Module One - Family Changes

Concepts

• decision making, change, leadership, choices

Students will know that:

• change is an integral part of life.
• individuals and families make decisions in various ways.

Students will:

• identify and practice appropriate decision-making techniques.

Students will:

• value change as an opportunity for growth.
• value peaceful decision-making processes.

Students may:

• make decisions.

• Have students identify ways they have changed since the beginning of the year. If students made personal books recording various information about themselves or if photos were taken, make comparisons. Have students identify physical changes as well as changes in relation to knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
• Discuss the events recorded on the class timeline. Relate the events to changes that have occurred.
• The teacher may choose to invite the students to bring baby pictures. Identify various changes. Display the pictures and make a game out of having students connect pictures with individuals.
• With help from home, have students develop a personal or family timeline showing changes in the family. Discuss the various changes and how families adapt to change.
• Look at the changes that occur in the spring. Take the students for a walk to identify seasonal changes. The teacher may wish to have students record seasonal changes on a pie shaped chart. This would help establish the idea that seasonal change is cyclical.
• Tell the story of Miss Vickie.
• Have students identify changes on the farm and record their answers on a picture chart. Role play things that people do in the spring on the farm. If students do not live on farms, visit one, if possible.
• Explore future changes that will happen within the next few months and the next several years*. Use a talking circle to explore feelings regarding the change.

Module 1: Activity Guide

Changes in the classroom

Take pictures of the students in September and in June. Have students identify ways they have changed.

Ask groups of students to identify ways they have changed since the beginning of the year. Have each group report back to the class using the sentence format: Then we ______ but now we _______. Have the students return to their groups and make a group then/now chart showing how they have changed since kindergarten.

Write journal entries about how they have changed. Use a format such as: Then I ____ but now I ____.

Divide the class into groups and have them think of changes that have occurred in the classroom during the year. These changes may include new equipment, new students, and gaining knowledge and skills. Bring the class together to share their ideas.

Changes in Families

Invite the students to bring baby pictures. Display the pictures and make a game out of having students connect pictures with individuals.

Use the sentence format: Then we ____ but now we ____. Make a then/now chart about how they have changed since they were babies. Use pictures and words.

As a homework assignment have the students develop a timeline showing how their family has changed.

• Put a line through the middle of a page lengthwise.<
• Mark off the years to include the year every child in your classroom was born and ten years into the past, the present year and two years into the future.
• Print "_____ started grade one" above the present year.
• Make several copies (save the original).
• Find out what years your students were born. Print "_____ was born" above the year. Make enough copies for each student.
• Have the students print their names on the blank space showing when they were born and when they started grade one.
• Send the timeline home and ask the parents to help their child make a timeline of their family. Students may illustrate the timeline with miniature pictures above and below the timeline. Parents may choose what they would like to include on the timeline. You may want to suggest events such as the birth of siblings, holidays, moves, and nursery school.

Using stories and other resources explore other changes in families. Record new ideas on the chart "Families Change" and update information where necessary. Discuss how changes can influence what we do or how we feel (accidents, friends, leaving, going to camp, being sick). Make connections to future events.

Decisions for change: jobs

Use local examples to identify cases of people losing their jobs or deciding to leave their job to try something else. Read a story about unemployment and/or retraining and discuss how family members adapt to such changes. Use small group discussion to have students predict how such changes in the family may cause them to change.

Story of Miss Vickie

The teacher may introduce the story with the following:

• Discuss with students how their family might change if their parent(s) decided to change job(s).

Vickie's children loved potato chips. She did too. But she didn't feel right about eating them or letting her children eat them too often. She knew they had a lot of fat and a lot of salt in them.

So she started making chips at home. She experimented with different ways of making them. It was important that the chips tasted good but were also nutritious. Finally she had chips that her family and friends raved about.

So she decided to start selling them. That was not so easy. She needed machines to cut the potatoes and to put the chips into packages. For two years she learned everything she could about the business.

When she first opened her business, she had 20 customers. Two years later, her company sold more than $1 million worth of chips.

Vickie is pleased about how well her company is doing. But she says, "I guess I feel best about the quality of the product. That was my main goal, to make something that was better than everything else." Vickie's chips taste great, but they are also nutritious.

Information used with permission from The Women Inventors Project, Inventing Women: Profiles of Women Inventors, by Janet Panabaker, Waterloo, Ontario, 1991, p. 50-51.

