Subject(s): Language Arts, Other, Social Studies Grades(s): Grades 6-7, Grades 2-3, Grades 4-5

By – Marie Allen

Community Unit Table of Contents:

• Unit Overview – What makes a good Community?
• This lesson asks What is Community?
• Here’s a lesson on Following Directions
• This worksheet goes with the Following Directions lesson
• Celebrating Diversity and Heritage are the topics of this lesson
• Here’s a section on Goal Setting
• This lesson looks at Community in Literature
• In this part students Explore the Multiple Intelligences
• Students find their most effective ways to learn in this lesson
• Teamwork is the subject of this lesson
• Here’s a collection of Community-Building Activities
• This is the first part of the Service Project
• Service Project Part 2…
• …and Service Project Part 3
• Here’s the Service Project Rubric

Celebrating Diversity and Heritage

TSW: Learn about his or her family heritage and celebrate the diversity of our class.
TSW: Involve parents or guardians in the classroom community through family homework assignments.

Day 1: Tie to previous information. Last time we talked about everyone’s different intelligences and contributions to class. What other ways are we different? One difference is that we all have different family stories. Teacher tells his or her own family story-where parents are from, how they came to the US, how they came to Phoenix. Students’ homework is to go home and interview a family member about their own family story, finding out specific countries of origin, narratives, and symbols that represent their history.

Day 2: Students bring in their stories. Using the internet, look up flags from countries of origin. Students will make a heritage shield using symbols that represent their family, flags from their country/countries of origin, and a picture representing their story. Students will write out their family story in a narrative form. When class is finished, students will sit in a circle and share their heritage shields. Discuss similarities in stories: hardships, countries of origin, how families migrated here, etc.

Assessment: Students completed family interview, followed directions to make shield, and shared with the class.

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