First, I will transform my room into the four major regions of California. The students will enter the classroom that has been transformed into Rodriguez' Rockin' Restaurant where they'll catch their own food. Here is an image of the transformed room:
Since this is a "restaurant," I will greet my patrons (students) outside of my room. Students will read the menu: facts about the different food found in each region. They will then select their entree of choice (Whale from the coast, prickly pear from the desert, or grasshoppers from the mountain region). This will determine the kids groups. This will help get the students connected and excited about what is to come. I also dress up completely as a chef to play the part.
Now that the students are engaged and eager to learn, I will break this lesson down and explore how it ties together with Webb's Depth of Knowledge and Gold Standard Project Based Learning.
Background:
Students will be learning about Native American food from our four major regions. In the coast region, students will be catching fish with nets in my son's pool. They'll enjoy goldfish during their meal. In the desert region, they will eat prickly pear from the cactus. They will carefully take the prickly pear from the cactus, rub it in sand, and hold it in the sun to dry it out in order to make it last longer. While they visit the mountain region, they will fill holes with water (blue paper) and move the grasshopper into the hole using sticks. Their last stop will be the valley, where they will gather acorns and mash them to make soup. The below activities allow for differentiation and address various learning preferences such as visual (need space), aural (need voice), verbal (Needs writing), physical (need physical), logical (Needs to think), social (Needs others) and solitary (Needs alone time)
LEVEL 1 (Recall)
After the student's read the menu, they will have to recall which region served the food of their choice. If they forget which region a particular food came from, they will need to locate it in the text in order to state it to me, their server. Based on their selection, they will enter the room and hunt or gather their food depending on the region. This activity will meet the needs of my visual students who prefer to see images and pictures. The menu will include visuals to help support their learning. It will also meet the needs of my verbal students because they will have access to the content in writing - not just through the kinesthetic part of the lesson where they go through the rotations.
LEVEL 2 (Skills & Concepts)
After visiting each region and participating in each of the tasks, they will be taking what they learned and compare/contrast the different foods found in these regions. On each of the things they hunt or gather, it has a sentence stem that they will need to include in their writing. For example, if they catch a grasshopper with "in contrast to" on it, they'll need to include this in their presentation. Students may choose to work together or individually when creating a presentation. They can also choose how to present their new information. This activity will meet the needs of my social and solitary learners because they have choice to either work alone or together.
LEVEL 3 (Strategic Thinking)
The student will then critique the way the Native American's obtained food in their regions. Students will investigate other ways and possibly better ways to obtain food in these regions. They students will utilize their laptops to research and determine what materials are available in each region. They will then develop a logical argument to persuade others to try their new methods of hunting or gathering food. They will share their opinion and persuade their peers in a iMovie video. For my dyslexic student, he will utilize http://ttsreader.com/ website during his research, so he can access the information.
LEVEL 4 (Extending Thinking)
They will then design a plan and create the tools needed in order to prove their theory. A variety of supplies will be available for kids to create their plans.
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