Jessica Quezada LRC 480C December 10, 2013 Family Story Interaction: Home Visit 3 Selecting the Books

and the Artifacts: Through my home visit experiences I had the opportunity to really get to know one of my classroom families. During these visits to discover some information on the funds of knowledge of the particular student I was working with. In the end I decided to focus on family bond, as well as sports. I choose to focus on the topic of family because it is something that my home visit family truly values. Not only do they receive support from their extended family such as cousins, siblings, parents, and grandparents, but they also support each other. Whenever the children in this family are not in school they are with their family whether that be their parents or some other form of extended family. The other funds of knowledge I decided to focus on was sports. Even though the parents of this family were not very involved in sports when they were younger, or even now it is something the student had always grown up around because of his older brother. His older brother has been involved in sports since he was old enough to play, and has played in a wide range of sports form basketball, to baseball, football, and soccer. Because of his brothers large involvement with sports the student was also around them as he grew up. As a family they go to every practice together in the evenings, which is often four times as week for several hours, as well as spending their Saturdays at sporting matches. This information led me to pick the following set of books. The Big Tee Ball Game by Larry Dane Brimner, We Are Cousins/ Somos Primos by Diane Gonzales Bertrand, Let's Eat!/A Comer! (My Family: Mi Familia) by Pat Mora, I Love Saturdays y domings by Alma Flor Ada,

I'm Just Like My Mom / Me parezco tanto a mi mama by Jorge Ramos and Mi pap es mgico by Celso Romn. I choose The Big Tee Ball Game by Larry Dane Brimner because of its theme of sports. I felt the students would be able to relate to the experience of going out and playing sports since it is something that he does often. I also really liked this book because of the sport it focused on. Since the student will be starting to play tee ball in January I felt that he would be make an even stronger connection to this text. The next book We Are Cousins/ Somos Primos by Diane Gonzales Bertrand was chosen for several reasons. First of all this books was about a familys relationship, and more specifically about the relationship between the cousins. This book also focused around a Hispanic family, and since the student that I am working with is Hispanic I thought that he would be able to relate well to it. I thought this book would be great for the students since he has a lot of cousins that he spends time with on a regular basis. Since the book mentioned very common activities such as playing with cousins, sharing food, and clothing, as well as getting together for birthday parties I felt it would make the text very relevant to the student. The book Let's Eat!/A Comer! (My Family: Mi Familia) by Pat Mora was another book about family. More specifically this was a book about a Hispanic family as they are getting together to eat their dinner. I choose this book for several reasons. First this was a bilingual book, secondly it displayed a Hispanic family, and lastly it was about family. During my home visits the mother mentioned the fact that eating together was a very common family event, usually her children are off playing while she prepares the food, and when it is ready everyone gathers around the table to eat. Since the book has the general storyline of the scenario I just described I felt the student would be able to relate this to his own life. The fourth book I choose was I Love Saturdays y domings by Alma Flor Ada. This book is the story of a young girl that comes from two different backgrounds, and one of them happens to be Hispanic. This book goes through the

experiences that she has with her fathers parents on Saturdays, as well as her mothers parents on Sundays. I choose for this book to be a part to the text that I took on my home visit experience because the Sunday that was explained in the book was similar to some of the students experiences, such as spending time with his grandparents. I also liked that it incorporated the Spanish language as well as the English language since these are the two languages the student speaks. The book I'm Just Like My Mom / Me parezco tanto a mi mama by Jorge Ramos was another one of the books I choose for this activity. This is a flip book which show a little girls pointing out how much her and her mother have in common, and on the other side it is a boy doing the same. I though this book would be great for the student since it shows the physical connections to ones family as well as the emotional. The last book I choose was Mi pap es mgico by Celso Romn. This book was a book entirely in Spanish that depicted the magical relationship that a son can have with a father. Besides just demonstrating a strong family bond, I thought this would be a great book to have one of the parents read to the student. The artifacts I choose for this interaction were my personal soccer jersey that has my name on the back of it, as well as a series of pictures of my family. These included pictures of us playing sports, as well as just posed pictures. Initially I thought about taking the jersey and some food item to make with the student, or for the student to make with their parents. I decided no to use the food item since cooking together did not seem to be something the family did regularly. I liked the idea of the soccer jersey because it is a version of something the student sees on a regular basis. I felt the pictures would be a great addition because they could be used to tell stories about my family as well as bringing up stories about his family.

