Career Planning Integration with Language Arts, Social Studies, Art, Health, and Information and Communication Technology at the Grade 1 Level

• Published in: Alberta counsellor 2015-10, Vol.34 (1), p.37
• Main Authors: van Geel, Kaitlin, Bernes, Kerry B, Caldwell, Lana M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Art education; Career development planning; Elementary education; Integrated curriculum; Language arts; Social studies; Teaching methods
• ISSN: 0382-5167

The next day, in art class, each student created an "All About Me" poster, to visually display his or her uniqueness. Students wrote their first and last names in large, bright letters on the front of their posters. They were given back the clipart pictures they had made the day before and some magazines. They were to use the magazines to find more pictures of things that they liked and/or were good at. Their task was to cut out and glue both their magazine and clipart pictures onto their collage-style posters. Students were asked to leave some blank space on the poster the size of a hand. Two or three at a time, students came to a side table to dip one of their hands into yellow paint and made a handprint on their poster. Using the opposite hand, each student placed a thumb on a blue inkpad and made a thumbprint on their poster. During this process it was explained to them that nobody else in the world had the same handprints as they do, which made these marks special. Once completed, the posters were hung outside the classroom with a banner that read "All About Us." The students were asked to come out into the hallway to view the poster display. It was pointed out to them that none of the posters were the same because each of the people who had made them was unique. After completing the unit, students were each given a three-page summative evaluation form to complete. The teacher worked with small groups of students to complete the forms to ensure that they were completed properly. The first section of the form required each student to indicate which of the activities they participated in. For part two, students rated each activity by colouring in one of three faces, depending on whether they thought the activity was "not good at all," "good" or "great". They were also asked if the unit helped them to learn a lot about both themselves and careers. Finally, this form had the students determine whether or not the unit made them excited about what they could do with their lives and if it made them want to learn more about different careers. The answers from these forms were analyzed to assist in determining how helpful the students felt the learning activities were and what areas could be improved upon. Table 3 shows that, on average, 94 per cent of students agreed with all of the objectives for this unit. Therefore, it would be accurate to state that this unit helped the students to learn more about themselves and different careers; it made them excited ab