Day+3-4


 * Title:** The Important Thing About a Family


 * Grade Level:** K-3


 * Time:** 2 class periods

In this lesson students identify the ways parents provide basic needs babies regardless if they gave birth to the child or not.
 * Goal:**

The student will:
 * Objectives:**
 * Identify the ways families provide basic needs to their members.
 * Create and publish a flipbook to display this information.


 * Materials/Technology:**
 * SmartBoard, laptop, projector, laptops for each student.
 * Inspiration and “[|babiesneedsfinal.isf]” template
 * One copy of the [|story_frame.pdf] for each pair of students
 * //Over the Moon// by Karen Katz or //Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born// by Jamie Lee Curtis


 * Source of idea:** Klatzkin, Amy. (2001) How I explained adoption to the first grade. //Adoptive Families//


 * Teacher Preparation:**
 * 1. || Obtain and familiarize yourself with //Over the Moon// by Karen Katz or //Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born// by Jamie Lee Curtis. ||
 * 2. || Familiarize yourself with Inspiration. ||
 * 3. || If you do not have classroom computers with Internet access, reserve one hour-long session in your school's lab. ||
 * 4. || Visit and familiarize yourself with the Flip Book, one of ReadWriteThink.org's online publishing tools. Bookmark this tool on your classroom or lab computers. ||


 * Instructional Procedures:**
 * 1) Introduce the concept of adoption by reading //Over the Moon// by Karen Katz or //Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born// by Jamie Lee Curtis. Both adoption stories begin with the phone call that their baby is born and continues through the final preparation and union with her adoptive parents and homecoming.
 * 2) Use a doll that represents the baby in the book and begin a discussion about what are some of the things that babies need.
 * 3) Open the Inspiration template, “[|babiesneedsfinal.isf]” and ask the students to name things that babies need (i.e. diapers, bottle, milk, food, clothing, love, hugs, etc.) and add a corresponding symbol to the box labeled “What babies need.” Ask the students to name things that parents do (i.e. feed, clothe, change diapers, give medicine, hold, love, etc.) and add a corresponding symbol to the box labeled “What parents do.” If the students do not mention it be sure to include “give birth.” See [|babiesneedsexample.gif].
 * 4) Continue to discuss adoption and how adoption happens for adult reasons and not because the child is bad or not wanted. Birth parents have some big adult problems (like being too young to be parents, or having too many children to take care of), they decide they cannot take care of the baby. Go back to the “What parents do” box in Inspiration and circle “give birth” and explain how the baby’s birth parents gave birth to her but could not do all these other things. Point to both lists. The baby’s parents adopted her because they wanted do all these things for her. But they did not give birth to her. So the baby has two sets of real parents: her birth parents, who are real even if we don’t know who they are, and her parents, who are also real, and take care of and love her.
 * 5) In pairs, have the students choose the most important thing they think a family provides and write it by line 2 of the story frame. They rewrite it again down by line 6.
 * 6) Then they choose another thing they think families provide and write it by line 3. Repeat this process to put ideas by line 4 and line 5.
 * 7) When story frame is completed then the students are ready get on the internet and go to Read, Write, Think Flipbook.
 * 8) Demonstrate how to create the online flipbook. The label for page 1 will be 'The important thing about a family is'. Click **Add a Page Label** and type line 2 from story frame. Click **Add a Page Label** and type line 3 from story frame, and so forth. It helps to have a sample made up ahead of time.
 * 9) After adding 6 labels, click **Next** button. Step 2, choose a printer. Step 3 is where the students can add more text or draw pictures for each of the page labels.
 * 10) When completed, click the **Print** button. Assemble the flipbooks and share with the class.

Curtis, J. L. (1996) //Tell Me Again about the Night I Was Born//. New York: HarperCollins.
 * Resources:**

Godina, Stevane. (1997) //The Important Thing About A Family//. Retrieved on December 5, 2006, from http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=1284

Katz, K. (1997) Over the Moon: An Adoption Tale. New York: Henry Holt and Co.

Klatzkin, Amy. (2001) How I explained adoption to the first grade. //Adoptive Families.//Adoptive Families. Retrieved May 22, 2006, from http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=238

[|Read, Think, Write Flipbook]Read, Think, Write Flipbook