CURRENT EVENTS Grade Level: 3-5 Learning Goal: Students will be able to select, read, analyze, write, create

and communicate about the local, state, national and world news using various sources. ACTIVITY 1: Reading is Thinking Background: Students will have completed a previous lesson about the parts of a newspaper including types of articles and why it is important to read about the news Materials: Newspapers and online news:Time for Kids http://www.timeforkids.com/news Current Events Organizer Handout Smart Board or Overhead Projector Anticipatory Set: Review why it is important to read news articles (to be informed) and the different types of articles found in newspapers or online. Next Display a news article on a Smart Board or Overhead Projector. Begin by calling students' attention to the news headline. Ask students to predict what they think the story will be about. Warm-Up: Start to complete a class K-W-L-H chart on the topic of the news article. K Record what students KNOW about the subject. W Record what students WANT to learn about the subject. Later complete L Record what students LEARN as they read about the subject. H Record HOW students will learn more about the subject. Direct Instruction: Read the news article aloud to students and discuss it as a whole group by revisiting the K-W-L-H chart to complete the Learn and How sections. Guided Practice: Pass out the Current Events Organizer to students and ask them to complete the sections with you as you guide them through the process of answering: 1. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? 2. Does this event impact my life? 3. Do I need more information on this topic? 4. Does the story include different points of view? Collaborative Practice: Pass out a different news article to each group of 2 and explain that they are to work together to read through the article and complete a new Current Events Organizer. Once complete they are to find another group of 2 who are also finished and compare answers and combine their information (more than likely most of the Who, What, When, Where and Why answers will be the same.) One student in the group of 4 records their collaborative information. When finished the group of 4 is to find another group of 4 and complete the process sitting in a circle as a group. Again, one student records their collaborative information. Each group of eight elects a spokesperson to share the information on their Current Events Organizer with the whole class and the teacher records their answers on the white board or Smart Board.

Assessment: The teacher will move through groups to see that students are successfully completing the Current Events Organizer. Also, the teacher will evaluate the collaborative groups for student participation. Finally, the teacher will analyze students understanding of the article by collecting group answers and monitoring if students are being respectful listeners to the presenters. Independent Practice: Either for weekly homework or center activities, students will find a news article (internet, newspaper, news magazine) and complete a Current Events Organizer. After, they will pick one of the following activities:

Conduct further research on the topic. Create a cartoon on the news topic. Draw a picture that explains what happened in the story. Write an editorial or letter to the editor. Write letters to elected officials. Record thoughts and reactions in a journal. Re-write the article from another viewpoint. If the article took place in another country, find the country on the map and visit the CIA World Fact Book Website to learn more about the country. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html

ACTIVITY 2: Breaking News Purpose: To reflect on the role that current events play in our lives. Students will also differentiate between local, regional, national, and international news stories. Materials: Newspapers and online news such as Time for Kids Breaking News Handout Anticipatory Set: Divide students into small groups and give each a Breaking News handout. Ask students to think about stories that have recently been in the news. Collaborative Practice: Tell students to record the topic of a current event for each of the categories on the handout (local, state, national and a world event). Students can use the internet, newspapers or news magazines to gather information if needed. After students have finished, share the groups' news topics with the class. The following questions may be used to initiate a class discussion: 1. What source did you get your news from? (TV, newspaper, radio, Internet). 2. Are you more aware of events in your local area, state, country or in the world? 3. Do you think it is important for people to know what is happening in the news? 4. Do you think it's important for kids to be aware of what is happening in the news? 5. Do you think local, state, national, or international events impact on your life? Assessment: Assess student handouts and participation in the class discussion

