Cultures Come Together: When My Family Came to America
My students need books that will capture their interest and help them learn more about American history and development while also investigating their own family history.
My goal for my students is to help them discover the magic that they can find inside a great book. I have been developing literature units that use Science or Social Studies objectives that will capture my students' imaginations and inspire them to investigate some of these big ideas further.
About a third of my students have at least one parent in the military.
Approximately 40% of the students at our school receive free or reduced lunch. Our school has adopted the Common Core curriculum and in the past two years each grade level has been required to develop two science or social studies project based units of study. Participating in the research and creating a project has really captured the students' interest.Students have been engaged in the research process as we learned how to use nonfiction text features to find important information.We have practiced finding the main idea and then identifying details in the text to support that idea. These are important skills that students will be using the rest of their lives.Students have also taken pride as they created their selected project and presented the project to the rest of the class. It has been very satisfying to see my young students gain confidence and pride as they have learned how to set a goal and accomplish it.
My Project
These materials will not just be used by the students in my class but will be used by all 120 students in the second grade at Rockfish Hoke Elementary School. The materials will be circulated in a unit format so that each of the second grade classes will have the opportunity to participate in an in-depth exploration of the topic of immigration and American history and will then be able to create an assessment project. I have requested a class set of many of the books needed for this project so that students can work both independently and with a partner. We will be reading each class set of books chorally in a large group format. Students will then be assigned a reading buddy with whom they will reread the selection and then work together to answer comprehension questions, organize important information, and complete teacher designed graphic organizers using information from the text. Additional research activities will also be done in leveled small group sessions with the teacher.
Your donation to this project will enable our second grade team to implement the unit.
We will explore the varied motives and goals of different cultures and their contributions to our country's development. We will research several symbols of our country like the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Students will also investigate the different cultures that form their own families. Our goal is to help students understand how their families, like our country, blend diverse cultures harmoniously.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Nunley and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.