Title.

Date of Lesson:  Second Thursday
Teachers:  Stephanie Voight
Grade Level:  Kindergarten
Subject Area:  Social Studies
Time Needed:  Varies
Topic:  Kindergarten in Korea


What School of Education standard/s did you try to address in this lesson?
Standard #11 - Uses Technologies
We will communicate with Ann via e-mail and use digital pictures to show them our lives.

NCSS Standards:
·   enable learners to assess the importance of cultural unity and diversity within and across groups
·   enable learners to use, interpret, and distinguish various representations of Earth such as maps, globes, and photographs, and to use appropriate geographic tools

MMSD Standards:
·   examine pictures of different environments to describe how they are similar and different from their own
·   identify similarities and differences in peoples (i.e., actions, feelings, appearance, abilities)
·   exhibit an awareness that children grow up in different parts of the world with similar and different experiences

Materials Needed:
·   Picture of Ann with her students
·   Computer, e-mail access
·   Digital camera

Objectives:
·   SWBAT learn about a different country (Korea) through a focused discussion of kindergarten.
·   SWBAT compare and contrast their experiences to those of students in Korea.

Lesson Context:
My best friend and sophomore-year-roommate Ann is teaching English for the next year and a half in Korea.  Although she is teaching middle school girls, I thought it would be really interesting to connect our students and to find out about the experience of kindergartners in Korea from Koreans themselves.  This lesson will heavily incorporate literacy so we will do much of this lesson during our literacy block.

Lesson Opening:
I will tell the students that one of my best friends is currently teaching in a country on the other side of the world called Korea.  I will show them a picture of Ann and her students.  Next we will find Korea on the map.  What is it close to?  Are there any countries nearby that we recognize?

Procedures:
->I will ask the students what they want to know about kindergarten in Korea.  The following are questions that might come up.
      o       Do you have boys at your school?
      o       Why are you all wearing the same clothes?
      o       Do you remember kindergarten?
      o       Did you like your kindergarten teacher?
      o       How old were you in kindergarten?
      o       What games did you play in kindergarten?
-> As a class, we will write to Ann's students.  This will happen during literacy time and, though I will not go into details about letter-writing, it will open up a short discussion of capital letters and question marks.  I will send this in an e-mail to Ann since we keep in touch frequently.

Dear Ann's class,

      How are you?  We are very excited to write to you.  We want to know about your kindergarten.  Do you remember kindergarten?  Are there boys at your school?  Etc

-> We will also take pictures of ourselves.  During the first lesson (and in multiple lessons since then) we will have discussed what it means to be a kindergartner.  We will brainstorm a list of ways to show Ann's students what it means to be a kindergartner at Franklin Elementary.  We will take at least 14 pictures so that each student can use the digital camera.  I will e-mail these pictures to Ann with our letter.  Before taking pictures, we will brainstorm the pictures that we should take.
       o       Having snack
       o       Phy ed class
       o       Library
       o       Reading time
       o       Etc

Closure:
When we receive a response from Ann and her students (which clearly will not happen during the time frame of this lesson) I will read it to the students.  Ann would let her students write the letter in order to practice their English, so as a class we will talk about why some of it might be hard for us to understand.  (They speak a different language in Korea.  This will lead to additional curiosity.  They must have picture books in Korea.  Have they read "Where the Wild Things Are?"  What are their favorite books?  It would be really fun to get a copy of a Korean picture book and incorporate this in to literacy time.)

Special Considerations:         
E-mail and communication across countries often takes time so I will need to have a conversation with my students about being patient.

Assessment:
Assessment will be informal as I will gauge student interest and ability to formulate questions.  Were students able to make connections between themselves and the students in Korea?

What personal goal (teaching strategy) are you working on in this lesson?
I am hoping to use technology and my resources to create a lesson and an understanding about the world around us.