ACTIVITY 3 Purpose: In this activity students will examine and celebrate the various cultures in their local community by creating a collage using photographs, images and text from local information sources. Materials: Local newspapers Local journals, flyers or pamphlets Local online news sources Anticipatory Set: As a whole group, discuss the ways that the people who live in their community come together to create their culture. Ask students to share examples of what people in their community think, what they do, and what products or materials they produce. Discuss how these examples play a role in the creation of this culture. Guided Practice: Explain to students that they are going to continue to explore and examine their community through the lens of local news sources. Display a collage that you have prepared showing different thoughts, food, materials, products, businesses and recreation activities around your community. Tell students that they are going to use local newspapers, pamphlets, and flyers to also create a collage that captures the essence of their community. Collaborative Practice: 1. Explain to students that over the next few weeks, they will work in groups to collect work for their collage. Ask students to contribute material for this activity. . 2. After students have collected their images they will then cut out photographs, images, and words that they think illustrate what people in their community think, what they do, and the materials they produce. Students will glue the images onto a piece of poster board. 3. Once groups have completed their posters, provided time for groups to share their work with the entire class. 4. Ask students if they were surprised by anything they found out about their community or if they would like to get involved in the community in some way. Assessment: Create a Rubric to grade student work for such things as actively working in their small group, gathering images and text, creating and presenting the college and participating in class discussions. Closure: If possible display the students' work in various areas in the community.

EXTENSION ACTIVITIES Listening For Details Students can do this activity individually or in small groups. Ask students to listen carefully as you read aloud a story from the day's newspaper. (Story length will vary by grade level.) Then hand out to students a sheet with questions about details from the story. The higher the grade, the harder (more detailed) questions you can ask. Invite students or groups to respond to the questions. Who caught the most details? News-Mapping Post a map (a community, state, U.S., or world map, depending on the focus of your current events curriculum) on a bulletin board. Post stories around the map and string yarn from each story to the location on the map where the story takes place. Invite students to use the scale of miles on the map to figure out how far each place in the news is from your community News Scavenger Hunts Provide students with a list of things to find on the front page of today's newspaper. Students might hunt in the paper for math-related words and terms (a percent, a measurement of distance, a cost, an address, and a fraction) or grammar-related terms (a present-tense verb, a past-tense verb, a proper noun, an abbreviation, a colon, and a list separated by commas). Or students might scavenge the main sports page for a list of sports-related terms. Or you might let students work in small groups to hunt for as many nouns (or proper nouns, or verbs) they can find in a story or on the front page. The group that finds the most is the winner! Headline Match Collect ten news stories and separate the story text from the headline. Number each headline from 1 to 10. Assign a letter, from A to J, to each story text. Invite students to match each headline to the correct text. Local, National, or International? To develop your students' understanding of a news story's "place," create a bulletin board divided into three sections. Invite students to bring in from home news stories that might fit into each of the three sections. News of the community or state will be posted in the "Local" section. News of interest around the country will fit in the "National" section. And world news will be posted in the "International" section. 5 Ws Variation Provide each student with a news story. The student list on a separate sheet of paper the who, where, when, what, and why of the story. Then the students' papers are collected and redistributed so no student has his or her own sheet. Each student takes a look at their five W list and writes the opening paragraph of a news story based on that information. At the end of the activity, students share their stories and the original stories to see how they compare. How accurate were the students' stories

Why is it News? Each day, newspaper editors around the world must make decisions about which stories they will publish. Stories make it into newspapers for many different reasons. Invite students to look at the stories that have made the front page of a local newspaper during the last few days and to talk about why each of those stories made headlines. Some reasons students might come up with: Timeliness -- News that is happening right now, news of interest to readers now. Relevance -- The story happened nearby or is about a concern of local interest. Unexpectedness -- Something unusual, or that occurs without warning. Impact -- News that will affect a large number of readers. Famous or Important Person -- News about a prominent person or personality. Oddity -- A unique or unusual situation. Conflict -- A major struggle in the news. Something Negative -- Bad news often "sells" better than good news. Continuity -- A follow-up to a story that has been in the news or is familiar. Emotions Feelings (such as fear, jealousy, love, or hate) increase interest in a story. Progress -- News of new hope, new achievement, new improvements. In the days ahead, study each front-page story and talk about why editors decided to put the story on page one. Which reason(s) on the students' list would explain the newsworthiness of the story? Magnitude -- The story is great in size or number; for example, a tornado that destroys a couple houses might not make the news but a story about a tornado that devastates a community would be very newsworthy. Voice Your Opinion Set up a tape recorder in a convenient location in the classroom. Pose to students an opinion question from a news article they have read and let them think about it for a few days. When students are ready, they can take turns expressing their opinions to the recorder. Once all students have had a chance to express their opinions, begin a class discussion of the question by playing back the tape. Create Historical Newspaper Challenge students to create a newspaper about a period of time they are studying. If students are studying U.S. history, they might include stories such as "Pilgrims and Indians Gather for Feast" and "Lincoln Wins Election." The stories relate fats they have researched. Students should include each of the five Ws in their first paragraphs. Sequencing the Facts Select a news story that includes a clear sequence of events. Write each of the facts of the story on a separate strip of paper. Invite students to order the sentence strips to tell the story in its correct sequence. (Option: Once you've done this activity, you might invite students to do the same thing. They can retell the events of a story in five simple sentences, each written on a separate strip of paper. Then each student shares the activity he/she created and a copy of the original story with another student, who gets to try the activity.)

