My Story

Week 3Primary and Secondary Sources

100th Day Celebration- Children dressed as centenarians. They were so cute! It was such a jam-packed day. In the morning, I helped assess students on letter sounds for the and cvc words. After recess, I continued until lunchtime. I put together some pictures on a slide show, things from 1926 to compare with today's things, the night before, inspired by this week's readings in chapter 5. " Students of all ages enjoy looking at photographs, which are perfect for introducing young children to the concept of primary sources (Kopp, 2010)." There was no time to share it. Fortunately, in the cafeteria, I had a chance to play some music from 1926. It was super noisy, but they noticed it a bit.

We could have done a now-and-then lesson or compared now to when parents were in kindergarten. Kids could have explored by asking their parents and grandparents for mementos from the past. I assessed students and ran a station during the festivities. Another way to have made the past "alive" for the children could have been to visit the Littleton Historical Museum (dressed as 100-year-olds) to make a connection between the past and the present. I'd be interested in knowing what the children would answer if they were asked, "Why is it good to learn about old times (the past)?" Some of their answers and other questions could inspire more inquiry.

I recognized the 5Es I learned about last week in our current writing unit on opinion writing. My mentor teacher introduced the topic earlier in the week. She engaged the students by sharing with them that they had already shared opinions about things. She mentioned that opinions were not right or wrong. She reminded them of the time they had given opinions before, like when they had chosen a veteran to color and write about for Veterans' Day. She gave a few other examples. To explore, she had the children select one of two choices that were presented on a slide. The choices were made by the students moving to the left or right side of the room to indicate their choice.

"Once students have built some background knowledge and have been informally introduced to words, it's time to teach key words and concepts (Kopp, 2010)." Ms. V explained that the children could say the word prefer to indicate a choice between two things. Thereafter, they needed to use the starter "I prefer_____." Three students at a time were chosen to tell what they had selected. This was beneficial for the students to learn that "academic" language. It also gave the shy and MLL students multiple times to hear how to form the sentence before their turn came. In this manner, Mrs. V also had the chance to formatively evaluate if the students were comprehending the objective of the lesson. The students were given the task to write their choice of item to complete I prefer sentences on a worksheet that was identical to the one presented during the activity.

The following day, the students were engaged by talking about the Broncos' playoff loss. She chose it since one student had told her something about it before. She also checked to see if the kids remembered that opinions were neither right nor
wrong. This time, the students needed to give a reason for their choice by adding the word because to elaborate. She modelled it and then chose willing students to tell their choices. Some of the children seemed to be a bit unfocused, so she had them do a pair, share to find out what each other's opinions were. The next round of formative evaluations involved having the students tell what their partner preferred and the reason why. It's nice to notice the 5Es beyond Social Studies and Science!

Angela