18 minute read
Session 3: Exploring My Community
Session 3
EXPLORING MY COMMUNITY
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Photo Courtesy of Austin PBS
PHOTO CREDIT
Exploring My Community: Goals and Focus
Learning Goals
In this session, families will engage in experiences that continue to focus on the primary MOLLY OF DENALI informational text learning goal:
To use informational text they access and/or create to meet their needs and wants, including to help them solve real-world problems, to satisfy their curiosity, to take advantage of opportunities, to teach others and to accomplish tasks.
The session’s secondary learning goal is: to use a variety of language, navigational, structural, and graphical text features to help access or convey meaning. Access can include reading, listening to, and/or viewing information and conveying through writing, speaking, and/or presenting information. In this session, the focal feature is maps.
Courtesy of PBS Wisconsin / photo by Mouna Algahaithi
NOTE
The informational text learning goals are concepts that are meant to help facilitators guide families’ explorations but do not need to be explicitly stated to families. Families should be focused on the experience of using and creating informational text.
This Session’s Molly Story
“Tooey’s Hero,” and the supporting interstitial, “Finding Beluga Point,” support kids in understanding how maps convey information. With the help of grown-ups, kids will gather information from maps and other text sources and create a community map of favorite places.
This Session’s Artifact:
A collaborative community map
Session Priorities
Families will: • Explore maps and the information that they convey. • Gather information about community events and places.
• Identify places on a local, city/town or state map. • Gather and share information about families’ favorite places in the community.
• Develop and strengthen positive attitudes toward accessing, using and creating informational text.
Photo Courtesy of Austin PBS
Alaska Native Value
Introduce the Alaska Native value of “Seeing connections – All things are related’’ to center and ground the experience of this session’s workshop. During the center activities, make connections between Molly’s Alaska map, Tooey’s Map from “Tooey’s Hero,” and the community map families will be creating together for the museum exhibit.
Concepts/vocabulary to incorporate throughout the workshop:
Observe: To use all five senses to gather information about people, objects or places; to notice.
Investigate: To use our senses to make observations and gather information to explore a topic or problem.
Map: A drawing of a location that shows physical features, such as lakes or mountains and places, such as bridges or buildings.
Community Map: A type of map with the purpose of sharing information about places that are important or special to the people from the community. The map may include symbols and labels that give interesting information about the community.
Landmark: A location, object, or feature on a map that is important or meaningful to the people of that area and can easily be recognized from a distance.
Map Legend: Explains the symbols, landmarks and drawings on a map.
Value: An idea or guiding principle we practice that is important and meaningful to our family or community.
Artifact: An item made by humans that has special meaning.
Courtesy of WFSU Public Media
Exploring My Community: At-a-Glance
Eat (25 minutes)
Welcome families. Sign everyone in, pass out conversation placemats and name tags and invite everyone to eat.
Watch complete episode story, “Tooey’s Hero.”
Review the previous workshop and preview the current workshop.
Explore
(40 minutes)
Discuss “Tooey’s Hero.”
Introduce and discuss the Alaska Native value of “Seeing connections – All things are related.”
Introduce and discuss the idea of creating a minimuseum exhibit.
Connect Molly’s map and Tooey’s map with the community map families will be creating. Discuss connections between the places on Molly’s and Tooey’s maps.
PLAY
Facilitate family learning and play at three centers in the following sequence:
1. Molly’s Research & Writing Center
Families look through local maps and community newspapers to gather information for their community map. Families draw an image and add a caption of their favorite place to add to the community map. Prompts for notetaking and templates are provided in the Museum Planner.
2. Tooey’s Make & Take Center
Families collaborate to make a flag that represents themselves, their family and neighborhood.
3. Trini’s Digital Media Center
Families will play the “Sled Dog Dash” game found in the PBS KIDS
GAMES and Molly of Denali app. Families can also watch the full story of “Tooey’s Hero,” if they didn’t preview it at home.
SHARE
Bring families back together to share their contributions to the community map.
Preview the next workshop.
Share take home materials: “I Spy Information” comic book.
Goodbye until next time!
