Japan

Have you ever been to Japan ?  Do you know where it is ?   Do you know how Japanese people live ?  Japanese people have many differences in culture from American culture.  Would you like to know what the differences are?

Our task during our study of Japan will be to look at some of the different aspects of Japanese culture that make them different from Americans.  We will be looking at food, clothing, housing, sports, language, and more.  After we have done research on some of the differences, we will be creating presentations that illustrate some of these difference.  Students will be presenting in teams of 3.  Research can be done either by using the internet, or by going to the library and using sources such as books, magazines and newspapers.  Presentations can be given to the class in any style including: posters, powerpoint presentations, artifacts or models.  Presentations should be approximately 5 minutes long.

 Students will be given time during the school day to work in the library.  Additionally, I will be staying after class 2 days a week, Tuesday and Thursday, for students who need computer access.

EGYPT

In this webquest we will be using our computers to learn all about egypt. We will be looking at things such as Geography, alphabet, life animals, and Burial traditions.  Once we have learned about many of the different aspects of Egyptian life, we will creating actual artifacts that we will place in a time capsule.  This time capsule will be opened up by next years 2nd grade class when they begin there unit on Egypt as a way to predict what they might be learning.


http://questgarden.com/64/35/3/080413225156/process.htm

Mexico

In this lesson the class will be  learning about festivals in Mexico.  Our class will be breaking into three different groups, and each group will be asked to make a small presentation on a specific topic that they will be learning about.  The first Group will be learning about traditional Mexican art.  The second group will be learning about Mexican Holidays, and our final group will be creating a Mexican Menu.  Hopefully when this lesson is completed we will have a culminating activity of actually having a small Mexican holiday in the class.  I will be notify each parent which group your child is in.

In Addition to a making a small presentation to the class each group will be asked to write a small collaborative paper giving details about their given subject.  Class time will be provided for this writing assignment.  If additional time is needed students can set up a GoogleDocs account so that they can all access a common paper.  If you need assistance with this, please feel free to contact me.

AUSTRALIANS

In this Webquest we will be taking a tour of Australia. We will be learning about Animals that are native to Australia,  a group of indigenous people, the Burrara, and language differences between how we speak in America, and how Australians speak.

http://questgarden.com/79/30/6/090331171126/

NATIVE AMERICANS

On this webquest we will e looking at a diverse group of  Native American Tribes.  We will be exploring the Powhatan, The Sioux, and The Hopi Indians.  This webquest ask the students to learn about the different food, shelter and clothes used by each of these tribes.  In order to keep track of the various facts about the different tribes students will keep their information in a graphic organizer.  The graphic organizer can either be written by hand, or created using a classroom computer and Kidspiration. Afterwards they will have to decide which tribe they feel they would most like to be apart of.  The webquest does include some assignments that we will not be following, so I will send home a list of which parts we will be completeing 

http://questgarden.com/76/37/0/090219160234/

The WORLD (We all came from somewhere)

Our final project about world cultures will give you and your children a chance to work together in a different way.  Instead of learning about a new culture from a webquest or library research,  I would like a parent or involved adult to talk to your children about where they come from.  This is a unique opportunity for students to realize at this age that they do not just come from America, but in fact are part of a much larger group.  Hopefully they will see that some of the things that they do in their life incorporate cultures from all over the world.  As a culminating project I would like you to help them collect photos, videos, or audio clips from your personal files, or from the internet and create a small presentation that they can give to their class.  Programs such as Media Blender or Powerpoint are ideal for such a purpose.  If students need assistance scanning images, I will make my self available 2 afternoons a week to assist.  Good Luck.