Teacher Guide for Halmoni and the Picnic¹
Elaine Hou developed this guide for teachers to using Halmoni and the
Picnic in the classroom. She then piloted the guide
in her third grade classroom.
Topic: Immigrant family experiences and involvement in children's learning
Age group: Grades 1–4
Plot Summary: A Korean American girl in elementary school is worried that her
grandmother, a recent immigrant to the U.S., is lonely in her new country. The
grandmother is embarrassed about her lack of English skills and finds it difficult
to adjust to American culture. Through the encouragement of her friends and
teacher, the girl invites her grandmother to chaperone a trip to the park. The
grandmother joins the class for the day and gets to know her granddaughter's
classmates and teacher. She contributes special foods and traditions from Korean
culture to the class picnic.
Family Involvement Summary: This book demonstrates how school is not only a
separate sphere of development in a child's life, but also a place where connections
take place every day among families, teachers, and community members. The teacher
reaches out to her student's family by inviting the grandmother to chaperone
a school trip. She also demonstrates openness to diversity when she becomes
the first person to try the grandmother's Korean dish, kimbap. Through a school-sponsored
activity, the student finds that her peers and teacher appreciate her grandmother's
culture. The grandmother feels more confident about being involved in her granddaughter's
school activities and experiences the power of cultural exchange.
Lesson Plan Themes
This book can be used to:
Help all children explore and talk about immigrant family experiences.
Help all children appreciate the knowledge and resources their families can
contribute to their learning experiences.
Support children from immigrant backgrounds in exploring the challenges, strengths,
and meaning of their multicultural identities.
Encourage children from immigrant backgrounds to make connections between home,
school, and community in their learning.
Help nonimmigrant children understand the value of multiculturalism.
Read about the lesson plan Elaine Hou used in
her classroom in Teacher Commentary.
Before the Reading
Write the word culture on the board and brainstorm with your students
what makes up a culture. You can make a web diagram with culture in the center
and different words and ideas stemming from it.
Here are some examples of what makes up culture: traditions, celebrations,
different types of food and how they are eaten, messages that families pass
down from one generation to the next, how one understands oneself in relation
to everyone else, how people communicate and understand each other, and so forth.
Relate the word to the various cultures represented in your class. Talk about
how there can be many various cultures in one country, such as the U.S., and
how new cultures can be formed when people of different cultures interact. Also
talk about how cultures may have different ways of helping children learn new
things.
Note: The concept of culture is very complex. Because an exploration of culture
is an ongoing endeavor, make sure to devote multiple lessons to this topic.
Prepare your students to engage with the immigrant family story. Ask them to
consider ways in which they can contribute their culture or family traditions
to the school. Write these ideas on the board. Ask your students to relate their
ideas to the story they are about to read.
Read about how Elaine Hou's class discussed
culture in Teacher Commentary.
Tips for Reading
Encourage your students to read actively. Have them keep the idea of culture
in mind as they read the following story. Ask them to think about how a family
member shares her culture at school, how she helps children learn new things,
and what the children learn.
Discussion Questions
In this story, the grandmother and granddaughter go through new conflicts and
adventures together in relation to the immigrant experience.
How does Yunmi feel about her grandmother living in America? How does she feel
about her grandmother coming to school?
How does Halmoni feel about living in America? How does she feel about chaperoning
the school picnic?
The grandmother becomes involved in the child's learning experience. Through
this involvement, individuals in the family and in the school forge a new connection
and learn from one another.
What does Halmoni contribute to the class picnic?
How does Yunmi feel when Halmoni first comes to the picnic? How do her feelings
change as time passes? What does she learn at the end of the story?
How do Halmoni's feelings change throughout the picnic? Does she also learn
something new at the end of the story?
The teacher–grandmother interaction creates new engagement and connections
between the home and school.
How does Yunmi's teacher interact with Halmoni? How does she invite Halmoni
to be involved in school?
How does the teacher help her students appreciate and learn about Halmoni's
culture?
What does the teacher learn from Halmoni? How does this enrich her teaching?
Reflective Writing Activity
The following activity will help students connect the stories to their personal
experiences. It will also encourage them to think about school, community, and
society as places made up of diverse family heritage and knowledge.
