Advocacy Lesson!

 In this lesson, we taught about advocacy within Mexico! The first thing we did was have students take a pretest. This was a quick matching activity about different vocabulary students would learn in the upcoming lesson! Then we began introducing our tier 3 vocabulary to the students!

The vocab words were hidden by a piece of construction paper, and each student was able to come up with and reveal it! It discussed what advocacy and an advocate were. Then we discussed the vocabulary words justice and solution (tier 2 vocabulary) and explained how they related to advocates. The remaining vocabulary were cause, effect, and script! The first activity was a cause and effect card search. Students were given a cause or an effect and had to find their matching pair. For example, one student may have “Called the dog” and the matching card would be “A dog came over” (these cards had words and pictures. Then, once everyone found their pair they sat together and explained which was the cause and which was the effect. After that, we had a problem/solution activity, groups of students were given a different problem, such as “Someone keeps littering in your neighborhood and leaving trash everywhere!” and the pairs worked together to create a solution that prevents that problem from happening again! We shared our problems and solutions, then it was time for a brain break.

Here, students shook their arms if it was a cause that was read aloud or shook their legs if it was an effect that was read aloud. After that, we read our read aloud Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh. This book discussed Posada, a Mexican advocate who drew political cartoons to share messages. Students then looked at primary sources of Posada's work and tried to analyze the meaning or problems that Posada was trying to illustrate. Most students came to an agreement that he was protesting violence within Mexico. After this we became our very own advocates. Students were given their very own Mexican advocate in an envelope with three short stories and pictures of their advocate. The advocates given to the students were chosen off of their interest, there was an Olympian for a boy in the group who played several sports, a Judge for a girl who explained how she wanted to become one during our civics lesson, and an astronaut for the student who had explained how she wanted to become an engineer when we discussed goods and services in our economics lesson. Their advocates were tailored to them! One student was not extremely excited to have Cesar Chavez, the farmer, until it was explained to him that he was one of the most famous Mexican advocates, then he was on board! Students first had to read their stories, and once they found facts, they would raise their hand, and we would ask them what they found. 

 Once they were able to list three to five facts about their advocate, they were given a script. Students did really well writing in the first person as if they were that advocate! After their script was finished they were given a plain T-Shirt and fabric markers to design their shirt to look like the advocate's clothes (like creating a costume!). Once everyone was done, we moved to the rug and shared who our advocates were with our group, the advocates would stand and read their script! 

After this we gave the students their post-test for all of our lessons. We finished by having our award ceremony where each student received a certificate for Mexico exploration. This may have been my favorite part of any lesson I have ever taught, the students were so proud of themselves and their groups. They were both really excited and trying to be nonchalant at the same time as everyone clapped for them. Then we handed out all of their artifacts that we had made from previous lessons and said goodbye!

Teaching with Primary Sources!

 Working through our social studies unit with the focus being the country of Mexico, we have used several primary sources! In our very first lesson, which was focused on geography, we had students use primary sources of an old map and a new map of Mexico. First, we completed an I see, I think, and I wonder chart together for the old map of Mexico. Then, in groups of two, students completed their own chart, and we came back together to share everyone's findings. 

Students had done really well with us doing it together. So for our history lesson, we did it quite similarly. This time we had three different primary sources, all focused on codex's. Codex's are very similar to journals that the Aztecs would use to write out their daily lives. This fit really well with our history lesson because we solely focused on the Aztec period in Mexico! First, we gave them pieces of codex, two at a time, where they had to try and decipher what was occurring in the codex drawings.

Then we would reveal it to them. Revealing to them what was really happening helped them gain background knowledge of what daily life was like for the Aztecs. Then, for the final primary source, we gave them a full codex. The students were applying their knowledge they had learned from the first two when thinking and wondering about this full codex. For example, they learned from the first codex's the Aztecs used to loom, so in the final codex, they pointed out images that they thought were looms or yarn for the loom. We wrote our findings on the same I see, I think, I wonder chart paper. Then we had them make their very own codex's using the primary sources as examples!

We were noticing students weren't really interested in completing the chart every time, but they did really enjoy games, so we began to find new ways to include primary sources. One of my favorite ones was from our economics lesson, where students learned about different types of resources (Natural, Human, and Capital resources). So, one of our primary sources was a map of all the different natural resources in Mexico and where to find them. We gave students three minutes to work in pairs and find as many natural resources as they could. The winner would get a Mexico sticker! The students were very engaged and at the end of the lesson, students were able to list so many different natural resources that could be found in Mexico!

Another fun activity that we did with primary sources was a card hunt activity. There were three different sets of cards, each containing two images of important pieces of Mexican traditions (this was for our culture lesson). Included were the Day of the Dead, Cinco de Mayo, and Mariachi bands. It set contained an image from the past and one from the present (we had seven students, so there were three images of mariachi: two from the past and one from the present). They were randomly given the cards and had to find their matching pair.

Once found, students looked for similarities and differences. The Day of the Dead group noticed that in both, they were wearing sugar skulls. While the Mariachi band group noticed that one of the pictures had a trumpet, the others didn't. We then asked each group to try and think of anything that they had wondered or thought about these pictures. 

