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Feeding Minds Fighting Hunger
By Lynn Rosen
Teacher Goals and Students Goals
Teacher
- To make children aware of global hunger.
- To teach children how they can combat hunger through poetry and awareness.
- To introduce children to penpals from another school who are working on Feeding Minds as well.
Student Goals
- To understand why we need food.
- To learn about global hunger.
- To become aware of the fact that we can and should fight global hunger .
Assessment of Possible Projects and Class Interest
Determine class motivation
I
will determine the class motivation through a discussion about our Soup
Kitchen Project. Knowing that they collected 853 cans will be a good
motivation.
Resources
- books: Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchenby Dyanne Di-Salvo Ryan, Material World byPeter Menzel and Feeding The World by Brenda Walpole.
- internet sites: www.iearn.org, www.google.com.
Specific preinstruction and preparation
Meet with involved teachers and Assistant Principal to discuss and plan
the project lessons. Before beginning the project a letter will go out
to all parents of the classes that are involved in the project.The
children will be coming home with new vocabulary and the parents need
to know what is being taught. Originally I was going to use all the
classes in the school but due to time scheduling and administrative
decisions I chose five classes.
Essential questions to investigate:
What do we know about hunger?
What is global hunger?
What do we hope to accomplish from this project?
Time Table of Lessons/Activities
Structured timeline with dates and times
Week 1
Introduce the project.
Aim: To understand why we need food.To learn about global hunger by looking at the globe and through literature.
We will read the poem Near and Far:
Little children far away,
cross the ocean wide,
Though they do not look like us,
are the same inside.
Other children everywhere,
I would like to meet.
Ones across the sea
and the others down the street.
A discussion of the importance of food will take place. Food gives us
the energy and nutrients we need to keep our bodies functioning, to
grow and develop and to move, work, play, think and learn.
Week 2
Aim: To learn who is hungry in the world.
Hunger
is not getting enough of the right foods to meet our needs. All
countries and regions have people who are hungry. We will reread Uncle
Willie and the Soup Kitchen. We will discuss how we felt when we
collected cans and why its necessary to help the needy.
Week 3
Aim: To understand why people are hungry. To understand what it means to be food secure.
We
must always be able to get the food we need for an active healthy life.
We will read Feeding The World by Brenda Walpole. Children will learn
about food production.They will also learn about the importance of
having
enough food to feed everyone. Children begin writing thoughts and poetry in groups on how what we have learned makes us feel.
Week 4
Aim: To
learn about hunger situations in other countries.To be aware of the
fact that we all can do our part in the fight to end hunger.
I will introduce Material World by Peter Menzel. The book describes the lives of
Ethiopian children. After reading, each group will prepare a Venn
Diagram comparing their lives and the lives of Ethiopian children. We
will find Ethiopia on our globe.
Week 5
Aim: To reintroduce the internet. Our computer
teacher will spend the day going over netiquette rules and introducing
children to search engines. She will visit all 1st grade classes.
Aim:
To revisit iEARN. Last term we visited and joined the Arts Miles
Project. This term we will visit Feeding Minds and Lewin Forums. We
will put some writing that we have done in the Lewin Forum and some
writing that Kgn teachers did with their classes. We will use the 2
working desktop computers
and the 1 laptop computer that works. We will continue writing poetry.
Week 6
Aim: To introduce penpals from Woodside Queens.
Our penpal class is 4th grade. It will be like a big brother project.We
will review friendly letter forms which their classroom teacher taught
them.They will write letters to their penpals.
Aim: To combat hunger by writing letters to our
mayor. Children will first brainstorm in groups what we think the mayor
should do to fight hunger in New York. After brainstorming we will
review letter formation which was taught
by their classroom teacher. We will write letters which will be sent after editing in their classroom to our mayor.
Week 7
Aim: To mix technology and knowledge about global hunger and the internet.
We
will work in groups writing and editing our poetry in order to send it
to our penpals via the mail. We will enter more poetry in the Lewin
Forum.
Aim:
To design and create poetry about global hunger.To enter the poetry in
the Lewin Forum.To work in groups editing and rewriting previous poetry.
Week 8 - Final Week
Aim: To perform an assembly program sharing our poetry and knowledge of global hunger with all classes who didnít participate.
