TITLE: Developing Relationships with Older People
AUTHOR: Annette Packard and Michelle Grant
GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: 2-4 SAGE Lesson
Social Studies, Math, Language Arts, Reading.
OVERVIEW/PURPOSE:
This lesson is designed to help elementary age students
develop relationships with older people.
OBJECTIVES:
1. Children with begin to value older people.
2. Children will interview an older person.
3. Through literature, the children will become more aware
of and show empathy towards people who are a
generation older than themselves.
RESOURCES/MATERIALS:
1. Annie and the Old One by Miska Miles
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
Nanny Upstairs, Nanny Downstairs by Tomi DePaolo
Kevin's Grandma by Barbara Williams
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Knots on a Counting Rope by Bill Martin Jr, and John Archambault
Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman
Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox
Mandy's Grandmother-Open Court Level C,
"A Place Called Morning"
2. My Backyard History Book by David Weitzman
Roots for Kids by Susan Provost Beller
3. Challenge Project by Joseph S. Renzulli-Houghton Mifflin
Reading "Are Your Arms a Hundred Years Old."
4. Films: "The Mailbox"-Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
"It's So Nice to Have a Wolf Around the House."-Utah
State University film depository.
ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES:
1. Read stories and discuss them as a class. (See resource #1.)
2. Watch two films, "The Mailbox" and "It's So Nice to Have a
Wolf Around the House." (See resource #4.)
3. Develop a questionnaire to interview older people at a
Retirement Center. (See resource #3 and attached handout.)
4. Create various graphs comparing ages, birth dates, family
information, etc. (See attached handout for some examples.)
5. Write follow-up letters to the people interviewed.
6. Invite Grandparents or Older Citizens of the community
into your classroom to share experiences or tell stories.
7. Make a card for Grandparents and person interviewed, to help
celebrate National Grandparents Day.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER:
The above activities will be a springboard to get the students
excited about their own genealogy. Using the resources listed under
#2, the teacher could have the student make a Family Tree, Pedigree
Chart, or begin a Personal History. They could also begin to
interview their own Grandparents and write down their own family
stories.
EXAMPLE OF QUESTIONNAIRE
Students Name:
1. What is your name? Was there a reason why you were named that?
2. How old are you?
3. Do you have any brothers or sisters. If yes, how many?
4. Have you ever lived anywhere else? Where?
5. What is your favorite childhood memory?
6. What was it like when you were growing up?
7. Did you like school when you were little?
8. What was your favorite subject in school?
9. When you were my age, what was your favorite thing to do?
10. Are you married? If yes, what was your husband/wife's name?
11. Do you have any children? grandchildren? Where do they live?
12. Is it hard or scary to be old?
**These are just a few of the questions that can be asked. To get
the students involved, have them come up with a question that they
would like to ask.
Some Math Activities to do After the Interviews
1. As a class, you could use numbers 2,3,4,7,8,9,10, and 11 from
the included Questionnaire, to help teach or reinforce the concept
of graphing.
2. With question number 2, on the included Questionnaire, the
teacher could have the students add all of the ages together, then
add up the classes age, and subtract the difference.
3. Have the students write up their own story problems from the
information found on their Questionnaire.
4. After adding up the ages of all interviewed, the students
could divide the number of people interviewed, by how many people
were interviewed and come up with an average age. This could
lead to a wonderful discussion about how old is old, and how old
do you have to be to go to a Retirement Center.
**There are many other things you could do with the students in
your classroom depending on the level of the student.
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John Kurilecjmk@ofcn.org