Books for Thematic Unit

Poetry: "Black is brown is tan" by Arnold Adoff, Emily Arnold McCully (Illustrator). Black is brown is tan is a story poem about being, a beautiful true song about a family delighting in each other and in the good things of the earth. 


Picture Book: "Let's talk about race" by Julius Lester. A picture book written in 2008 that is good for kids in grades kindergarden through fifth grade. It introduces race as just one part of a person. It goes on to explain how underneath our skin we are the same. 


Non-fiction: "Through my eyes: Ruby Bridges". Ruby Bridges tells her story of her integration into white school and became an icon of the civil rights movement. 


Memoir: Part history, part current events, and part imagination, Toni Morrison’s look at school desegregation in the 1950s and the civil rights movement that followed is all about people: those who put themselves on the line to correct unfairness, to challenge accepted values, and to change the way things were, as well as all of us who benefit from those changes today. The photographs and spare text invite us to put ourselves into this era of change and understand how it felt. They challenge us to ask ourselves how it still feels.


Song Lyrics: "Where is the Love?" 


 What's wrong with the world mama
People living like they ain't got no mama
I think the whole world's addicted to the drama
Only attracted to things that will bring you trauma
Over seas, yeah, we tryin' to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here living in the USA
The big CIA, the Bloods, and the Crips and the KKK 

But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you're bound to get irate
Madness is what you demonstrate
And that's exactly how anger works and operates
Man, you got to have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love y'all

[Chorus]
People killing, people dying
Children hurtin', hear them crying
Can you practice what you preach
Or would you turn the other cheek
Father father father father
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questioning
Where is the love

It just ain't the same all the ways of change
New days are strange 
Is the world insane
If love and peace is so strong
Why the pieces of love don't belong
Nations dropping bombs
Chemical gases filling lungs of little ones
With ongoing suffering as the youth are young
So ask yourself is the lovin' really gone
So I can ask myself really what is going wrong
The world that we're living in 
People keep on giving in
Making wrong decisions only visions of the dividend
Not respecting each other
Denying thy brother
A war going on, but the reasons undercover
The truth is kept secret
It's swept under the rug
If you never know truth then you never know love
Where's the love y'all, c'mon, I don't know
Where's the truth y'all, c'mon, I don't know
Where's the love y'all

[Chorus]

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I'm gettin' older y'all people gets colder
Most of us only care about money makin'
Selfishness got us following the wrong direction
Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids want to act like what they see in the cinemas

Whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness and equality
Instead of spreading love
We spreading animosity
Lack of understanding
Leading us away from unity
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down
It's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under
Gotta keep our faith alive 'till love is found

Response to Differences in Lit. Groups

Our group met at Caribou Coffee in Woodbury. We decided to come to the group with one key passage from each book and also a question we had about each book. We used these to generate conversation about the books. In class, each person had a specific job that they had to do and then share about. On our own we wanted to see everyone's opinions about the books and I really enjoyed the freedom of being able to discuss what we wanted to about the books. I enjoyed meeting with my Lit. Circle members and think that I can learn a lot from their point of views on the literature that we are reading. All in all I guess the in class meeting and our out of class meeting weren't too dramatically different.

Historical Non-fiction for Thematic Unit

I found this awesome book that I will use for Historical Non-fiction and I will use it as a read-aloud for my thematic unit! The book is called "Martin's Big Words. The life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."
By: Doreen Rappaport Illustrated by Bryan Collier

Martins-big-words.jpg

I am going to use this book "All Kinds of People" as part of my unit. I just think it's great because it tells how people come in so many different shapes, sizes, colors!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Kinds-People-Lift-Flap/dp/1857070674

More Detailed Thematic Plan

I didn't go into enough detail on my first post about my thematic plan, so here goes... I strongly believe that my unit theme, Diversity, plays a huge role socially and culturally in todays society. Our nation is continuing to become more diverse and as educators we need to teach our students to learn to live respectfully together and benefit from each other's experiences and knowledge. We all want children to grow up in a world free from discrimination, bias, and racism, but the reality is that we do live in a world where all of these still exist and affect us and those around us more than we realize. The reason I want to focus on Diversity is because as a future educator I want my students to reach for their dreams and believe that whatever they want to be when they grow up, or achieve at any point of their life is possible (don't we all??). Diversity is so much more than different skin color....culturural differences, learning differences, socioeconomic differences are all ways in which Diversity can affect individuals. I want my students to feel included, loved, and celebrated for whoever they are, and NEVER to experience the pain of rejection or exclusion...In teaching students that diversity exists, my hope is for them to try and eliminate the discrimination, biases, and racism that STILL takes place today in 2012. Discrimination is very painful and can leave life long scars and can affect an individuals goals, ambitions, life choices and last but not least, their feeling of self-worth!!!! 


The grade levels that I will focus on will be K-2 :) 


Rough Draft of the first page of my book (still haven't come up with the title, Suggestions welcome) 
As I briefly mentioned somewhere on D2L lol, my book will have a message that accepting people for who they are is more important than what they look like on the outside, what their skin color is (in this case fur color). A mother cat will have 5 kittens and three of them will be white or lighter and two of them will be dark with black fur...the white kittens won't play with the black ones and the mother cat has a talk with them questioning why and then based on their responses explains the importance of not "judging a book by its cover" for a lack of better words (FOR NOW)...Here goes page 1. 


"Sassy was going to give birth any day now! She was so excited to be a mother! She couldn't wait to see how many kittens she would have, how many boys and girls there would be, and what they would look like. None of this really mattered though, like any expecting mother she just wanted them to be healthy."  


Next page. 


"Cats don't pack a bag for the hospital to get ready for when their contractions start, but they do eye up a safe place where they will give birth to their kittens. Sassy had been looking for a place for months and found the purrrrfect spot, in the back of the closet. It was dark, comfortable and seemed like a very safe place for her to welcome the newest members of her family into the world." 


This is just ROUGH, any suggestions or feedback will be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much Bloggers! :) 

Folk Tales

Folk Tales! (Praying this works this time, had technical difficulties when I was away this weekend get this to post) Here goes... My favorite folk tale is Beauty and the Beast...I love the this story because to me it shows that love and kindness is not all about looks and the fact that Belle is so beautiful she is able to look past the Beast's outward appearance and his defense mechanism (anger) and see who he is as a person on the inside!! I would also love to use Beauty and the Beast as my folk tale for my Unit theme of Diversity....the Beast looked a certain way and that kept many away from him, but Belle was able to look past his outward looks and learn to love and care for his heart, we need more of that with people...there are so many different looks, skin colors, disabilities, etc. that make up a very diverse world we live in and that should be CELEBRATED and we should really take the time to get to know people for who they are and not just what they look like :)....hope this works for Diversity! & really hope this post works in general *fingers crossed*

Thematic Plan

My Thematic Plan is going to be diversity! I have been blessed with a very diverse upbringing that has made me the person I am today! My hope is to see more awareness of diversity throughout my teaching career :)