English Teacher Jasmine Chien
This semester, we did a lot of different cross curriculum, theme based projects and assignments. “Ben’s Wikipedia” and “Ben’s Wild Self” were based in life sciences, and “The Use of Wind” was science focused. For our final project, we focused on social studies. Students learned about life long ago in California, USA by reading the informational text, “Home Sweet Home.” An informational text often gives facts about real people, places, and events that reflect on the history or the traditions of different communities. Students learned some facts about the lives of early Native Americans in California. They learned a lot of details of the different tribes’ day to day lives. They learned about the different shapes of the houses and the materials used to make the houses. Students discovered the different things you could find inside a Native American house, such as clothes made from animal skins, toys made from acorns, and hunting tools. We also discussed what life was like for Native Americans, back then.
The reading was challenging for the students due to different culture and time period discussed in the reading. Additionally, there were not many images included in the text, so the students needed to rely on their imaginations. To help close the gap, the teachers brought in supplementary pictures and illustrations.
After the students learned about the Native American’s lives long ago, we asked the students, “How about Taiwan? What was life in Taiwan like long ago?” The students discussed their different expectations, “There were no video games.”, “There weren’t any toilets.” We wanted the students to be able to make evidence based observations. We made a website to show the students some facts and details about Taiwan long ago. The students were able to gain experience using electronic devices to do research. We adjusted the difficulty of the text on the website to match the level of the students. The text on the website was a little more difficult for the students than the previous research texts, since it was their last project of grade 2. The website was designed to challenge the students to read the text carefully to get all the information they needed. Supplemental pictures were also included to help define words that might be too difficult for the students to understand without a visual reference.
Later, we asked the students to think about nowadays in Taiwan. What is the housing like, what you can find inside a modern Taiwanese house, and what is life like nowadays? The students were able to talk about modern Taiwan easily by using their own life experiences. Next, we asked the students to discuss some good parts about the two different time periods. The students gave us a lot of great answers, such as “I think people walking or riding bicycles was good a long time ago in Taiwan because people exercised more. It’s better for our health.” “I think having a washing machine nowadays in Taiwan is good because it is more convenient, we don’t need to walk to a stream or a well to do our laundry.”
One of the goals of this project was to help the students to learn more about Taiwan history and their own culture. The purpose of projects and assignments is to spark the curiosity of the students and inspire independent inquiry and self-teaching. To complete this project, a lot of students did extra research with their parents. Some students even interviewed their grandparents to learn more about their lives when they were young. I was very happy to see the students turn in their final work. They completed a three paragraph, meaningful project. This was our first online project and I think it was a success.