Puting the Social back into Social Studies

Interactive Writing in Social Studies

Among the many roles that I have at my school, I am also a mentor to a new Kindergarten teacher. YEAH! So this means I get to spend some time with Ms. V's class and teach!! It is amazing because she is willing let me experiment my theories with her class and hopefully learn something too! 

Recently, I  attempted  to bring excitement to  a drab social studies text to her rocking Kindergarten class.  I worked with Ms. V's and her class to learn about Who's Who in Our School Community through a walking field trip in the school, followed by an interactive writing session.

The Set Up

On Monday we did a Social Studies lesson on Who's Who in Our School Community.  First we talked about the people in our school community that are important to running the school: the principal, the assistant principal, the custodian, the food service workers, the nurse and the school safety officer. Each time we talked about a new person, I pointed to an index card with that person's name on it.  (HINT: By the end of the lesson, we could transfer those name cards to our social studies word wall too!) In our class conversation, we were wondering , what do each of these people do in our school community? Since we wanted to know, we decided to go on a trip and interview each of these special people in our community. Before we left the room, I had written our question out on a card and when we got to each person, one brave student got to ask the question.

The Trip

Our first stop was the cafeteria, and we met Mr. Noble, one of the food service workers at our school. He told the students what his job was, "to serve students food." We then took a picture with Mr. Noble and went on to the next person.

Each person that we talked to was thrilled that the children were interested in what they did at our school. Our principal even invited all 28 children into her office and had then sit around her table! With each person we visited, we asked the question, took a picture, and then said thanks. It took about 20 minutes to complete the whole trip!

The Interactive Writing Follow Up

When we got back to the room, the children were bursting  with energy and could not wait to share their new information.  So, as a class we wrote about what we learned in our trip. Earlier in the day,  I had made a writing booklet on chart paper with a large picture box and two lines on it  for the class to use.

In the meeting area, the class proceeded to write about each of the people we met on the trip. Ms. V and I called on students to help us 'write' the story with us. We used two different colored markers so that the children's writing was in one color and the adults color was in another. This way, while the kids were stretching out a word, or reading the room to find the correct word, I could fill in some other words that we did not want to focus on for the day.  Most balanced literacy gurus state that you should share the pen....well we wanted to speed up the writing and not have it last 2 periods.  Since these students are in Kindergarten, I would not want them to struggle with the word 'protect', so I would ask one child for the initial and ending sound, let him/her write the P, and then fill in the rest myself.

By the end of the period, we wrote about 2 people we met that day.  

We finished the rest of the book over the next few days in social studies class.

Once the pictures were all printed out, we added them to the book and the word wall as well. Finally, we shared our book with each of the people in our school community!