Suggested Activities
In this two-part challenge, students develop thoughtful questions to discover the characteristics and interests that bring people together in groups. To prepare for the activity, invite several representatives of groups (perhaps older students who belong/belonged to the groups) that might be of interest to your students–ideally, these groups are within the school or local community and are appropriate for Kindergarten students. Introduce the activity by explaining that guests will be coming to the class to talk about groups for young people. Suggest that some students might be interested in joining these groups. Encourage students to think of useful questions to gather helpful information about the group. Establish criteria for a useful question (e.g., tells us about the group, would help me know if I would like to join) and help students to formulate questions by pretending you have come to the class to talk about joining a particular fictional club (e.g., a whale-watching club). See Asking Powerful Questions (Modelling the Tools) for detailed suggestions on how to teach and assess the tools for student-generated questions.
When students have prepared questions to ask, invite several guests into your classroom to talk about various groups. Arrange for students to pose their questions to the guests. After the interviews, discuss possible criteria for choosing a group to join (e.g., "they do fun things," "I would feel welcome," "It would help me or others"). Ask students to decide which group they have heard about would be the best choice for them, if they were to join a group. You may want to adapt one of the charts and strategies for Committing to Action (Support Material) to structure and assess this activity. Ask students to draw pictures of the group that might be the best choice for them. As a caution, explain to students that there may be many practical reasons (e.g., dangerous for young children, far away, expensive) why they may not actually be able to join their chosen group at this time in their lives. You may also want to adapt one of the charts and strategies for Justifying My Choice (Support Material) to structure and assess this activity. Display the pictures on a bulletin board.
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