What a fun summer this has been. It's been relaxing, recharging, and full of new ideas for next year. As I write, I'm dreaming of the Legends of Summer concert I'm attending with friends tomorrow evening...that's right, Justin and Jay-Z. And me.
It's also been fun to host so many of my colleagues as guest bloggers this summer. Today, I am sharing a post from the one-and-only Amanda Schreiber. She is, in a word, amazing. Amanda is my first go-to colleague when I need ANY idea, from a one day activity to leave for a sub, to an incredibly well-planned book club. Her classroom is organized, colorful, and fun...just like her. She is a curator of fonts, novels, and DVDs for which I am forever grateful. Plus, after attending a summer wedding with her, she has some sa-weet dance moves. What more could you want in a colleague?!
First and foremost, I want to thank Amy for letting me be a
guest blogger! I’m truly excited to be posting on The Art of Teaching. You can
also hop over and check out my blog My
Shoe String Life. Thanks, Amy, for letting me blog with you!
Although, it’s only the end of July, I’m already thinking
towards May of next year. I recently have been looking at our new calendars for
Language Arts and Social Studies trying get back into “school mode.” We have a
few changes to Social Studies this year and I know once I’m in a classroom with
students, assignments, grading, and so on… I don’t have the luxury of always perusing
the internet at great lengths to find quality materials. I make the time
usually but I’m trying to use my time wisely this year. So, I thought I’d
look into our newest unit, Careers. It’s going to be an end of the year “fun”
unit in which we teach students about careers and personal finances. Students
need to understand possible career choices, education and skills careers
require, and how having a career can help with personal finances. Whew! That’s a lot to cover in May! Where to
start?
I started with a
Google search of Career videos and lesson plans! I hit the jackpot right away!
The website Kids.gov has an entire section on jobs! You can access the site by
clicking here. They have two
different sites one for grades K-5 and one for “Teens” grades 6-8. I can’t make
out the difference in videos. It appears my fifth graders could access either
site. I don’t see a huge difference. On the site they have lists of jobs
grouped by “subject” and then there are links to articles, videos, etc. that
describe the career. They even have a video to get kids thinking called “What
Do You Like?” The website is SO user friendly and easy to use! Check out the screen shot below.
After checking out the introduction video, students could
then watch videos based on their interest to help them narrow down several careers
they might want to research. One of my favorite videos will hit home to a lot
of my athletes, it’s on the career of a physical therapist. You can check out
the video here on You Tube.
While googling, I found another
website that also very informative. The website is called KnowItAll.Org. You
can view real profiles of professions in certain careers. It’s great because
you can pull up real people to get more information on specific careers. There
are also videos for each career on this site as well! What wealth of authentic information! Here is an example of a
profile from the site for a Dietitian.
Now what should
students do with all this great information? I found a great unit plan on
Teacher’s Notebook to help teachers and students organize all this great
information! You can find the unit in My Book Boost’s shop or by clicking here. The unit plan is structured so that students
are able to see a list of careers, choose their top choices, and organize their
research. There are also discussion questions and three reflection pages for
students to complete after their initial research. At only $1.50 for the entire unit, it’s a steal and a time saver!
As the culminating activity, I’m hoping to have students
create some sort of presentation about their favorite career. I was thinking of
perhaps having a “career fair” sort of day so that we can get through all the
presentations in one day. If students rotate, they can meet the Common Core’s speaking
and listening standards by presenting their display to me and other students
while also getting an opportunity to visit other students’ booths. I’m also
hoping to involve some parents and hopefully get quite a few guest speakers to
come in and talk about their personal careers as well. Good thing I have until
May to pull this off!
Thank you, Amy, for allowing me to guest blog! I can’t wait to
come back again!
What do you think? Does your school teach careers? Any lesson gems out
there?
Thanks so much for reading my post!
Amanda
