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"Reach for the Sky" by Allison Stoutland  

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"Reach for the Sky" by Allison Stoutland  

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While this text is older, it still focuses on the simple occurrences of daily life. It describes how we have the tools to become responsible citizens, cooperative classmates, dedicated students, trustworthy friends and compassionate human beings. This book would serve well as an introduction into the concept of culture and diversity.

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I see... I think... I wonder... Activity with a Primary Source Picture 

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I see... I think... I wonder... Activity with a Primary Source Picture 

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This site gave me the idea of how to include a primary source of a picture into a lessons. The students have the options between all different kinds of pictures to choose from that relate to the topic we will discuss and they will complete a chart about the picture. Students will try and find someone who they think has a similar primary source. They will sit down with them to compare and contrast the photos.
http://flamingofabulous.blogspot.com/2013/06/using-primary-sources.html

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I have to preface this post by saying that my ESOL teacher, Anna, is FABULOUS and I will dearly miss her when I move to my new school. She doesn't just pull my students for reading groups or pop-in and stand around when she is in the classroom. She knows what it means to collaborate and team-teach, and she makes my job so much easier. Last year she taught my entire social studies and science curriculum because she was my class coverage during that time so I could do one-on-one with my Literacy Lessons students.

This post is one of her fabulous lessons. I did NOTHING but stand around and take pictures.

OK. With that disclaimer out of the way - ONWARD!

Primary sources.

Do you use them?

Because you should.

Like tomorrow.

Remember my post about the RAN student-led research? If not go read up. I'll wait for you here... Done? Well, the best part of the RAN lesson was that it free'd me up to go deeper with the learning on Abraham Lincoln. That's exactly what we did today.

Anna searched for and printed some great primary sources for Abraham Lincoln. She put one on each student's desk and invited the kids to circulate around the room investigating these images. We have done activities with primary sources before so all she had to do was remind them to look at them as a historian would.

After they had a few minutes to check out each picture, Anna asked each student to sit down at the desk of a picture that really interested them. It was a bit like musical chairs. If the seat is taken, find another picture. I was surprised that there was no fighting, arguing, or squabbling over who got which photo. When everyone had their own primary source, they were asked to take notes using these three prompts:

After everyone has at least one statement in each column, phase 3 can commence. The students were now asked to find someone who they thought had a similar primary source, sit down with them, and compare and contrast their images. I took this video of two students telling me about what they had discovered. I think I had my finger covering the microphone in the middle so the sound is a little muffled.

She kept comparing the pictures to wedding photos because they discovered that the people in her photo were also in the large group in his photo. They were convinced that the photos were taken on the same day. She said it was like when the photographer at a wedding takes group photos and then photos of smaller groups of important people. Smart cookie!

We ran out of time, but in an ideal world each pair would then find another pair with a similar set of photos and discuss. I can't wait to show you what we are working on for Friday afternoon.... Let's just say these kids are a bit too young to start growing their own facial hair so we are speeding the process up! Confused? You should be...lol.

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I have to preface this post by saying that my ESOL teacher, Anna, is FABULOUS and I will dearly miss her when I move to my new school. She doesn't just pull my students for reading groups or pop-in and stand around when she is in the classroom.

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When students are researching a culture they choose, they can use this interactive map to see where what issues the country where their culture resides. This can give students a better idea of why their country/culture does certain things and has certain beliefs. It will also be important for students to put an image of their country on their final project to show where their culture resides.

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This is a set of pictures from the Library of Congress that shows cultural images of all over the world. After each image is the description along with the time period of the image, language associated with the image, and also other links with more information. This will be useful to students to show they how images can be very powerful and lead to better understanding a culture and their ways.

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Variety of Culture Resources for Student to Research the Culture of their choice

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Variety of Culture Resources for Student to Research the Culture of their choice

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This site includes a variety of different of collections from students to choose from when researching about their chosen culture. For example, African Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, Hispanics, Jewish Americans, Native Americans, Immigration, Holidays, and World History & Culture are the different resources that are available for students to review.

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Culture Resources - TPS-Barat Primary Source Nexus

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African Americans Asian Pacific Americans Hispanics Jewish American Native Americans Immigration Holidays World History & Culture

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This lesson introduces students to culture, cultural diversity, and being cultural responsive to the world around them. This teaches students to be respect of others culture and gain deeper understand of what it is like to be in someone else's shoes.

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A Ticket Around the World by Natalia Diaz and Melissa Owens 

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A Ticket Around the World by Natalia Diaz and Melissa Owens 

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This informational picture book brings engaging nonfiction content through a fiction book to younger readers by showing them how other children just like them live around the world. Playful, realistic illustrations done with stylized realism lend warmth and whimsy to the book, making each locale feel welcoming. The format makes it easy to spot similarities and differences between countries. This is a great resource for going over culture around the world to introduce a lesson and to show students geographical locations of the countries in the book.

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With in this website students can research the culture of their choice and get different information. Such as they could look up recipes of the food from their culture, students can see how technology affects culture, see what Mongolian culture is like, and much more. This resource if for the students to use the computers, laptops, or tablets to find out more about their culture they choose to research.

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This website has many different resources embedded into it! It goes through different activities a teacher can use to go over cultures around the world, literature to read to the students or have available to the students to reference, recipes, geography of different cultures, and about holidays from around the world. This is a great one stop spot for students and teachers to look into getting more information about cultures from around the world.

