Celebrations

Emily AlveyAmy Geis

Nikki Washington

Jen Mead

Connecting to Celebrationswith Strategies that Work

• Making Connections• Visualizing • Questioning • Predicting • Inferring• Summarizing• Synthesizing• Activating Background Knowledge

• The goal of our unit was to teach students about important celebrations through effective reading strategies.

• Group members introduced, modeled, and supported reading strategies throughout each lesson.

• Students learned about holidays like Cinco de Mayo, Earth Day, Fourth of July, and Children’s Day through read-alouds, small group activities, and whole group discussion.

Let the Celebrations Begin…• Students used visualization to create a

classroom celebration quilt which featured several celebrations.

• Students used the questioning strategy and a KWL chart to learn about Cinco de Mayo. To celebrate, students made homemade maracas!

• Students made connections to Fourth of July and created their very own classroom flag to commemorate America’s birthday!

• Students decided to GO GREEN by activating their background knowledge and making connections to Earth Day. Students made rainsticks to celebrate this holiday!

• Students used multiple reading strategies while reviewing previous lessons and participating in the Children’s Day lesson. Students connected to the holiday by making their own carp kites, which are symbols of strength and courage.

Reflections

• Working with Ms. Gann’s kindergarten class was truly a valuable experience. It was so exciting to see students actively use the strategies we taught.

• We learned first hand that components of the TEKS can be taught successfully with thematic units.

• We are pleased with the result of our lesson and would only make minute changes involving easier materials to work with.