LESSON PLAN Class 3-303 Teacher: Ms.

Cheryl Wildy

Standard 1: History of the United States and New York Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in the history of the United States and New York Key Idea 1: The study of New York State and United States history requires an analysis of the development of American culture, its diversity and multicultural context, and the ways people are unified by many values, practices, and traditions. Know the roots of American culture, its development from many different traditions, and the ways many people from a variety of groups and backgrounds played a role in creating it. Performance Indicators--Students will: work together in groups to research the different countries of students who are in their class. Students will also learn why the United States is called the Melting Pot. The students will create a United States Melting Pot slide show. In this project the students will work in groups. One person in each group will be a descendant from a country other than the United States. The person who is from the country other than the United States will interview their family member and share with the class the history of their families immigration. The other students

will research the countrys language, culture, sports, food and famous people from that country. When the students come together to bring their information they will present their groups work to the other classmates. When all groups have finished their research work they will come together and make a slide show which will become the Melting Pot.

The students will work in groups with one individual being from a family of immigration.

Materials needed: the students will need computers to do their research

Students will learn how to research other countries and find out how the individuals in these countries live, their cultures, their language, the way they dress, what famous people are from these countries and what the favorite sport and foods are for these countries. Classmates who are descendents of immigrants will serve as group leaders. Students will work in groups with the student from the immigrated family as the group leader. The groups will decide what questions the student will ask the family and the remaining students in the group will decide who will be assigned their portion of the research. America the melting pot has always been a statement heard around the world. Students will first tell what they think this phrase means and we will explore the reasons why these students think this is the phrase heard around the

world after which we will demonstrate how the melting pot exists right in the classroom with the students we are around each day. Students will learn that the United States is a Melting Pot because there are so many other countries represented here in the US and they will realize the differences between those whose families were born in the United States and those who families come from another country and the reasons why they immigrated to the United States. When the groups put their work together this becomes their melting pot in the end the classroom will produce their own melting pot slide show which tells of the different cultures in the classroom.

The students will create a slide show that will tell of the different stories of immigration and the information they researched from each country. Once they have completed this the students will put together their own melting pot as the groups come together and create a slide show which describes the classrooms melting pot. The students will use the computer to do their research of their countries culture, language, etc. and use PowerPoint to display their research. Students will be able to relate to their classmate much better because they will understand the ways in which different cultures operate and their view of their classmates perhaps in the way they dress or the way they approach different situations will begin to make sense to the other students and help them understand the ways of the students culture.

Students will inquire into the group leaders country in order to establish what the basis is for their project. They will learn about the different ways of other countries including the language, the food, the sports, what famous people are from their countries. As a team they will put together their information in order for their finished product to be a compilation of research and the information once put together will produce a finished product of their country. Each session will last approximately 45 minutes. Session I The children will stand before the class and tell us where their family originated from. I expect that at least 5 or 6 students will have families that migrated to the United States in at least the past 2 or 3 generations before them. After we have established the students who are descendents of immigrants we will select these students as group leaders and each student will decide which group they wish to join based on the country they most want to research. During the first session the teacher will serve as the record keeper. She will keep track of which student is the group leader and which students belong to their group.

Session II All students will come together to decide what information they will research from the different countries and what information they would be interested in learning from their Group leaders regarding immigration and their families.

Students will begin to brainstorm to decide which questions will better serve the information they are seeking. The teacher will visit each group to make sure they are staying on point and concentrating on the appropriate questions for their research.

Session III Students will come together in their groups and explain what information they have researched and what they came up with. The group leader will present to their group what information that was obtained from their family member. The other group members will present the information they have obtained based on their research. Students will work with the computer specialist and begin putting together their information and transferring the information to PowerPoint and once all groups have accomplished this they will put together a slide show on the Melting Pot the United States of America.