Courtesy of Maryland Public Television
Materials
Safety Note: Items used throughout the FCL can pose safety and choking hazards (straws, rubber bands) and/or allergic reactions (fish crackers, latex balloons) for young kids. Bring this to grown-ups’ attention and encourage adults to provide careful supervision of kids when using these items.
Eat
Name tags
Meal
Conversation placemats
Episode story, “Tooey’s Hero” Computer, projector, and speakers
Molly’s Alaska map
Explore
PLAY
Molly’s Research & Writing Center
Molly & Me: Museum Planner
Collection of town, city, and state maps (ex. physical maps, parks and recreation maps, tribal maps, maps of libraries, schools or museums)
Community newspapers and city, county and/or library calendar of events Large local map of city, county or state
Craft supplies (paper, scissors, markers, pencils and crayons) and decorative items (such as pom poms, glue, glitter and stickers)
Color index cards
Tooey’s Make & Take Center
“Make Your Own Flag” activity sheet
Craft supplies (scissors, tape, string and glue) and decorative items (such as pom poms, glue, glitter and stickers) Optional: coloring pencils, markers and crayons
Trini’s Digital Media Center
Computers or tablets with an open search browser to Google Maps Tablets preloaded with “Sled Dog Dash” digital game from the PBS KIDS GAMES and Molly of Denali app.
SHARE
Completed local map of city, county or state
Computer, projector and speakers “Finding Beluga Point” interstitial video
“I Spy Information” comic book Pushpins
String
Sticker labels
Optional: cork, flannel or felt board to mount community map
One or more additional tablets loaded to the full story of “Tooey’s Hero” Headphones (optional)
Exploring My Community: Workshop Rundown
Welcome
Welcome families back to Session Three! Sign them in, distribute placemats and name tags.
Eat (25 minutes)
• As families arrive invite them to get their food, start eating and use the placemats for conversation and activities.
• Encourage families to notice the conversation prompts related to the image and the Alaska Native value on their placemats.
• Watch “Tooey’s Hero.” Provide background information about the video they’re about to watch, such as, “Molly and Tooey are following the route of Eugene Pike who is retracing the route of a mailrun across interior Alaska with his sled dogs. We are going to see how Tooey traces Eugene’s trail using a map with labels that includes important landmarks and physical features.” • Clean up meal and gather together as a whole group.
TIP
As families are eating, walk around and model the prompts and questions on the placemats for families.
Review and Preview
• Revisit the previous week’s workshop focused on learning about each other as well as the FCL format. Introduce today’s topic—exploring our community—where families will explore maps of their town/city/state and learn about how maps can provide information about a place and community.
Families will:
• Explore how maps can convey information. • Play and learn together at three hands-on and digital activity centers.
1. Molly’s Research & Writing Center - You will look through local maps and community newspapers to gather information and facts about a specific place or location to add to the community map. You will draw an image and add a caption of your favorite place and add it to the community map. 2. Tooey’s Make & Take Center - You will make a your own flag that represents you, your family or your neighborhood. 3. Trini’s Digital Media Center - You will play the “Sled Dog Dash” game found in the PBS KIDS
GAMES and Molly of Denali app and can view the story video, “Tooey’s Hero,” for this workshop.
• Share what you contributed to the community map so that others can learn about and discover new places in your community.
Review the questions on the placemat activity and encourage families to share:
• What did you notice about Tooey’s map? • What landmarks do you notice?
Explore (25 minutes)
As families wrap up eating, introduce the Alaska Native value on the placemats: “Seeing connections – All things are related.”
Prompt discussion by asking families questions such as: • From our previous session, do you remember what a value is and what it means? • What do you think it means to see connections and that all things are related? One example we see in nature is that rain provides water for plants and flowers to grow which later become food for animals and insects.
Open up Tooey’s map and/or the Denali National Park and Preserve map and ask questions such as: • What map did you see in the video? • What information does Tooey’s map tell us? What information does the Denali
National Park map tell us?
Open up Molly’s Alaska map and ask questions such as: • What are we looking at? What do you see? • What information can you learn from this map? What information would you want to know from this map if you were visiting Alaska? • Have you seen a map like this before? • What do these maps have in common?
TIP
Define any vocabulary that kids notice and are unfamiliar with on Molly’s Alaska map.
TIP
Model questions that prompt kids to think about what information can be gathered from a map and what information can be added to a map to make it more useful.