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The Last Stop for Around the World Resources! - teachmejoy.com

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This will be your last stop for Around the World Resources! Find links and resources for country studies, recipes, geography & other cultural fun!

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This secondary source is specifically about Canada's culture. If a student wants to learn more about the Canadians, their traditions, beliefs, and more this would be the place for them to look!

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Our kid-friendly Canada profile page includes a detailed country map, infographic, photo gallery, video, activities, and more!

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Within this website students and look into American History, World History, Geography, and Historical Figures. This could be a helpful sight if they are looking into a specific topic under their culture. For example, if a student is looking up the culture of Asia they might look deeper into China's Empire and go into the Zhou Dynasty to learn more.

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Drive Inquiry-Based Learning with Discover Map, a visual concept that builds connections across different subject areas.

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Cultural Differences- National Geographic 

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Cultural Differences- National Geographic 

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This video from Youtube is a first hand account of people being asked questions about the differences between where they live and of American. They are learning the cultural norms of living in America and being an American. This will help students see the complexity of culture. This video will be useful on day two of the unit plan to show students how when you are placed in a different culture it can be very difficult to transition. Ask the students why they think this would be a hard transition if they were in the

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This is a series of videos from Youtube for students to see the differences in how around the world we all hold different values. This will be a good video to show students on day two of the unit plan before having them watch the National Geographic video. Have students connect what they learned from this video to the National Geographic video using a graphic organizer.

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The World's Family (An Embracing Culture Story) kid's /children's podcast

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For the last day of the unit plan on culture students will have a culture fair. The resource is to get ideas from a fellow teacher of how she was able to help her students create a project and research different cultures.

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Part of our social studies standards are to learn how cultures from around the world affect our culture. There's no better way to start this standard than to learn about cultures from around the world. The problem for me was how to teach the students about several cultures within the time that we had available. This is when I thought of a cultural fair. I talked my team into teaching each of their classes about a different country and some of the different cultures within that country.

We had the students research: food, art, music, clothing, customs, and language. Each class put together a science board with some of the research. We also hung other research on the walls outside of our classrooms. This way the students had plenty of room to read about the different cultures.

We chose to hold the fair the day before Thanksgiving break. The cultural fair was so engaging, the students were sure to learn all the way through the end of the day. We weren't so sure that would happen with our every day lessons. Each class prepared one of the more popular food or drinks from their country. I bought prepackaged food from Ikea for my country. This helps to satisfy the rule in some schools of prepackaged food. The year before we had a parent make our food at home. (I did not serve the pear drink.)

Each classroom can have a quick craft inside for the students to complete. We made floral headbands for Sweden. Most countries have flowers in their culture so this is a wonderful go to craft. If you search on Pinterest, you will find a plethora of cultural crafts. We also used the folders that you see below to hold all of our research in reading and writing.

Every student was given a passport with the countries listed inside. The students were to record details from every country that they visited. So we allowed students to roam the hall. They went into the rooms to enjoy food and a craft. They read information on the countries outside of the rooms. Their teachers held them accountable for details by checking their passports. We had parent volunteers to come in to assist the students in moving throughout the hall and into the appropriate rooms. If you can't do a whole grade level Culture Fair, you can set up centers in your classroom. You can have groups of students research different countries and share with each other.

Putting together the materials for this unit took quite a while. If you don't have time to put them together, check out the units below in my store.

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Part of our social studies standards are to learn how cultures from around the world affect our culture. There's no better way to start this standard than to learn about cultures from around the world. The problem for me was how to teach the students about several cultures within the time that we had available.

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This resource would be more for the teachers use to have a variety of lesson activities to go along with teaching students about culture.

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Teaching your students about other people and their culture can instill compassion and understanding in young learners. Take your students to 16 countries to learn about the culture, flags, maps, and more using this FUN, HIGH INTEREST resource! Great for your Social Studies Lessons.Rotate through d...

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Geography and Cultures for Kids to Research

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Geography and Cultures for Kids to Research

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While this is a blog, there is great resources for kids to pick their country to research the culture of that country. Kids cans use this technology tool to look deeper into their culture of choice. For example, when you click on one of the countries it tells you facts about that countries climate, cities, people, food, traditions, and other books with more information.

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I have always been obsessed with other cultures and countries. America occupies such a tiny little space in our universe, it's very interesting to gain new perspectives and see how others live, what their environment is like, and what their day-to-day life is like.

Learning about different cultures can be a rich experience. Here are some free, no-fluff unit studies for studying other cultures! You can weave whatever interests your kids have - fashion, food, sports, animals - into each country. For your fashionista, what is the clothing like in Morocco? For your sports lovers, what are some popular sports in India?
Extras:
Adventures in Mommydom - This hands-on blog ran a series entitled "Cooking Around the World."

International Gourmet Recipes - Not only does Kids Cooking Activities provide fantastic recipes for worldwide cuisine, it also offers many interesting kid-friendly facts.

Adventurous Mailbox - No-fluff world travel for kids

Kid World Activities - A whole website dedicated to kids exploring different cultures!

Flower Crafts from Around the World - A list of foreign floral crafts for kids.

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I have always been obsessed with other cultures and countries. America occupies such a tiny little space in our universe, it's very interesting to gain new perspectives and see how others live, what their environment is like, and what their day-to-day life is like. Learning about different cultures can be a rich experience.