5th Grade and Careers!

Well, I've gotten back in the groove since my last post--thank goodness!  I've been doing a really cool collaborative lesson w/ my 5th grade team that I thought I'd share today.  South Carolina uses a career website called SCOIS which has an elementary career site called CLIMB.  So, I've been administering a 3 part career lesson with the input of the 5th grade teachers to help the kids learn about career clusters, identify their interests and which clusters they may be interested in as well as put their research skills to work and write a paragraph explaining if a certain career that they research is or is not a good match for them.  They've LOVED it!

The first lesson was during my normal classroom lesson time.  We met in the computer lab and I had the students take the interest inventory.  Their results came back with three career clusters that they may be interested in pursuing.  They used the rest of the allotted time to explore different jobs within each cluster on the SCOIS CLIMB website.  The next lesson took place the following day during their class' writing time.  We again met in the computer lab for them to research one job that they were interested in learning more about (again we stuck to the same website).  I had them use a graphic organizer (created by a 5th grade teacher to crosswalk w/ her standards) to list characteristics of the job they were researching.  Beside each characteristic, they had to answer the following question: Does this sound like me? Is this something that fits what I want to do or be? and write either a "Yes" or a "No" with an explanation.  This was their pre-writing.  The final part of the lesson took place again during their next writing period and they used their research to formulate a paragraph on whether or not the job that they researched would be a good match for them.  (Some of the teachers preferred to lead the writing activity and others handed over the reins to me.  I'd never taught writing specifically, but with the help of a sandwich model: Intro-bread, details-meat, conclusion-bread- I was able to handle it!)

The students did a great job!  We talked about how it can still be helpful for them even if they decided that the job wasn't perfect for them and how even jobs that are a great fit can still have things about it that you don't love (Case in point-->see my previous post :)  I also talked with them about how this research can be helpful in a couple of months when we talk about registering for classes in middle school.  They had a blast doing the research and learning about careers and gained a huge insight into themselves and more self-awareness as they decided whether or not each characteristic fit them.  Also, it was great for me to collaborate and co-teach with our 5th grade team!

Thanks for checking in-- good luck to you as you wrap up this crazy time of year and move into 2013!