Introduce the artifact families will be making together for the community museum exhibit: a local community map of places they like to go and/or with locations of their favorite community events. Ask families what special places might they include on a map of their community?
You can say, “Today, we are going to gather information and create a community map! The map can be used by visitors to our community or by people who live here and may not know about a place that is special and meaningful to you. Maps can provide helpful information about where to find interesting, important and fun places that we love to visit. Our community map will be a part of our community museum and other people will get to view and use it.”
Courtesy of WCNY
TIP
If you would like to create the space for grown-ups-only and kids-only time, consider having kids preview centers with facilitators, and in particular, maps and other informational text at Molly’s Research & Writing Center. At the same time, gather grown-ups to discuss and reinforce the intention of introducing Alaska Native values and the purpose of the community map as part of the minimuseum exhibit. Also, during this time, explain to grownups what will happen at each Play Center and discuss with families whether they may need any accommodations during the session.
Encourage families to start thinking about what places they might want to include in the community map. Similar to Molly’s Alaska map, families are going to create a map of their own community. It will include images with captions of specific places families want other people to know about. It can be a park,a playground, a library, a grocery store or somewhere else that is important to them.
Preview the three centers for families. Open up the Museum Planner and show families what pages kids will use for this workshop.
PLAY (45 minutes)
Families can choose to visit the three centers at their own pace, moving to the next activity when their child is ready. They can revisit centers if wanted.
TIP
Make a sample flag for Tooey’s Make & Take Center and add one important or interesting place to the community map ahead of time so grownups see a model of the finished products.
Courtesy of WFSU Public Media
Courtesy of WFSU Public Media
TIP
Add a “Quiet Corner” for younger siblings and/or kids that need a break from all of the environmental stimuli. The corner could be part of the “Research & Writing Center” or as a separate center. Include age-appropriate books and MOLLY OF DENALI coloring pages and coloring utensils.
Play Center Set-up
1. Molly’s Research & Writing Center
Families will look through different types of maps and see how different maps serve different purposes. Also, families can gather information and ideas about a specific place that they would like to add to the community map by browsing the maps in the research center, looking at the community event calendars, and researching using the internet. Open up the Museum Planner and show the Eagle Cam map example.
• Set up center at one end of your space with different types of maps, community calendars, community newspapers, and tablets or computers open to a search browser to Google Maps. • Encourage families to discuss important, interesting or favorite places in the community and to look through the resources such as the community calendar to find a specific place they want to include in the community map. • Encourage kids to write down information gathered from various sources into their Museum Planner. Ask questions like, “What are some interesting or favorite places to go to and visit in your neighborhood, city or state?” • If time permits, point out map features and define what they are such as title, legend and landmark.
Courtesy of WHRO Public Media, Norfolk VA
TIP
Sourcing texts about local places can help kids notice, wonder and draw connections with their community’s environment and surroundings.
TIP
Add child lock protection or enable parental controls on search browsers on tablets or desktop computers. One option is to use the “Kiddle” browser, a kidfriendly version of the Google search engine. Another option is to use ZAC Browser, a browser that simplifies browsing for kids with autism.
Families will use the information they know about a specific place and/or information they gathered in the research center to create one or more drawings with captions to include on the community map.
• Set up center with the city/county/state map pinned to a wall or within a corkboard, flannel or felt board.
Include push pins and string so that families can add their contributions (an image with a caption) around the map without obstructing the actual map.
• Place craft supplies on a nearby table so that families can decorate their contribution. Encourage families to look at other contributions and discuss places they may or may not have visited in their community and places they would like to visit.
TIP
Pin the community map lower to the ground so that kids can easily reach and add their contributions to the map. Encourage families to make connections between Molly’s Alaska map, Molly’s Eagle Cam map and their community map.
Model questions such as: • What did Tooey use his map to do? • What does Molly’s Eagle Cam map tell us? • What are other reasons for people to use a map?
TIP
Families may have different language and literacy levels. Families can communicate their favorite place orally. Using a smart phone, record the information as an alternative option to writing. For families who regularly communicate in a native language other than English, encourage writing in their native language. Using voice-totext technology can also help families who may need some extra help with translations or writing.
