WHEN TO DO: BEGINING OF SCHOOL YEAR OR ANY TIME.
APPROPRKATE AGE: Third through sixth grade.
PURPOSE: STUDENTS LEARN ABOUT EACHOTHER AND ABOUT THE MEAING OF FAMILY. THIS IS GREAT TO USE IN THE BEGINIGN OF THE SCHOOL YEAR SINCE YOU AND YOUR CLASS WILL BE A �FAMILY� ALL YEAR TOGETHER. IT HELPS ESTABLISH COMMUNITY IN THE CLASSROOM. THIS IS A TOUCHY SUBJECT BECAUSE A STUDENT MAY HAVE JUST LOST A PARENT OR THEI PARENTS MAY HAVE JUST DIVORCED, HOWEVER, IF THEY KNOW THAT SOMEONE ELSE HAS OR IS GOING THROUGH THE SAME THING IT MAY HELP.
MATERIALS: Paper, pencil, Internet, books about families.
SKILL: Compare and Contrast. .
SUBJECT: Writing.
SLO: The student will write a paper comparing and contrasting three different �types� of families.
ANTICIPATORY SET: How do you compare and contrast families? How many different �types� of families are there? Are there really different types of families of just different people living at different people homes? Who lives at your home (make a graph of moms, dads, grandmas, aunts, friends, play moms,ect.).
ACTIVE TEACHING: If I were going to write a paper about Jenny�s family, Donald�s family and Brittany�s family. I would start off stating that Jenny lived with her father only, Donald lived with his grandmother and grandfather and Brittany lives with her mother and father. I would then write a paragraph explaining what a family is and why they all were living with family. Donald lives with his grandparents and Brittany lives with her parents, their family reads both students stories at night and both will get in trouble if they stay up past 10:00. Both are tucked in but Brittany says, �Goodnight Mommy,� and Donald says �Good Night Nana.�
INDIVIDUAL PRACTICE: Have the students write their own family comparisons..
ASSESSMENT: The student compares and contrasts the three families.
EXTENTIONS/ADAPTATIONS: Do different cultures look at the meaning of family differently? Draw a picture of your family and tell us about them. History of divorce. (For older students) Math � statistics of number of children in families across cultures. Do certain cultures of countries have larger families? Have the size of families increased or decreased in America in the last 100 years? Why?