Citizens build community

The theme for our first unit is "Who We Are" and the central idea that we inquire into is "Citizens Build Community." Basically we talk about the different communities that we are a part of (home, school, city, country) and what our responsibilities are in those different communities. A big emphasis is usually on how we can help each other to make our communities better.

I showed my students this video that my amazing mentor teacher while I was student teaching- Sandy Tolbert- showed our class. It fits perfectly with this unit. 

The kids LOVE that video. They literally asked to watch it every day. It became my little carrot to dangle-- if you sit quietly while you eat your snack I will play the video. My kids loved it last year too. Last year they asked if we could make our own version, but I hadn't thought about that video until the end of the unit and we just didn't have time to do it. 

When we watched it this year I asked them how we could do the same things in our school community. We came up with ideas of what we could do to help each other in different areas of the school. I told them that my students last year wanted to make their own version of it and the kids this year loved that idea. So we spent some class time talking about specific areas of the school and how we can help each other in those area. Then we made a list long enough for each student to have a part. 

When I handed out the list of who was helping who with what, one of my students said, "Miss, this is called a script." Their previous teachers did such a great job teaching them! We also talked about extras on set so when it was not their turn they had to be extras in the background. 

It was kinda ambitious and I wasn't sure we'd be able to do it the way I was picturing it. When we practiced it I had to take the whole class in a group to the different areas and practice it in chunks. The day we filmed it I had recruited teachers that had a prep period and people from the leadership staff that didn't have meetings. Our tech coach, Matt, did the filming on my iPad. Matt studied film making so that's a HUGE reason why it ended up as awesome as it did. His filming made all the difference. I was so proud of my students too. We did just a couple takes and we got one with very minimal mess ups. 

After we filmed it we invited all the other 2nd grade classes and our parents to come to a "world premiere" of our movie. We showed it in the school auditorium (something the students asked if we could do) and then we put it on the school YouTube channel (something else the students asked if we could do) so now you can see it. It's only viewable to those who have the link. 

Enjoy!