Making Thinking Visible Strategies through Social Studies

Kindergarten and 1st

BISD – April 2014

Let’s get started

• Before we start, let’s review what it feels like to be a Kinder or 1st Grade teacher

• What its like every day

Think – Puzzle – Explore

What do you think you know about Making Thinking Visible strategies?

What puzzles you about Making Thinking Visible strategies?

How can you explore more about Making Thinking Visible strategies?

What will we do today?

• Kindergarten – Unit 14• 1st Grade – Unit 18 • This will be an

example, of how Making Thinking Visible Strategies can fit into a multi-day unit .

Think-Puzzle-Explore

What do you think you know about community?

What puzzles you about community?

How can you explore more about community?

What akes you say that?

What makes you say that?

K.14A and 1.17A Social Studies Process Skills – Obtain information about a topic through a variety of valid sources such as conversations.

Let’s review

• Community – a group of people living in the same place

Grocery store

School

Homes

Hospital Police Station

Post Office

Apartments

Shopping

Let’s use a poem

Let’s review

• Service - helping or doing work for someone

Community Service

• Community service – is work that helps people

Many community organizations help

• Red Cross• United Way• Food Banks• Churches

Explanation Game

Step 1

•NAME IT

•Share with a partner/small group.

•Discuss and record features of the object/artifact/text. Try to notice as many details about the PARTS as possible.

Step 2

•EXPLAIN IT

•Begin explanining the list of features from step 1.

•Come up with as many explanations as possible for how these particular PARTS work to make up the WHOLE object/artifact/text.

•Sticky Notes are a great tool for documenting this step.

Step 3

•GIVE REASONS

•Generate reasons/evidence for why their explanations are plausible.

•What evidence do you have for why a certain feature is explained a certain way? What do you see that makes you explain it that way?

Step 4

•GENERATE ALTERNATIVES

•Press for alternative explanations.

•Pay attention to relationships between the PARTS, why they are the way the are, and how the PARTS affect the WHOLE.

•Ask one another, "Why makes you say that?" after each alternative explanation is offered.

Let’s Play the Explanation Game 1. Name it –

Name what you see.

2. Explain it – Explain what it is

you see.

3. Give reasons – What in the

picture makes you think that?

4. Give alternatives –

What else could it be?

Let’s talk about community service

Community Service

Key Elements in Community Service

• Meets a real need• Coordinates with a

community agency, another school or class, or the community at large

Headlines

• Headlines is used to focus on the synthesis of learning

• This is done after a learning experience– Poem– Visual– Think-Puzzle-Explore

What is a headline?

• The head of a newspaper story or article usually printed in large type and giving the gist of the story or article that follows.

• What do you think would be in an article titled “School Rules” ?

Great activity for a writing station

• What could be a headline for an article about Community Service? – Students could write a sentence– Students could draw a picture to go along with

that sentence.

Now it is your turn. At your table, please use a scratch sheet of paper to write a

headline about community service.

Real Life, Authentic Learning…

• Students are involved in the decision making– What are the problems

in my school or neighborhood?

– What ideas do we have to help with these problems?

• What is Philanthropy?– Giving and Me

Let’s brainstorm areas of need in our

community or school.

Let’s take a vote

• Voting – a method for group decision making

Idea 1 Idea 2 Idea 3 Idea 40

2

4

6

8

10

12

Let’s Take a Vote

I Used to Think… Now I Think

I used to think _______ about community service.

Now I think _______ about community service.

What makes you say that?

I Used to Think… Now I Think

I used to think _______ about Making Thinking Visible strategies.

Now I think _______ about Making Thinking Visible strategies.

Where could I find this information after the training?

Strategies and Structures is located under Yearly Content

Documents

Where could I find this information after the training?