Ideas for Lessons
Introducing the project:
- Discuss the topic of grandmothers and ask students what names they call their grandmothers. List these names on the blackboard and make a graph to display the results.
- Discuss things that students like to do with their grandmothers and why their grandmothers are special. Again, graph the results.
Starting the project:
Mrs Henchie with Jade and Abigail in front of their "Grandmother and Me" display. - Clarendon Primary School, South Africa |
- Go to the Grandmother and Me online book and take note of the country names listed at the bottom of the page. Locate these countries on a world map. How many hours apart are you from these countries? [See our Resources webpage.]
- Read some of the grandmother entries from other students around the world. What questions come to mind as the students read them? Make note of these questions and email them to the Kidproj mailing list.
- Have students write text about the names they call their grandmothers, what they like to do with them and why they are special. Save this text in a file. These will be sent in e-mail to the Kidproj mailing list [kidproj@listserv.nodak.edu] with the subject line: "Grandmother:....."
- Encourage students who like to draw to make a painting or drawing of their grandmother. Send the best drawings to: Patti Weeg for the project webpages. Submissions will be selected for use on the web. If there is an overwhelming response, all of the images may not be posted due to disk space and time constraints.
- Add a page to the A Grandmother Storybook - a collaborative writing activity.
Getting more from the project:
- After your students have written their grandmother text and made images have them look at the Grandmother and Me webpages to gather data about the entries they see there. You may want to divide your students into groups and assign them certain webpages to view. Gather data in a table for these categories:
- Various names for grandmother
- Ways youngsters like to spend time with their grandmothers
- Reasons why grandmothers are special
- Have your students graph the data that has been gathered.
- Encourage your students to make some conclusions about this data. Share these thoughts on the Kidproj list.
- Compare alphabets of grandmother entries and show students how to make the different characters they see in other languages using the "Character Map" in Windows. For example:
"Minha avó se chama: Albertina eu gosto de conversar com a minha avó
porque ela é muito boa!" - Emersom (Brazil)
To make ó, press Alt/162; to make é, press Alt/0233.
- Have your students write to others who have drawn pictures or written about their grandmothers. Send these messages to the Kidproj list.
- Create a short sound file of your word for grandmother in your native language. Selected sound files may be linked from the project webpages. Notify the project moderators if your students create a sound file.
- Arrange to meet other participants in the project on Kidlink IRC. Visit the Resources webpage to find resources that will help you determine if a real time chat is possible when your friends live across many time zones from you.
Extending the project:
- Have your students interview their grandmothers and ask them such questions as:
- What is your fondest memory of when you were young (or when you were my age)?
- How was school different when you were growing up?
- What has been invented since the time you were young?
- What jobs are available now that weren't here when you were young?
- Have your students share their grandmother's favorite recipe, favorite story, game or song with everyone on the Kidproj mailing list.
- Make a recipe book with all the grandmother recipes your class gathers.
- Have the students ask their grandmothers to help them label any family photos that don't have names or dates on them.
- Encourage students to build a family tree with their grandmothers.
- Invite the grandparents of your students to school and show them the Grandmother and Me webpages. The grandparents might like to write to one of the students in the project with the help of their granddaughter or grandson.
- Invite grandparents to school to read to your class and have lunch with the students.
Lesson Ideas to Share?
Share with us other ideas for lessons that you have used in this project. We will review all lesson ideas and add them and your name to our project page.
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