• Ask students how things changed in Miss Vickie's family when her job changed.
• Ask students to identify some of their favourite foods. If possible, have them bring pictures of the food.
• Discuss what makes a food delicious and/or nutritious.
• It may be appropriate to try some different foods that are easy for children to make, that are both delicious & nutritious snacks. For example:
  • celery with a thin wedge of cheddar cheese and a few raisins
  • dry cereal with milk & seedless grapes, banana or other fruit
  • salt-free tacos and a salsa dip
  • wedges of toast (instead of crackers) with peanut butter

Show a "For Sale" sign. Discuss why a house might be for sale. Ask,

• "Where will the people go?"
• "What will happen to the house?"
• "Will someone new moved in?"
• "Where have they come from and why?"

Survey the class to find out who has moved and who hasn't. Make a graph of the results. Title the graph Moving. One bar will show the number of children who have never moved, another the number who have moved once, and so on.

Decisions for change: new baby

Role play change situations such as welcoming home a mom and new baby. Discuss feelings associated with the change. Have students imagine themselves in the situations of others using literature and drama.

Journal writing

Write about a change in their journal. This may be a change in their school life such as a class member moving away or a change in their family life. Encourage students to express how the change made them feel.

Changes in Spring

Take the students for a walk on the playground or a nearby park or ield once every month. On each walk have them stop periodically in about the same places. Ask them to describe what they see around them. After the first walk, ask them to close their eyes and recall what they saw a month ago.

Have students predict future changes. For example when studying about changes on the farm, ask the students to predict what the baby animals will look like in the fall. Ifyou are planting a garden ask the students to think about what the garden will look like in the fall. Ask the students to think about how their decisions and actions will affect various changes. For example, with a garden, if they want a good crop they must care for it. Consider how factors such as amount of sunshine and rain will affect the garden.

Explore springtime changes such as:

• seasonal changes in family activities, and
• spring and summer celebrations.

Have students namechanges on the farm and record their answers on a picture chart.

Role play things that people do in the spring on the farm.

Visit a farm if possible. Observe some of the spring activities. Interview the a family member about the activities of spring.

Use The Man Who Kept House to stimulate discussion about changing roles on the farm. On today's farms the husband and wife sometimes work cooperatively at house work and farm work.

Changes in gardens

Use Keepers of the Earth, "The Coming of the Corn", p. 137 and "The Planter", and "Crop and the Soil", p. 139. Plant and grow a garden. If this is notsuitable, plan a project that is suitable to your situation, for example, planting a flower bed in front of the school or growing plants in milk cartons in the classroom.

Discuss the importance of soil and the care of the young lants.

Visit a place where a garden, a crop, or wild rice is being grown.

Integrate with science and the study of plants.

Future changes for students

Divide the class into discussion groups to generate a list of changes that will be happening in their lives in the next few months. Have the groups report to the class. Use a talking circle to explore feelings regarding future changes and memories about the past year.

Help students understand how their decisions and actions may influence their future. Include the students in making plans for a future event. Discuss the event in terms of outcomes and what they can realistically accomplish. Events you may wish to plan include:

• reading to and performing for elderly citizens;
• planning an activity for the kindergarten class or younger brothers and sisters;
• a Summer Celebration.

Suggested Resources
(listed in other bibliographies and catalogues)

Resources - changes in families

Angel and the Polar Bear Marie-Louise Gay (ELA)
Anna's Secret Friend Yoriko Tsutsui (ELA)
Auntie's Knitting a Baby Lois Simmie (ELA)
Baby Sitter - Mrs. Frog's Vacation (MHP, V4097)
Best Friends Steven Kellogg (ELA)
Circle Reading John McInnis (ELA)
Daniel's Dog Jo Ellen Bogart (ELA)
The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash Trinka Nobles (ELA)
Julius, the Baby of the World Kevin Henkes (ELA)
Mama, Do You Love Me? Barbara M. Joosse (ELA)
Mom and Dad Don't Live Together Any More Kathy Stinson (ELA)
New Baby Arnold Emily McCully (ELA)
A Place for Ben Jeanne Titherington (ELA)
Socks Beverly Cleary (ELA)
We Are Best Friends Aliki (ELA) Changes in students

Resources - changes on the farm

Baby Animals Margaret Wise Brown (ELA)
The Chicken Book Garth William (ELA)
Come With Me Ashley Wolff (ELA)
The Man Who Kept House Kathleen Hague and Michael Hague (ELA)
The Midnight Farm Reeve Lindbergh (ELA)
The New Baby Calf Edith Newlin Chase (ELA)
Old MacDonald Had a Farm Tracy C.Pearson (ELA)
One Crow: A Country Rhyme Jim Aylesworth (ELA)