we use include small group instruction for writing and literacy, using a whiteboard or highlighter to "boost" this student when a lesson is writing-heavy. He can direct copy from a small white board or trace over highlighter. When either of these strategies are used, we always ask the student to read back his own writing to check for understanding so it isn't just mindless copying.
DeleteThis student also benefits from pre-written or printed sentence stems and sentence frames, especially during writing and literacy. This student sees the school literacy specialist during our "Targeted Instruction in Literacy" block and receives small group phonemic awareness instruction where it's very noticeable if he is participating and it is easy to hear and correct when a mistake is made.
I often wonder what more we can do for him, but I am glad we have these scaffolds in place for now, they definitely help.
Hey Jess!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like such a meaningful week in the classroom! I love how the social studies and writing are being integrated together. The students must be learning so much by connecting their writing to the important figures like Rosa Parks and Jackie Robinson. It’s great to hear how the students are asking deep questions and engaging with the material. The use of BrainPOP and books like I am Jackie Robinson really seems to spark their curiosity and keep the young first graders engagement.
Another thing that I really appreciate is the scaffolding for the young ELL students, specifically the ability to truly build their knowledge on Jackie Robinson through BrainPOP, note catchers, timelines of the person's life. I think all of these activities are build a lot of knowledge for all students and providing supports to those who need that extra support.
Something I wonder or want to ask is do you think the use of multimedia like BrainPop videos and photographs of Jackie Robinson influenced students’ understanding of his significance? Did you notice any difference in how engaged they were when visual materials were included?
Another thing I wonder is how the scaffolding impacted the ELLs and was wondering how effective it was for them?
Overall, I really enjoy all the pictures and time that it seems like you get in the classroom! I wish I could get in them more with my job and in person classes!