2. Tooey’s Make & Take Center
Families will read instructions and design a flag that represents themselves, their families or their community. After drawing and decorating or after they draw and decorate the flag, families will add captions to explain their design.
• Set up center at one end of your space with a large table.
• Place a pre-made flag activity sheet sample. Include examples of flag samples with captions.
• A caption is text next to an image or illustration that tells you information about that image or illustration. The “Make Your Own Flag” activity sheet provides space to the side for families to explain information about their flag such as the meaning of colors, symbols, and objects illustrated on the flag.
• Place the “Make Your Own Flag” activity sheets on the other side of the table. Include crafting and decorating supplies.
TIP
For younger kids, consider playing “Super Snowboarder” and/or “Denali Trading” as alternative digital games.
TIP
Encourage grown-ups to play the game with their kids. There will be multiple checkpoints during each dog sled journey. Encourage grown-ups to help kids read diagrams, illustrations with captions and other types of informational text features to help Molly and Tooey continue on their dog sled journey.
3. Trini’s Digital Media Center
Families will play a digital game where they will help Molly and Tooey deliver items with their sled dogs.
• “Sled Dog Dash” Game: With their sled dogs, Molly and Tooey need to deliver much-needed items to Grandpa Nat. Using Molly’s Sled Advisor app, Molly and Tooey will learn how to care for the sled dogs as they go on a sledding adventure. You will learn how to read and use diagrams, illustrations with captions and tables to care for the sled dogs and navigate them to Grandpa Nat.
• Set out four full-loaded tablets with the browser open to the “Sled Dog Dash” game or to the PBS KIDS GAMES and Molly of Denali app or PBS KIDS web games opened to the “Dog Sled” game.
• Include a tablet preloaded with the “Tooey’s Hero” episode for families who may not have watched the full episode before the workshop.
Share (25 minutes)
Share (10 Minutes)
Gather families together and walk them to the community map. Allow families to look at and read all of the contributions. Ask kids to share their contribution, prompting them with questions such as:
• Why did you include that <insert place> on the map? • Why is that <insert place> important to you and your family? • Is there a place that another family has included that you’d like to visit?
Let families take a picture of the map. Let them know that the community map will be added to the community museum exhibit for everyone to see. Reiterate the purpose of the museum.
TIP
Alaska Native place names can tell us a lot about a location including past geological history, anthropological history, etc. Reach out to local Indigenous tribes and ask if they would be willing to help families at the FCL learn more about Native place names in your community. Co-View (10 minutes)
Watch the interstitial, “Finding Beluga Point,” that comes before the video story “Tooey’s Hero” (minute 12:00 - 13:59). Provide some background information about the video to help orient the group to what they’re about to watch, such as, “Now we’re going to watch a video of kids just like you who did some exploring and investigation to find a special place where they can see whales.” After watching the video, make the connection between places that families have added to their community map and places they want to visit.
Reintroduce the Alaska Native value that you discussed at the beginning of the session. You can say, “Today, we talked about the Alaska Native value of seeing connections – that all things are related.” Lead a discussion with the following questions: • What connections did you see between all of the maps we’ve looked at today? • How are the maps we saw related to the community map we created together? • Are there places on our community map that everyone has been to or wants to visit?
TIP
Ask the grown-ups or “wise Elders” of the group to share if places on the map or the landscape of the map have changed over time.
Wrap-Up and Take-Home
Point out and celebrate how you saw families supporting each other’s engagement and learning.
Congratulate families on a successful workshop and the creation of a community map! Make sure families know that the map will be used beyond the workshop by others in the community. Remind attendees of the map’s audience and the plan to share the community map.
Remind families of the details of next week’s workshop and to preview the next workshop’s video at home. Provide a brief preview to get them excited about what you’ll be doing together next: celebrating family traditions!
Collect name tags and distribute “I Spy Information” comic book, which contains activities and supports for families to continue their creative and collaborative learning at home.
Share a link in the take-home materials to the PBS KIDS digital community map of the United States. Families can fill out an online form to add their favorite place or view the nation-wide community map.
TIP
Provide families with a take-home map such as a county parks & recreation map or city library map to continue exploration of maps and their community.
Courtesy of PBS Wisconsin / photo by Mouna Algahaithi