Detailed Description of the Event:

Setting: This event took place at the students apartment, in the living room area. Since the apartment is small the kitchen, dining room, bathroom, and one of the bedrooms can all be seen from where we sat. Participants: The participants of this interaction included the student, mother, and myself. The students 10-month-old sister was also present, and his 10-year-old brother arrived home about half way through the activity and he stayed in his room while we had our interaction. Interaction: As I arrived at the home the student opened the front door. The mother was in the brother taking care of his younger sister since she had just gotten herself dirty. The mother instructed the student to sit down with me, and listen to what I had to say. Since the mother was busy I decided to start the interaction with the student. I started by pulling out all of the books and setting them on the ottoman in front of us with the front side up. I told him that I had brought some books form him to look at, and that I could read some to him if he were interested. He decided that he did want me to read him a book, and he choose I'm Just Like My Mom / Me parezco tanto a mi mama which has a picture of a father and son playing soccer on the cover. As I read the book the student did not talk much but I did try to engage him by asking questions. For example on one of the pages the little boy explains that he and his father both like to get up early so I asked him if the same was true for him and his father to which he answered yes. When we got to the last page of the book there was an image of a whole family standing together in front of a mirror. When he saw them he started labeling them as mom , dad, grandma, grandpa, sister, and himself. He then realized that there were people missing sine he has a brother so he decided that one of the

characters on the other page was going to represent his brother. When I was done reading this book I set it aside and I asked him if he wanted me to read him another one. He decided on Mi pap es mgico. Just like it happened with the last book he did not talk too much. One thing that really did capture his attention were the illustrations, since they were abstract they were a bit hard to identify so he would asked me what things were, or just point out that they were silly. I thought this might bring on some conversation about his father but it did not. As I was done reading this book the mother came out of the bathroom with her daughter and started to work on preparing dinner. We decided to continue reading and the student choose the book Let's Eat!/A Comer!. As I was reading this book he pointed out the fact that there was a dog in one of the images. Even though he does not have a dog he mentioned a dog that they used to have. Later on in the book there is a page with images of traditional Mexican food such as tortillas, beans, and chile, which got the student really talking. He pointed to the pictures and named them all, he then went on to tell me that he did not like chile because it burns his tongue. I told him that even though I did not enjoy chile, as I grew older it was something that I had become fond of. He agreed that when he were older he might like it. I then went on to tell him how I would prepare a taco, when I mentioned the fact that I would add chile to it he made a silly face so I asked him what he would do and he said that he would just not add the chile. In this book the student also started to name all of the family members in the images. The next book we started to read was I Love Saturdays y domings by Alma Flor Ada, we got a couple of pages in and the student decided he did not want me to read it any longer. The final book we read was We Are Cousins/ Somos Primos. As I read the book I started to ask him questions about his own cousins to which he was not replying. About half way through the book he started to label the people in the images as cousin, brother, sister, grandma, and grandpa. He then went on to describe what was going on

in the different images after I read whatever was on the page. Since the students was starting to get distracted while I was reading to him I decided it would be a good time to present him with the artifacts. I presented him with the jersey first. He recognized what it was immediately so he asked me if I played any sports. I told him that even though I had a jersey I did not play soccer, I only liked to watch it on tv. The student then decided to put on the jersey and he went to the bathroom to look at himself. When he saw himself he started giggling, when he came out to show me his mother told him to take it off. Even though I said it was of for him to be wearing it he took it off anyways. I then went on to show him the pictures that I had brought. First I showed him some of my family members playing sport, he asked what they were playing and I explained to him what the game of kickball was. After I explained this he was no longer interested in the picture so I showed him another one. This particular picture was of my sister, cousin, and I asleep in the back seat of a car. I explained to him who the people in the picture were and he asked me what we had done to make use so tired. I explained to him that on that particular day we had gone to church in the morning, then gone out to eat breakfast, and afterwards gone grocery shopping. I told him that after that we were all tired so we took a nap. He told me that it sounded like we had fun. After this I presented him with his book, which he was excited about and he asked if he could write his name inside of it. His mother told him that he could write it as long as I helped him. After this I packed up my things and left. Another interesting thing I would like to add is that 3 days after this interaction took place the student brought the book I gave him as a gift to share with the class. Analysis of the Events: Overall I felt that the experience went well. Since the student I am working with is not normally too engaged with the read alouds that are done in class. I was not expecting ask me to

read to him. To my surprise we read almost every book, and he had others that were his own that he wanted me to read as well. I was surprised that the mother did not engage in the activity. During the previous home visits I had with her she was very talkative and engaged in the conversation so I assumed this time would be the same. I also realized that even through sports are a huge part of the students life he does not connect to them as much as he connects with the theme of family. This could be because he is not the one who ever participates in the sporting event.

Teaching Implications: By getting the opportunity to do this activity I feel as though I have a better understanding of what it meant so connects a students funds of knowledge into their curriculum. Even though in this case I only created a text set for this students this could easily be adapted into lessons. Even though I always knew funds of knowledge was important, this activity make it clear how important it really is. Knowing all of this when I become a teacher I will require home visits as part of the preschool program. Learning about a student can mean the different between creating good lessons that are for students, and great lessons that are about the students.