You Be the Editor Rewrite a news story to include ten errors of punctuation, capitalization, or grammar. (Emphasize skills your students are working on in class wherever possible.) Invite students to "edit" your story free of errors! Scanning the Page Provide a copy of a news story for this activity that teaches the skill of "skimming for information," or let all students work with their own copy of the front page of the same daily paper. Provide a list of words from the story/front page and invite students to skim the page to find as many of those words as they can. Set a time limit. Who finds the most words before time runs out? Abbreviation/Acronym Search The names of many common organizations are shortened to their acronym form when used in news stories. For example, the American Broadcasting Corporation becomes ABC, the National Organization for Women becomes NOW, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration becomes NASA. Also, abbreviations are commonly used for state names and some titles, such as Tex. (for Texas) or Sen. (for Senator). Invite students to work in groups to find and create a list of acronyms and abbreviations they find in the daily newspaper. (Note: You might include the classified ad section in your students' search. Many abbreviations can be found there.) Preserving the News! (Just for Fun) Dissolve a milk of magnesia tablet in a quart of water, and let it stand overnight. Pour the mixture into a flat baking pan large enough to hold the news clippings that you want to preserve. Place the clippings in the solution so they are completely covered. Let them soak for an hour. Then take them out and pat them dry. They'll be crisp and new for a long time to come! (Acid is what makes the newspaper yellow. The magnesium carbide in the solution neutralizes the acid in the paper.) EALRS Reading 1. The student understands and uses different skills and strategies to read. 2. The student understands the meaning of what is read. 3. The student reads different materials for a variety of purposes. Writing 1. The student understands and uses a writing process. 2. The student writes in a variety of forms for different audiences and purposes. 3. The student writes clearly and effectively.

Social Studies 3.1 Understands the physical characteristics, cultural characteristics, and location of places, regions, and spatial patterns on the Earth's surface. 3.2 Understands human interaction with the environment. 3.3 Understands the geographic context of global issues. 5.4 Creates a product that uses social studies content to support a thesis and presents the product in an appropriate manner to a meaningful audience. Communication 1. The student uses listening and observation skills and strategies to gain understanding. 2. The student uses communication skills and strategies to interact/work effectively with others. 3. The student uses communication skills and strategies to effectively present ideas and one's self in a variety of situations. Visual Arts 2.1 Applies a creative process to visual arts. (Identifies, explores, gathers, interprets, uses, implements, reflects, refines, and presents) 2.2 Applies a performance and/or presentation process to visual arts. (Identifies, selects, analyzes, interprets, practices, revises, adjusts, refines, presents, exhibits, produces, reflects, self-evaluates). 3.1 Uses visual arts to express feelings and present ideas. 3.2 Uses visual arts to communicate for a specific purpose. 4.2 Demonstrates and analyzes the connections among the arts and between the arts and other content areas.

Current Events Organizer

Who?

What?

When?

Where?

Why?

How?

How does this event impact my life?

What other information do I need on this topic?

What different perspectives are included in this story?

Breaking News

Local

State

National

International