Calling teachers: need lesson plan ideas!

[fieryred33143]

I am part of a program that teams up working "professionals" with public school teachers for a day of "community in the classroom." We teach for an hour or for a day...whatever works with schedules. We are supposed to raise money. 50% of the money raised (all together) is split amongst all participating teachers evenly for their own use (they can buy some more supplies, a computer, take the kids on a fieldtrip, etc.) and the other 50% stays with the organization for teacher grants and what not.

Anyway I am paired up with my same teacher from last year. She teaches 2nd grade. This year its all about getting along in a community and the vocab is government, law, and consequence. I''m stuck on ideas. I know I''d love to have a scenario that everyone can act out and I can get them some costumes to portray maybe police officers or something.

I''d love to hear some ideas if anyone can think of any

 

[dragonfly411]

ok so you are teaching about getting along in a community (I''m assuming city/town) and you have to cover government and law as vocab. Just wanna make sure I got that part right.

Could you maybe create a play based on court, or have them enact a court scene, where officers, jury, and judge are present and they could go in on a case along the lines of ..... a make up scenario of like Jimmy stole my apple for lunch? Where they enact the stealing and certain children play witnesses and have to say what they saw? And include court vocab in there?

Or maybe you could have different parts of government. Have them dress up as a police officer, a fire fighter, a judge, someone who runs voting stands, a lawyer, and a mayor? and they have little speeches they give? and they have to take notes on the speeches?

 

[fieryred33143]

Great ideas dragonfly! I wrote them down to discuss with my partner and the teacher

I was also thinking that maybe we could split them in groups where one group would act out a scenario (maybe driving cars where there are no speed limits posted) and one group could be police officers that issues speeding tickets (as an example). Then we can have them point out why the group went so fast and what is missing. Assuming they guess speed limit sign then we can have another group be "lawmakers" and issue speed limit signs as a new law.

But that may be too complicated for 7-8 year olds. I have no idea what 2nd graders can/can''t do LOL

 

[dragonfly411]

I would discuss that with the teacher to see if they might be ok to do that! Or maybe take them to the playground and have a group act as the "rule makers" for the playground, and make a list of rules. They read them off before the kids go onto the playground. Have another group be Playing and break the rules, and have a third group that rights tickets like " katie broke this rule and now has to spell one of the vocab words on the board when we get back in" ?

 

[zoebartlett]

This is so funny -- I JUST taught this last week to my second graders! We didn''t do a play, but I did have my kids act out different scenarios. Yes, they''ll know about speed limits, etc, so your idea could work. I''d focus the lesson more on stuff that relates directly to their daily lives. The playground is a big deal, and the kids all know the playground rules, so I focused on that. We also talked about rules at home (and boy, did I get some insight into THAT one!). We talked about the same vocab. you mentioned. We also went into the 3 branches of government, but it doesn''t sound that you''ll get into any of that.

Your job sounds really interesting -- do you mind telling us more about it? Do you work for a corporation?

 

[fieryred33143]

Hi Zoe (how are the key west plans going?)

I do work for a fairly large corporation in Miami (about 1,000 employees in our offices here). The program is called the Great American Education Fund. Our company joined it last year. There are probably about 40-50 different companies throughout Miami that participate and we all teach on the same day. It''s a lot of fun. Last year we taught 2nd graders as well and we were there all day. I swear I left there more exhausted than a normal work day! I don''t know how teachers do it but they are sooooo cute

We raised (collectively) $45K which was great because the teachers ended up with close to $600 each. Our teacher bought an extra computer (they only had one...an old one that she brought from her own house) and she got some more books so the kids didn''t have to share. The neat thing about it is that these kids all come from under-priviledge homes so it gives them a chance to see things outside of their own world. We loved it and the kids had a good time. We got lots of "what do you do" questions and its kind of hard to explain to kids what auditing means so I just say a lot of hard math and they all went ewwwww math

LOL

. I love the program because it puts things into perspective. Her classroom was decorated with things from top to bottom and she had paid for it all. I can''t imagine having to pay for your own supplies to do your job and do it effecitvely.

I like the idea about the rules at home. I''m not sure if we''ll get a chance to go out on the playground. We were going to do something along the lines of the rules in the classroom and use the classroom as a community. We''re meeting with the teacher again on Friday so she can yay/nay our ideas.

Thanks for the insight!