ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understanding: 1. I want my students to understand holidays and customs of various groups of people. 2. I want to help them to be well-rounded individuals who are accepting of other cultures.
Goal(s): 1. To understand the international holidays we study.  2. To understand the importance of being accepting of all cultures.

Questions Answered

Essential questions:1. What and when are the holidays?  2. Who celebrates the holidays?  3. Why and how is each holiday celebrated?
Objectives: 1. To research four international holidays: Chinese New Year, Kwanzaa, Cinco de Mayo, and Hanukkah. 2. To join in a celebration of Cinco de Mayo on May 5.  3. To compare and contrast the holidays.  4. To write about one of the four researched holidays.  5. To present the reports on the holiday of choice.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer) will provide evidence of understanding? 1.  I will present students with a quiz on the holidays.  2. They will need to match the holiday with traditions of that holiday.  3. Simple content-focused questions will be answered while students are doing research on the Internet.  4. I will also have my students create a quiz to be taken as a final assessment of the unit.  5. Each student will submit 2 questions.
What academic prompts (e.g. open-ended questions or problems that require students to think critically and then to prepare a response / product / performance)will provide evidence of understanding? 1. Daily discussion of research will be held.  2. Students will finish the sentence, “If I were celebrating Hanukkah (or other holiday), I would…” in daily writing activities.
What performance tasks and projects (e.g. complex challenges that are authentic, mirror the real world and require a performance or product) will you include that will provide evidence of student understanding?  1. Students will demonstrate how they used the Internet to find information on the holidays.  2. They will illustrate teacher-created booklets using clip art found online and with images from KidPix Studio. 3. Students will participate in a Cinco de Mayo celebration; pictures will be taken with a digital camera.
What other evidence (e.g. observations, work samples, dialogues, student self-assessment) of understanding will you collect? 1.  Students will take notes (record facts) while researching their topic/holiday.  2. They will submit written reports (done with a partner).  3. The class will participate in discussion comparing and contrasting the various holidays.  4. Classroom observations will occur throughout the unit.  5. I will fill out a rubric on the presentation of reports.  6. Students will also complete a rubric as a means of self-assessment.

Instructional Strategies

My unit on International Holidays is project-based with projects being created to share and used to peer teach. Students will create reports with partners using information obtained from the Internet, a skill that will be used throughout life. This activity will be engaging for students as it is new to many. Inquiry-based strategies will also be implemented into this unit. Students will be given guidelines/ a list of things to find when researching their topics. They will be responsible for investigating and recording their findings. Rubrics will be created for self-assessment and teacher assessment.