Global Awareness Project

I don't know about your classrooms or Social Studies curriculum out there, but ours... is a bit dry.  We use Harcourt Social Studies for our text books.  It's really hard with first grade.  It's reading a lot of text and then comprehension questions at the end.  A lot of my grade level peeps have been searching and making up more "meat" for the Social Studies this year.  We need something else... more hands on!

I then found out that one of my team mates does a global awareness project each year.  It's a simple way for the kids to check out what's going on around them and then come back to class and share.  I liked it a lot, so I am trying it this year.  Each week I chose about four kiddos to share an article they thought was interesting from a newspaper, kids magazine, Internet, or local new broadcast.  They are to find something they think is worthy and put it into their own words to share with the class.  The only thing they are asked to not share are things with violence or politics.  I made one as an example for them and then I made copies of it to send home with the intro letter to parents so they can see how it can be done.  At the end of the presentation, we are going to make a class book out of all of the articles.  This book can be shared from year to year. 

Parent Letter- Download Here

Rubric for Presentation- Download Here

Reminder Letter for the Week Before it is Due- Download Here

Class Sheet for Presentation Dates- Download Here