Ask your students to write about how their family teaches them new things based
on their culture or family traditions (if your students keep a journal, have
them do this activity as part of a collection of personal thoughts concerning
their experiences). The following prompt questions may help get their thoughts
started:
Can you personally relate to this story? Why or why not?
What are some things that are special about your culture or family traditions?
Is there a part of your culture or family life that you especially enjoy?
Was there ever a time that you were embarrassed about something in your culture
or family traditions? Did anyone in your family help you not to be embarrassed?
If so, how?
How does your family help you learn new things? How do other families you know
do this differently?
If your students are comfortable, have them share their reflections. For younger
students, you can modify and use these questions for group discussion.
Additional Activities
Reflections With the Family
After students answer the reflective writing activity questions, have them ask
their family members the same questions and record the answers. This can be
done as an interview with a family member or a journal entry where families
contribute their thoughts and ideas along with their children's.
Read about the assignment Elaine Hou
gave her class in Teacher Commentary.
Learn New Languages
Halmoni and the Picnic contains some Korean words. Ask your students
to make a chart of the words and their meanings. If there are any students in
your class who speak Korean, ask them to teach the class how to pronounce the
words, as well as other words they would like to teach. If students speak other
languages in class, have them teach the class new words. Your students can list
these new words and their meanings in the chart.
Personal Family Involvement Story
Ask your students to brainstorm ways their family has been involved in their
learning experiences. Ask them to brainstorm ways they would like their family
to be involved. Have your students write and illustrate their own family involvement
story based on their brainstorming.
Reading Together
Have your students trace and cut out their handprints on brightly colored paper
and ask their parents or other family members to do the same at home. Every
time the family reads a book together, have both the parent/family member and
the child write down the book title on their respective handprints and bring
them to school. Create a bulletin board with a family involvement theme and
display the handprints linked together. Add to these handprint links each time
the family reads another book together.
Family Storytelling
Have your students begin writing a story about anything they would like. Tell
them not to finish the stories, but instead bring them home and read them to
their families. Then have them ask family members to write another section of
the story. Your students and their families can alternate the storytelling until
the family decides to finish it. Have your students and their families illustrate
the stories.
Family Recipes
Have your students bring in family recipes. Ask them to write about how the
recipe is special to their family. Put together a class recipe book compiled
from all the recipes and make copies for each student. You may even have a food
day where your students and their families bring in samples to share.
Read about the assignment Elaine Hou gave
her class in Teacher Commentary.
Family Bulletin Board
Decorate a bulletin board with the word family in different languages.
Throughout the year, display different family activities (stories, recipes,
family reading handprints, etc.) on the board. You can invite family members
to a family night at school, where they can view the board and engage in oral
storytelling.
A Reflective Space for Teachers
Halmoni and the Picnic is not only a great story for engaging parents
and children in learning experiences; the story of a teacher and immigrant grandmother's
interactions can also generate thinking about family involvement practices.
Culturally diverse families can serve as resources in the classroom. However,
with the many demands of teaching, it is often difficult for teachers to take
time out to reflect on their practices with culturally diverse families.
The following questions can facilitate your reflections on the home–school
connection. This reflective space can help teachers discover teaching as an
empowering endeavor that connects families, schools, and communities.
How do I incorporate the diverse family and cultural experiences of my students
into the classroom?
How do I communicate with the students' parents/grandparents/guardians? What
do I hope to gain from such communication? What do I hope to contribute? In
what ways can I improve communication so it becomes more reciprocal as well
as culturally sensitive?
What are some challenges I have faced when interacting with my students' families?
What do I attribute these challenges to? In what ways can I gain more understanding
of families and their potential roles as resources in teaching? What are some
ways I can achieve this understanding and transform perceived barriers into
opportunities?
Do I use families as a source of knowledge to inform all facets of my teaching—including
curriculum planning and instruction, classroom management, assessment of student
progress and achievement, reinforcement of new learning tasks, exploration of
new learning inquiries, students' holistic development, and my own development
as a professional?
Read Elaine Hou's overall impressions
from using Halmoni and the Picnic in her classroom in the conclusion
to Teacher Commentary.
¹ Choi, S. N. (1993). Halmoni
and the picnic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Developed by Elaine Hou, May 2003
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