Slide outline for Lesson 3.15, one day. Fourteen slides. The first five minutes of this period are reserved for Communication Performance Task retakes from Lesson 3.13; run them one at a time at the side table while the room does the do now. Nobody is asked what chores they do at home or who does them. Every chart is for a fictional family.
Roles and Responsibilities at Home
- Lesson 3.15: Families and Caring for Others
- Unit 3: Growing Up, Getting Along
- Do now: list every job it takes to run a home for a week. Not who does it. Just the jobs. Go for ten
Teacher notes
Retakes at the side table now, one at a time, 90 seconds each, new card, best score counts. Build a class list on the board from students' lists and add what they missed: bills, repairs, appointments, the mental list of what is running out.
About twenty jobs, and one word that starts arguments
- That list is somewhere around twenty jobs
- In two minutes each group is in charge of assigning all of them to a family
- It has to be fair. Not equal. Fair
- You will find out the difference
Teacher notes
Image: a long list of small job icons filling the left side of the slide, with two words on the right, "equal" and "fair," the second one circled.
Sort the list three ways
- Daily: meals, dishes, trash, pets, wipe the table, put things away
- Weekly: laundry, bathroom, vacuum, shopping, sheets, errands, yard or shared space
- Background, the easy ones to forget: bills, repairs, appointments, the running list, forms, planning the week, rides
- Star what a 12 to 14 year old can do alone. Circle what needs an adult
Teacher notes
Students sort their own do now list on Part 1. Most of daily and weekly can be done alone. Bills, most repairs, making appointments, and driving need an adult.
A chore is a contribution
- Not a punishment
- Not a payment
- At school you have a job: learn, be on time, do your part in a group
- At work you get paid for a job
- At home the job is shared, and the pay is that the home works
Teacher notes
Image: three plain boxes labeled home, school, work, with the same small figure doing a task in each one.
This is CCO 1. c), comparing home, school, community, and work. Ask the room which of the three has the clearest rules and which has the least thanks.
The independence line
- Every job you can do at 13 is one you will not have to learn at 19 in a hurry
- Cook one meal. Run a load of laundry. Get a younger sibling out the door
- Doing a share at home is how you learn to run your own place
- Question to hold onto: does doing chores make you more independent, or less?
Teacher notes
Take both sides of that question at the end of the period if there is time, then make them pick one.
Build the fair-share chart
- Your group gets one fictional family card: ages, work or school, hours free, and one constraint
- Every job on the list gets a name
- Nobody under 6 gets a job that is not "help" or "put toys away"
- Nobody gets more than their hours allow
- Any assignment that is not equal gets a "why" from the card. 13 minutes
Teacher notes
Grade 6 groups take Family A and ten jobs. Everyone takes Family B. Grade 8 takes Family C and answers the two stretch lines. Two groups can share a card.
Read the card before you assign anything
- Family B has a grandmother who cannot lift or carry anything heavy
- Family C has a parent who works nights and sleeps 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Family B and C both have a 14 year old with practice four nights a week
- The card is the answer to every argument about what is fair
Teacher notes
Image: a plain index card with four labeled lines: who, hours free, what they cannot do, and one constraint.
Clipboard: every job has a name; the toddler and the grandparent got jobs that fit; at least one "why" cites hours, age, or ability. A group that gives the night-shift parent the morning jobs gets the question "when does this person sleep?"
One line from each group
- Read your best "not equal but fair" line aloud
- Fair means the right amount for each person: age, time, ability
- Equal means the same amount for everybody, whether it fits or not
- A strong one: "The 14 year old does dishes only on Friday and both weekend days because practice runs until 5:30 four nights a week"
Teacher notes
One line per group, no commentary between them. The word "fair" will start an argument during Step 2. Good. The answer is on the card.
The other job: a family teaches culture
- Without a lesson plan
- The food on the table
- The language spoken at home
- What happens on a holiday, and how you greet an elder
- What the family does on a Sunday
Teacher notes
Image: four small scenes drawn plainly: a shared dish, two figures talking, a candle, and a phone call.
This is the "teach" job from yesterday's four. A tradition is also how a family does "belong."
Three traditions, and the next-door rule
- A family that eats a big meal on Sunday with cousins
- A family where the youngest lights a candle on a holiday
- A family that calls a grandparent in another country every Saturday
- The family next door has different traditions, and both sets are right
Teacher notes
[Sal: these three are placeholders. Pick three that fit your room, and do not name any student's country as "the" example.] Students write one tradition from a show, a book, or a fictional family on the handout.
The tradition card, by choice
- A family tradition I would share
- The tradition, when it happens, what it teaches or why it matters
- From your own family, from a family you have seen, or one you would like to start
- Nobody reads it aloud unless they want to. Name is optional
- It goes on the unit wall and joins the Family Showcase in Lesson 3.18
Teacher notes
Image: the blank tradition card drawn as it appears on the handout, five labeled lines.
A drawing with a caption counts. A card may be written in any language. Take two volunteers who want to read theirs.
Keep, change, or pass on?
- Every tradition gets one of those three from the person who inherits it
- Write your choice on the back of the card, with a reason
- A tradition you inherit does not fit your life anymore. Is changing it disrespectful? Who decides?
Teacher notes
This is the High objective. The reason matters more than the choice.
Questions
- What is the difference between equal and fair on your chart? Give an example from your card
- Which job could a 13 year old do that a 6 year old could not? Which could both do?
- If nobody assigned the background jobs, who ends up doing them? Why do they get forgotten?
- How does a family teach culture without meaning to?
Teacher notes
If a student says "in my house the girls do everything," they are describing a real pattern. The answer is "on your family card, what would be fair?" and the conversation stays with the card.
Exit card and tomorrow
- 3-2-1 at the bottom of the handout: 3 home jobs you could do alone this week
- 2 words that mean different things: fair means ___, equal means ___
- 1 tradition, from any family, real or fictional, and whether you would keep, change, or pass it on
- Tomorrow: what parents and caregivers actually do all day
Teacher notes
Three students read their "2." Sort into "got it" and "needs more." Collect the charts for daily work and post the tradition cards on the unit wall.