Coming to America

Content Objectives

Children will:

• Learn about the concept of immigrants.
• Access prior knowledge and build background about why people come to our country.
• Explore and apply the concept of how peoples' lives might be the same and different after coming to America.

Language Objectives

Children will:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of coming to America.
• Orally use words that describe why someone might want to live in America.
• Extend oral vocabulary by speaking about how someone's life might be the same and different after moving to America.
• Use key concept words [country, native, citizen, language, immigrant, immigration].

Other

Explain

• Use the slideshow to review the key concept words.
• Explain that children are going to learn about:
• What is an immigrant.
• What is a native.
• Why people come to America.
• How a person's life might be different after moving to America and how it might be the same.

Model

• After the host introduces the slideshow, point to the photo on screen. Ask children: What are the people in the photo doing? (moving to America, carrying bags and suitcases). How can you tell this photo is from long ago? (people dress differently, women all wear dresses, men wear hats).
• Ask children: Has someone in your family come to America from another country? (answers will vary).
• Say: People come to America for many reasons. What are some reasons that a person might come to America? (to find a better job, to go to a different school, to become an American citizen).

Guided Practice

• Guide children through the next three slides, showing them different reasons immigrants have come to the America. Always have the children describe if the people in the photos are immigrants and if they can see reasons why those people might have come to America.

Apply

• Have children play the games that follow. Have them discuss with their partner the different topics that appear during the Talk About It feature.
• After the first game, ask children to talk about what they know about the different countries they see on screen and help the children learn more about the countries they are interested in. After the second game, have them discuss what they think would be different and the same for a person moving to a new country.

Close

• Ask children: What would be the hardest thing about moving to a new country? Explain.
• Summarize for children that many of us came to America a long time ago or recently. Some of us might be Native Americans. Native Americans were the first people to live in America. Others of us have ancestors who came to America long ago. Others of us came to America recently. Encourage children to think about what it would be like to leave a place that you have lived your whole life.