Culture Lesson 5 Reflection

Lesson #5 was focused on culture specific to France. Our students looked at what France culture is compared to our own culture and specific traditions our students have. We started off the lesson with a quick icebreaker called "find someone who." The students had a sheet of paper with prompts to help find someone who has been on a boat, has seven letters in their name, has an older brother etc. This community building activity really helped get the lesson moving and the students enjoyed asking their peers and teachers questions. We then moved on to reviewing the behavior expectations that were created during the first lesson. After reviewing the behavior expectations we then moved onto our five new vocabulary words that were added to the students vocabulary rings. Miss. Karlie and I reviewed each of the vocab words and their definitions so that each student had a good understanding before moving onto a vocab matching activity that us teachers had created. Miss. Karlie and I created a word wall with the vocab words and definitions and then the students sorted through pictures and matched them to the word and definition. Each of the students did really well on this and this part of the lesson went by quickly since we only had five new vocab words for this lesson. Then we read a non-fiction read out-loud to the group of students. This book was focused on France and its culture. The read aloud went over time but the students had a well deserved brain break included after the read. We gathered our students' attention and played a game of Simon says to get the students wiggles out. Once the brain break was over we then moved onto a primary source analysis of the Eiffel tower. To gain student attention we decided to play a game of hide and seek to analyze the primary source. We began by asking the students where they would hide in the picture. Many of them answered with in the "middle of the tower" or "at the very top of the tower". Miss. Karlie had then asked them what they would smell, taste, hear, and see from their hiding spots. Every student gave input such as "I would smell the grass and air", "I would see all the trees and maybe even people walking by", and "I would hear the wind blowing". The students dove deep into this primary source and held engagement throughout the entire activity. After the primary source analysis we then moved onto another read aloud but this was based on the folktale Puss and Boots. Miss. Karlie and I read the book aloud and asked the students questions along the way. After the story was finished we gathered our students to the carpet and had them follow a youtube video where they had to run and jump over the character Puss. Following this activity, we had the students create a postcard as an arts and craft activity. The students went really in depth with their postcards and wrote at least two sentences and designed a front cover with lots of colors and drawings. Lastly, we had the students complete a journal entry answering the question How does life in your community differ from the life of someone in France? The students had some difficulty with answering this question but were able to talk about the time change, different foods, and traditions. An area of weakness during this lesson was time, we ran out of time to complete our compare and contrast chart focusing directly on past and present culture in France.

Included in this lesson were two student learning objectives that each of the students were able to meet. All students were able to compare and contrast life in the present to life in the past of France by analyzing the primary source and listening to our read aloud. Each of the students were able to meet the objective of comparing the similarities and differences we have from the people living in France. Students were able to meet this objective by completing the vocab sorting and having a group discussion and listening to the included reads. All six of our students were able to meet the student learning objectives except for one because we ran out of time and were not able to get to the corresponding activity.

As a teacher candidate a lot was learned from this lesson, especially the idea of including primary and secondary sources into lesson planning. Students gain a lot of knowledge by observing sources and developing knowledge on the concept. This experience will influence my professional identity by working on time management skills and developing a lesson where each step will be covered.

Brain Break Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&v=JrwlG0whMrA

Books Read:

  • Exploring Countries: France by Rachel Grack

  • Puss in Boots by Charles Perrault

Primary Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nF4wiS5-I-zaOLd8rOQzY8Nf7kzSQp4yHxOgbFrKXR0/edit?tab=t.0


















 

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