School and Community

Book Title: The Rag Coat

Author: Lauren Mills

Publisher and Date: Trumpet Club, Inc., 1991

Curriculum Developer: Kimberley Buehler

Summary:

The Rag Coat is about a girl named Minna who tells the story of how she learned that people need each other. She comes from a poor family. Her father gets sick from working in the coal mines and dies. The mother makes quilts to support the family. Minna can not go to school, because she does not have a coat to wear for the winter. Through the help of her mother and other mothers, they make a coat for Minna. This coat is made from all of the mothers' quilting scraps. At school, the children make fun of her coat. Minna shares with the class the story behind each patch. Each child has a tie to her coat, because their mothers helped make the coat with scraps from their history.

Social Studies Relevance:

This book explains the need for family, neighborhood, community, and school. It shows how history is a part of each of our lives. History helps mold who we are through teaching us values and an understanding of the past. This book also shows a difference between wants and needs.

Grade Level Focus: 1st and 2nd grade

Relationship to Social Studies State Core:

Standard 6010-02: The students will understand that the family, school, and neighborhood provide basic needs and learning experiences.

Objectives 6010-0201: Identify examples of how individuals learn from the family, school, and neighborhood.

6010-0202: Show ways in which families provide the basic needs of love, food, shelter, clothing, companionship, and protection to their members.

6010-0203: Compare similarities and differences among families, schools, and neighborhoods.

6010-0204: Show that every individual has dignity and worth and is unique.

Standard 6010-05: The students will understand that individuals have unlimited wants but limited resources.

Objectives 6010-0502: Define and identify wants and needs.

6010-0503: Identify resources that are used to make the things we need or want.

Standard 6020-02: The students will show how individuals are products of their culture and how individual talents and traits are developed.

Objectives 6020-0201: Identify cultural traits and values that are inherited and acquired; i.e., family, religious, and cultural traditions, physical characteristics, etc.

6020-0202: Show ways in which individuals learn behavior and values from groups in the community; i.e., honesty, respect, responsibility, etc.

Title of Lesson: Wants and Needs

Objective:

• Students will be able to decipher the difference between wants and needs.
• Students will make a collage showing wants and needs.

Materials Needed:

The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills, 2 sheets of chart paper, magazines, glue, scissors, and construction paper.

Procedures:

1. Think-Pair-Share Strategy. Individually the students will think of things they want. This may only take about 3 minutes. Then pair the students up and have them talk about their wants with the other student. Give them about 3-5 minutes to share with the partner. During this time the teacher will put up a piece of chart paper titled wants. After the time is up, the teacher will have groups share a couple of things they see as wants. Repeat this process again for needs. Ask the students to individually think of things that they need rather than want. While the students share with a partner, hang up another piece of chart paper titled needs. Again have the groups share ideas of needs that they came up with.
2. Ask the students to look for wants and needs in the book The Rag Coat, as you read it to the class.
3. Guided Discussion. Discuss the words written on the charts and the examples they found, in the book, of wants and needs. What are wants and needs? How do they differ? What are wants and needs that we have today? How are they different to the time of Minna? How are they similar to the time of Minna?
4. Collage. Have the students go through magazines and make a collage of wants and needs. The college must be divided into two parts, so the wants and needs are separated.

Evaluation:

• Examine the collages to see if each student understood the difference between wants and needs.

Objective:

• Students will contribute ideas, through a brainstorming activity, for helping others at home, school, and in their neighborhood, and community.

Materials Needed:

4 sheets of chart paper, and 4 different colored markers.

Procedure:

1. Carousel Brainstorming. Have a chart in each corner of the room. Each chart will have a different title on it. The titles will be family, school, neighborhood, and community. Break the students up into groups of four. Each group will start at a different chart. Before the students are asked to go to a chart, explain the directions. Tell the students the different titles of each chart. They will be asked to come up with ways they could help with needs in each of those areas. Remind them of the differences between wants and needs. An example of a need in the community may be collecting coats for the homeless. Wants are not listed on the chart, but give the students an example to help them remember the difference. A want, in school, maybe to have a big screen T.V. in every classroom. Next, give each group a different colored marker. Each group will be asked to list ideas until the time is up. Then they will rotate to the next corner and list things at that chart. They will continue until they have been at each corner. The teacher should watch the groups each time. See how long it takes before each group has two or three things written down, then rotate them. It may take the first group a shorter time to come up with two or three things, so continue to watch to see how long it takes before they should be rotated. When the four rotations are done, have each group choose a spokesperson. This person will give a summary of the things on the last chart they were at. Have the rest of the class sit in their desks while the spokes people report.

Evaluation:

• Evaluate the group's ideas written on the chart paper. Check to see if they understood how they could help with their families, school, neighborhood, and community.

Objective:

• Together the class will identify a service project they can do for their community or neighborhood.
• The class will also organize themselves into committees and identify each committee's job for the project.

Materials Needed:

A chalkboard to record the committees and student's names.

Procedure:

1. Service Inquiry. Discuss with the class the different ways that they can help with needs in their home, school, neighborhood, and community. Ask the students how the community or neighborhood helped reach the needs of Minna in the book The Rag Coat. Ask the class to think of a project that they could do to help in one of those areas. Let's say that they choose to collect coats for their community. Ask the students to give ideas on how they could organize this service project. What do they need to do? Whom do we need to call? Whom do we give the coats to? How do we collect the coats? Ask the students to come up with different committees they will need to make the service project work? Have the students sign up for the different committees. They may need committees to: make notes to send home to parents in the school, make posters for the school, and a group in charge of collecting the coats and finding out where to take them to give to the needy. These committees may change depending on the project your class decides on.

Evaluation:

• Make sure that the service project is possible and needed in your community or neighborhood.
• Make sure that every student has signed up for a committee and that the committee has a valuable job description.

Objective:

• Students will each form a question for the speaker and will write down one thing that they learned from the speaker.

Materials Needed:

A guest speaker from the service place that your class is helping.

Procedures:

Before the speaker comes

• Ask the students to write down one to two questions that they have about the place where the speaker works. To monitor the quality and appropriateness of the questions have them turned in the day before the speaker comes in. If they are not appropriate, take to the student before the speaker arrives.
• Explain to the students how to act when a guest is in the classroom. They will need to have manners.

Speaker

• Ask the speaker to tell some background information about their work.
• Have the students ask their questions by raising their hands.

After the speaker

• Have the students write down the answer to their question and one extra thing that they learned about the speaker's work.
• Collect the student's questions and answers.

Evaluation:

• Examine the students questions and answers. Each student must have at least one question and one thing that they learned on their paper.

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