This past week we have been discussing what belonging to a community means, what communities we belong to (families, class/school, neighbourhoods, sports teams), and the people and places within these communities.
We began by discussing the different places we would find in our community and why they are important. Then students had a chance to create their own paper bag buildings to add to our classroom community. They also had fun creating a background on a large piece of paper. We recorded what they said about each of their buildings and added quotes to them.
Students were also very interested in creating maps. We tied that into our learning about communities by having maps of different places in their community (we had the school, hospital, movie theater, park, fire house and sports complex). I simply typed each location into Google Maps and printed out the satellite picture (I also had the map view, which is not pictured). Students were free to create their own maps and communities.
They were still very interested in creating their own maps, so we made an invitation to create maps and communities. I got the idea for this activity from Kindergarten Corps and students loved making these!
I even recorded them describing the communities they created and made QR codes that parents will be able to scan to listen to their little voices. I will have more on this in a later post!
Our small world play was made with felt pieces and this awesome activity pack from The Primary Pack. Another great way to talk about places in our community and the people who work and live there.
I had a lot of fun talking to students while they created to know about their process and why they were placing things in certain places. So fun!
We then used my Letter Writing Pack to write letters to different community helpers. Students were able to pick any community helper and write a letter to them. I can’t remember where we got the awesome community helper posters, so if you know where I can link to for those, please let me know!
That’s a recap of our week learning about our community! I don’t know if they are still interested in discussing communities, so we might be doing more activities next week! Do you have any favourite activities that you do for community helpers?
I love the ideas here! Using Google Maps for images is brilliant! Way to tie in the internet, too. Whooee, creative ideas for community helpers. Only thing that comes to mind is a recent Boy Scouts venture where we were challenged to become a *part* of our own community by helping in some way…bringing donations to a Food Bank or visiting a Nursing Home. I love ideas like this because it helps us to think outside of our own bubble and remind us that we are, indeed, living in a world made up of our neighbors. Thanks for this lovely post! (I really like the writing to the community helper letters, too!)
Thank you! We tried to tie-in family involvement but we didn’t get any takers 🙁 love to hear about how you were helping the community and getting the kids involved!
Is there a way I can purchase this!?
I’m not sure what you would like to purchase in this post, but I have provided links to all the resources that I have shown. If you would like to let me know what you would like to buy, I can provide a link!
I love your ideas! I can’t wait to try them!
Much obliged to you! We attempted to tie–in family contribution yet we got no takers love to catch wind of how you were helping the local area and getting the children in question!