Lunches Around the World: Teaching Toward Hierarchy of Thinking-- Bloom's Taxonomy

The following lesson plan is for a 3rd grade class that utilizes the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.  Additionally, it will incorporate technology in an appropriate and effective way. 

First, before my students enter my classroom, it will no longer be a classroom.  It will be completely transformed into "Avrech Airlines" where the students will travel all around the world to see the "Lunches Around the World".

How can you transform your classroom?  Well here is what you can do!  Turn your tables into row and covered the sides with long white butcher paper or sheets (whatever you have easily available). Put a symbol in the middle and write flight 23 (or whatever your classroom number is!)  Put some blue paper at the front and cover it with a few clouds!  And for some auditory sensing, play airplane noises in the background (these are easily found on youtube). 

Outside of your classroom, place a table outside of the door that says "baggage claim"; this is where your students can place their backpacks before loading the plane. :)  Also, at the baggage claim they will receive their boarding pass and passport!

Resource: http://paperzip.co.uk/topics/geography/travel/boarding-pass

Resource: http://sparklinginsecondgrade.blogspot.com/2014/05/five-for-friday.html

When you call your class inside, make an announcement like they are at the airport.  Grab a cone and shout out, "Now boarding, Avrech Airlines Flight 23 to London, England"  Be loud and enthusiastic!  The kids get a real kick out of this and before they have even entered your classroom, they are excited, engaged and ready to take on the day full of learning!

This is optional, but I think it's a great way to really continue the classroom transformation to Avrech Airlines!  I came to school dressed in an outfit that look similar to a flight attendant and when I came out of the classroom after making the boarding announcement, I greeted each passenger and checked their passports as they entered our plane. :)

Now that our students are excited, engaged and ready to learn, we are going to break this fun and exciting lesson down into levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.  First, this particular lesson in my "Avrech Airlines", my focus is on writing skills.  In order to reach higher levels of thinking, I will utilize Bloom's Taxonomy steps for this particular lesson.  

REMEMBERING

As the students board the plane and grab their seats.  Have them chat with their neighboring flight mate about what they ate for lunch at school yesterday.  

And to review opinion, as we will be writing an opinion piece as well as an opinion speech, have your students tell their partner if their lunch was good or not and to support that opinion with evidence.  

And of course, still filling your role as flight attendant, as the students are discussing yesterdays lunch, you will walk down the aisle, passing out pretzels and water for them to enjoy on their trip (all while observing their discussions). 

UNDERSTANDING

Make an announcement that we have just about landed in the United Kingdom.  Then have them watch the first clip from the youtube video, "Lunches Around the World".

I like to pause the video after each "landing" so they have a chance to soak in and review what they have just seen with their flight mates.  As the students discuss what foods are typically eaten at lunch in the United Kingdom, I will come around and stamp their passport for their visit.  
Continue to your next destination and then play the clip from the next landing (United States, Cuba, Norway, Nigeria, France, Russia, Mexico, Japan, Philippines, India and Korea).  Stamp each passengers passport after each visit!
At the conclusion of the video, have the passengers group up in groups of 4 to collectively work together to compare and contrast the lunches around the world.  
How are they alike or the same? How are the different?

I like to continually play the video in the background without music so they can reference it when needed.  
APPLYING
In order to apply the information learned and to bring a focus to our writing skills, have each student write an opinion paragraph about which lunch they would choose to eat and why.
ANALYZING
Next, I want to have the students survey, which is a great form of analyzation, to see where the majority of our "passengers" sit in preference to which lunch they would choose!
As a class, we will utilize the website SurveyMonkey to determine 

which place we flew to has the most votes for favorite lunch and which has the least.  (You could also, if you wanted to, at this point, review math concepts such as rounding numbers or graphing). 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/P2XJH7Q

EVALUATING

To further work on our writing skills, we will evaluate by having each student use their opinion piece (as done above) and transform it into a speech.  Their speech will justify why our school should use the lunch plate they chose.

CREATING

Finally, to reach the highest level of thinking in Bloom's Taxonomy, have each student create a model that illustrates a combination of lunches around the world that they would like to eat!  Additionally, have each student write a short paragraph about their food choices.  Why did you choose these foods?  Did you put foods on your plate that are outside of the United States typical lunch food?  Why is this your optimal lunch plate?

Have students label each food with the appropriate country.

And that's it!  This is such a fun and engaging lesson.  The kids are often shocked to see what school lunches in other countries look like and many times are curious to try some of the food they saw but haven't had before as well!

RUBRIC

This rubric is on a 4-point scale. 

Level 1: Below Level
Level 2: Developing/Approaching
Level 3: On Level
Level 4: Above Level

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