We have selected our favorite poetry and will share it. Parents have been invited as well.
How will you present this project to your students?
I will present this project as a continuation of our Soup Kitchen Project.
How will you introduce iEARN to your students?
I will introduce iEARN by visiting the website and introducing them to
Lewin and Feeding Minds Fighting Hunger Forums. In October they viewed
choices of Projects when they participated in the Arts Miles Project.
How will you tie it into your curricular studies?
I will tie it
into their curricular studies by working with classroom teachers who
will integrate project into subject areas. Since I am the Library
Teacher I will read and internet with the children involved. The
Science Cluster will introduce the Food Pyramid and talk about the
importance of eatring healthy foods.
How will you get them interested in the topic?
In December we made a video with members of the Soup Kitchen Staff. They
presented us with a plaque for collecting cans. On the video we
discussed how we graphed and organized the cans. We talked about how
bringing in cans made us feel. We will view the video, which the
children havenít seen yet. This should remotivate them.
What background knowledge do your students bring to the project?
We visited the local Soup Kitchen. The children live in the
neighborhood and always see people lining up at the doors of the Soup
Kitchen.
Do your students need to learn some basic skills before starting the project?
Yes. The students will need to learn some basic skills before starting
the project. They will need to refresh their computer skills.They will
need writing skills and research skills. All skills have been
introduced since September.
Will your students need to do research for this project?
They will listen to several library books and visit online sites to learn about global hunger.
How will they be organized to gather information and produce their work?
They
will work independently when writing individual poems. They will work
in groups of 4 when organizing facts they learned through reading
aforementioned books. They will also work in groups of 4 when
brainstorming what they want to write to the Mayor. The class that will
be penpalling will work independently to share their thoughts about
hunger with their penpals.
Who will be responsible and in charge?
There will be 1 captain in every group and 1 recorder. I will be the
ultimate editor and the classroom teachers involved will help if
necessary.
How will the appropriateness of their work be evaluated?
The appropriateness of their work will be evaluated by sharing and
selecting the most important pieces for our assembly and the magazine I
will produce.
Conclusion of Activity
When does your participation end?
Participation will end after our assembly program. Students will continue writing to their penpals.
How will the students draw their projects to a conclusion?
The students will have a special assembly to present their poetry and
knowledge about global hunger to all K&1 classes, teachers and
parents and our Assistant Principal.
Action Component and items of special consideration:
Fund raising: we already collected cans for our local Soup Kitchen.
Petition to the local government: children wrote letters to the mayor asking him to help the hungry.
Students speaking to other students:
Assembly program - sharing information about global hunger through media of poetry; penpalling.
Field Work: Trip to local Soup Kitchen.
Cross-curricular fields in this project:
English Language Arts: Letter Writing, Poetry Writing;
Social Studies: learning about global hunger.
Science: learning about the food pyramid and healthy foods.
Computer Skills: reintroduction to the web by Mrs.Savino, our computer
teacher. Learning to use a search engine and browsing a website.
Research skills: Children will gather information after I read, in groups of 4.
Production of Work
Research teams: Children will work in groups of 4 with 1 captain and 1
recorder per group. Children will alternate using working laptop and
desktop computers.
Scheduling: See weekly schedule
Writing/Editing: There is one recorder in each group.Other members of
the group will help edit. Since it is 1st grade I will be the final
editor.
Publishing
Team: Our work will be printed in the Lewin Forum and some will be
selected for the Lewin Anthology. I will also publish a school magazine
which will be sent home. It will include all poems and thoughts on
hunger.
Conclusion of Activity/Assessment
Assessment tools: Letters to the mayor, hunger poetry.
Publications: Lewin Forum,School Magazine.
Technological and Material Requirements
Material Requirements books, globe, paper, pencils, computers (2 Mac desktops,1 working Mac laptop); connection to the Internet.
Follow-Up
We will begin two new projects. We
will,through a member of the Feeding Minds Forum join in a recycling
project, which I have entitled,îHOOTING FOR POLLUTING.î We have been invited to join a culture project but I donít know if we can fit it in.
Afterthought-This
project taught my first graders so much. I began with Kgn but my
Principal didnít think they should be exposed to this.The children
wrote poetry from the heart which can be read in the Lewin Forum.
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