For our civics lesson, we had students look through a newspaper and try and deduce which branch of government was being talked about in specific highlighted sentences. Then, for our final lesson on advocacy, we are going to read the story Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh. This focuses on José Guadalupe Posada, an advocate for Mexico. Our primary source is going to be us examining some of his works that he has made that we found on the Library of Congress (where we found each primary source, except for the codex, which were given to us by the Adams Library!)

Culture Lesson!

 This lesson we taught about Mexico’s culture! The first thing we did was have students take a pretest. This was a quick matching activity about different vocabulary students would learn in the upcoming lesson! Then we began introducing our tier 3 vocabulary to the students!

The vocab words were hidden by a piece of construction paper, and each word a student was able to come up with and reveal it! More students participated this time in revealing the answer so they seem more engaged! First we went over culture and then traditions and values, which are important to every culture. The remainder of the vocabulary consisted of words specific to Mexican culture. These were two major holidays, day of the dead and Cinco de mayo. Then we talked about sugar skulls and murals. The lesson was then broken up into read alouds and then corresponding activities. The first activity we did was reading la Luna (folktale) and then creating a banner that is used to decorate Mexican traditions.

After that we learned about the day of the dead through a read aloud. Students were asked to answer the question of what is left on altars during the day of the dead. Their answers ranged from food, flowers, sugar skulls, and pictures. It was funny when some of the students were really bummed they had missed out on the Day of the Dead this year but seemed excited that it was a tradition that would happen next year! Then students decorated sugar skull masks, which are traditional food left on altars during this holiday.

After that we moved into Cinco de mayo, where students learned about it further through a read aloud. Before reading the book we asked students to pay extra attention to the bands that play during Cinco de mayo. Which were mariachi bands!

So we made guitars out of paper and yarn and decorated them similar to how the mariachi bands look! Their favorite part seemed to be adding the strings to the guitar, they were so focused!
After we learned all about the holidays and the traditions that are a part of them we had students participate in a card hunt of primary sources. Students were given a card with a tradition on it and had to find the matching pair. One set of cards was from the present and one was from the past. For example, if a student had a present image of people

celebrating the day of the dead, they wanted to find who had the past picture of the day of the dead. Then they would find similarities and differences and they shared either the class. To end the lesson we wanted to have the students make a mural! They would write their name big in the center of the paper then add pieces of their culture and hobbies around the page. We were going to tape them all together but ran out of time. We told them they would be able to finish it next time! Then we gave the post test and that was the end of our lesson! 

Economics Lesson!

 In this lesson we taught about economics in Mexico! The first thing we did was have students take a pretest. This was a quick matching activity about different vocabulary students would learn in the upcoming lesson! Then we began introducing our tier 3 vocabulary to the students!

The vocab words were hidden by a piece of construction paper, and each word a student was able to come up with and reveal it! More students participated this time in revealing the answer so they seem more engaged! At first I only went over the first five vocabulary words: economics, goods, services, surplus, and scarcity. Then we began our interactive T-Chart where we separated goods from services. After that we discussed the difference between consumers and producers while examining the different services we had on our T-Chart! Then it was time for a brain break, we listed different items from the goods and services and put it in a sentence that either meant we have a surplus or a scarcity. If the sentence made it seem like there was a surplus, students tapped their shoulders, if there was a scarcity students would pat their knees. After that we finished up the vocabulary board covering the different types of resources: Natural Resource, Capital Resource, and Human Resource. We went over a lot of examples for each having students share as many resources as they knew for each relating to a specific job such as doctor or farmer! Then we had students combine all of these resources for a chef! (Human Resource-Chef, Natural Resource-Plants and animals, and Capital Resource-Different kitchen appliances and tools). Then we divided the students into groups of three, one for each resource, and held up a picture of a different resource.

We then asked each group if this picture was a part of their group and why. After this we looked at our primary source, which was a map of Mexico and showed all of the different resources and where they were located. Students were given three minutes to work with a partner and find as many different resources as they could! We then discussed all of the different natural resources that the students were able to discover.

After this we began our read aloud ‘The Aztecs History Detectives’ by: Phillip Ardagh. We learned a lot about Aztecs in the history lessons so students were pretty prepped on what life was like during the Aztec period. Although, we had not covered Aztec economics yet! We discussed what currency was and students had a strong understanding of this vocabulary word. So before beginning the book we prepped the students to look for the answer to this question: What currency did the Aztecs use? After, the read aloud all students correctly answered cocoa beans. In our civics lesson before this, we had students ‘work’ for the government as a part of the different branches of government, and it was funny when they wanted a pay check because they went to their job and should be compensated! So we did exactly that in this economics lesson and paid them in the currency of the Aztecs, in beans!! Each student received 30 (cranberry) beans. These beans would be used to pay for the materials they needed in order to make maracas! We had a poster of our rates and students would come up to us, with their beans in hand, and add up how many they needed for each material and then assemble it!

The materials were the ‘goods’ and to incorporate ‘services’ students would have to pay one bean in order to receive teacher help! To make the maracas, students had to buy a plastic egg, two plastic spoons, rice, and tape (to decorate the maraca!). They were making two maracas each so they actually had to buy double of each of their materials. Overall, they did amazing with making the maracas, they were very neat and patient. They also would share their materials and give others their extra beans when they were finished. We were very proud of them and their maracas! Then we ended our lesson with our post-test matching and that was the end of our economics lesson!