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| Our Map of our Town! |
The only thing more important to a child beside themselves and their families are the communities in which they reside. This week we have been studying our community as part of our Social Studies curriculum.
To start the unit, I introduced my students to Google Earth. It is fabulous! I started with the earth small in the sky and then brought it in closer and closer. I then zoomed into the United States. We talked about our country, the United States. Next we zoomed in to see the markings of the individual states. Then we zoomed to our state, Utah. We looked around at the names of some of the communities. We then began to look for our town, Moab. We scrolled to the south-eastern side of the state and found it! (This caused some excited cheers)! We then took a look around our town to see some of the sites. Next we went to street view to see our individual houses. We looked for businesses, hotels, the swimming pool, hospital, etc. Anything that had meaning to the students!
Then, we made up a song to the tune of "The Sidewalk Went All Around." and also of that tune, "The Green Grass Grew all Around." (A song my class is very familiar with).
We have a planet. It is our earth.
The best little earth. That you ever did see.
And the twinkly stars go around, all around.
The twinkly stars go around.
And, on that planet. There is a country.
The best little country. The USA!
And the twinkly stars go around, all around.
The twinkly stars go around.
And in that country. There is a state.
And it's call Utah. The bestest state!
And the twinkly stars go around, all around.
The twinkly stars go around.
And in that state. There is a town.
Moab's our town. The best little town.
And the twinkly stars go around, all around.
The twinkly stars go around.
And in that town. That Moab town.
There is my house. The best little house.
And the twinkly stars go around, all around.
The twinkly stars go around.
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The Next Step:
Now it is time to put our Google Earth map making skills to work! Each child was assigned to make a family project of something in our community. A favorite building, a favorite site, a favorite place, etc. The model could be made from 2-d or 3-d (a little common core there) shapes. The students then could bring in their models as finished. Below are a few examples of projects.
In class, we have constructed roads, vehicles, our own houses, paper doll versions of us, and painted landscape, etc. Here is the project as it stands today, there are still more home projects to be returned.
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| A hallway view |
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| The LaSals and the Red Rock Rim |
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| Can you see the rock crawler on top of the red rock cliff? |
