Unit Content and Objectives

My unit is a social studies unit that touches on the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, with a focus on the Ferris Wheel. My objective for this unit was to help my students understand the importance of the invention of the Ferris Wheel and what it did for the city of Chicago. The Ferris Wheel was the big attraction at the Columbian Exposition, which brought people to the city, which brought popularity and money to our city.

I chose to do this unit with my students’ interests in mind. Prior to this we had touched briefly on the Chicago Fire of 1871, which was something they enjoyed immensely. I decided to continue focusing on Chicago’s history based on their strong interest in the Chicago Fire. Staying with history fit nicely within the scope and sequence of the social studies unit as well. Art was integrated in a variety of ways, which will be touched on more when I discuss the formative assessment I collected.

During the unit some of the standards we hit were:

- Social Science:

16.A.1a Explain the difference between past, present and future time; place themselves in time.

16.A.1c Describe how people in different times and places viewed the world in different ways.

16.B.1a (US) Identify key individuals and events in the development of the local community (e.g., Founders days, names of parks, streets, public buildings).

- Fine Arts:

25.A.1d Visual Arts: Identify the elements of line, shape, space, color and texture; the principles of repetition and pattern; and the expressive qualities of mood, emotion and pictorial representation.

26.B.1d Visual Arts: Demonstrate knowledge and skills to create visual works of art using manipulation, eye-hand coordination, building and imagination.

I believe this unit to be very relevant to my students in terms of content and goals. Every spring the third graders at Pierce do an in depth study of the city of Chicago for their social studies unit. My mentor teacher left it up to me as far as what it was specifically I wanted to teach. As I stated prior, the students showed a lot of interest in the history of Chicago and the great

fire, therefore I knew they would enjoy more history about Chicago. My overarching goal was for them to understand how important this invention was for the city of Chicago. Eventually I hoped for them to be able to carry this knowledge over to an understanding of what other Chicago landmarks do for the city of Chicago (i.e tourist attractions, popularity, money, jobs, etc). I believe this to be relevant to my students specifically because they all live in the city of Chicago and they all know what a Ferris Wheel is. I learned from their pre assessments that many of them had ridden a Ferris Wheel, too. This reflects my belief that

this unit is developmentally appropriate in terms of content, instruction, and it fits into Peirce’s social studies scope and sequence for third grade.