Critical Literacy for Young Citizens

As I was reading this weeks reading, I couldn't help but think about what we did in school right before Thanksgiving break. In my fourth grade class, we did not even go into the big talk of what is Thanksgiving. We gave each student a parts of speech turkey and they had to color it in according to the part of speech. As they were doing this, we had a virtual field trip playing on the promethean board where they talked about the Indians and described what they wear. Most of the students were too concentrated on their turkey to worry about what was playing. After they finished their turkey, we asked them to write a letter to someone telling them why they are thankful for them. I was in my placement class for two hours, then I was pulled in to help 5th grade with their celebration.

When the students are in fifth grade they have one day where they get to dress up like pilgrims and they rotate to do activities related to what pilgrims use to do back then. The very first station I was in was the snack station, the students got to try food that they would eat back then and while eating they watched a short video about it. Then, I went to the seed station. In this station the students got a chance to plant their own seeds. The teacher talked to them about how back then they couldn't just go to the store, they had to plant everything. The last station I went to was the butter making station which was my favorite.The students got the chance to make their own butter and eat it too. 

I wish that in my class we would have had a deeper discussion about Thanksgiving. It would have allowed me to get the chance to see what students think it is all about. The lesson in the reading was a neat one. I like each activity that was conducted and it really got the kids involved in the lesson.