Our Community-Then & Now!

Purpose:

  • This lesson will guide students’ learning about how buildings, transportation, jobs, and the population have changed over time within our communities.
  • 2.3 The student will identify and compare changes in community life over time in terms of buildings, jobs, transportation, and population.

Objectives:

  • The student will be able to identify changes in the community, compare the difference in jobs, buildings, transportation, and population given pictures of examples from the past, examples from the present, and creating their own community in the past, and present with 80% accuracy or higher.

Procedure:

  • Introduction:
  • Have the students come sit on the front carpet.
  • Introduce the book A Street Through Time by Anne Millard.
  • Tell them that you will be talking about the communities in which they live, specifically, past and present, and you want them to focus on the pictures in the book (specifically how it changes throughout the story)
  • Read the story, showing the pictures along the way. Remember to give enough time for the students to really observe the pictures.
  • Go over the key words that children need to know for this SOL. Have them write them down in their interactive Notebooks.
  • Words include:
  • Community-A place where people live, work, and play.
  • Population- The number of people living in a community.
  • Transportation-A way of moving people and things from one place to another.
  • Development:
  • Ask students if they can give you examples of past ways of transportation (train, horse and buggy) (a)
  • Ask them if they can tell you jobs that have been created because of newer inventions (mechanics, computer technicians or repairmen) (a)
  • Show students pictures of how Richmond looked in the past. Ask the student’s if they recognize the location (some might recognize some landmarks). (v)
  • Show students pictures of how Richmond looks now. (v)
  • Show students a worksheet with three boxes. Explain that they will pick a community (school, neighborhood, etc) and draw what it looked like in the past, what it looks like now (present) and what it might look like in the future with different inventions, jobs, etc. (k)
  • Give students time to work on their pictures.
  • For early finishers, have them write a sentence about each picture
  • For strugglers, show them pictures of past and present things to help guide what their community might have looked like.
  • Summary:
  • Bring students back together for sharing.
  • Have students share their work, describing the specific items of past and present in their pictures. If time permits, have them explain their community in the future!

Materials:

  • Photos of Richmond in the past and in the present (provided by teacher using iPad)
  • Worksheets for student work
  • A Street Through Time

Evaluation Part A:

  • Evaluate student work by making sure that students represented the past in the correct box (old buildings, old ways of transportation, etc), and present in the correct box. Check vocabulary matching for 100% accuracy.

Evaluation Part B:

  • Did the students meet your objectives?
  • How did you know?
  • Did you lesson accommodate/address the needs of all of your learners?
  • What were the strengths of the lesson?
  • What were the weaknesses?
  • How would you change the lesson if you could teach it again?

Rubric (10 possible points)

Vocabulary Section

Student gets 1 point for each vocabulary word properly matched with its definition. (Possible 3 points)

1 point

2 points

3 points (Great job)

Target (3) / Acceptable (1-2) / Unacceptable (0)
(PAST)The student clearly demonstrates jobs, transportation, buildings, from the past / Has only elements from past displayed in illustration. / Has some elements of past communities mixed in with present day elements. / Elements are not from past/not completed
(PRESENT) The student clearly demonstrates transportation, buildings, and jobs from present day. / Elements of illustration clearly demonstrate present day features / Has a mixture of both past and present day elements within a community / Not complete
(FUTURE)
The student used his or her creativity to illustrate what his or her community might look like in the future (1 point)