Community Unit Part 1

My elementary school is an International Baccalaureate (IB) school. And we are part of the Primary Years Program (PYP) for IB. Each month we focus on a unit that fosters meta-cognition and global awareness. What does this mean at the Kindergarten level? 

Our first unit was a focus on self. What does it mean to be in school? This unit covered everything Kindergarten classes do at the beginning of the year: routines, rules, friendship, understanding, and patience. Our second unit is on Community.

We began our Community unit this week and are starting small. 

Our first question was: What is a community?  

We discussed our classroom community and tied it into our rules and routine. Then we made our self-portraits that now hang in the hall and remind us that we are a team and depend on each other.

 Our second lesson in community was on Neighborhoods. We learned that we have 3 neighborhoods that we could possibly be a part of: Rural, Suburban, and City. We are working through the unit by Karen Jones titled  Little Thinkers Social Studies Unit 4: Community

This unit it very well organized and takes students through meaningful lessons with PowerPoint presentations and activities that students love.

 We learned that many students in our class live in apartments.

We learned that some students live in a house. 

We also learned that some students live in a hotel as temporary housing. 

We celebrated every type of neighborhood and living arrangement as a way to understand that being part of the community it important, no matter where you live.

Next week we will learn about our neighbors and places in the community.

Community

Hi everyone. We have had a wonderful week in K. We learned about community helpers this week. I am currently working on a community helper unit for TpT. It should be coming out soon. Because we could literally do community helpers for a month solid, we didn't do everything. Instead, we focused on some of the main community helpers in our local area. We live in a small town (although it is getting bigger by the day) and I tried to teach the helpers my students come into contact with most often. We are currently building a new elementary school, which we are WAY excited about, and got to watch some builders in action this week. It was very exciting.

 We visited the builders and saw them using their tools. Then we came back and made our own tool box.

 We learned about bakers and chefs. Our chef's hat was made from a band of white poster board and white butcher paper, folded over and stapled around the band. The cookies are made of paper. Aren't they cute?

 We learned about the job of a grocer. Several of my students have parents that work at the local supermarket, so this was very exciting for them. Our activity for the grocer was extra fun, as well. I found this great fruits and veggies coloring page.

I colored one sheet, cut them apart, and taped them around the room. The kids had their sheets on clipboards (because they LOVE clipboards) and went around the room trying to find their fruits and veggies. When they found one, they colored it the color it was in the picture. We talked about how grocers have to make sure they have enough of everything to keep the customer happy. If there was not a lot of healthy choices, people might not shop there. The kids did this for about 20 minutes and had the BEST time. It was great.  

 We learned about maps and how we can see a whole town by looking at a map. Students made their own maps on a large piece of drawing paper. 

 Our fun food this week was, you guessed it, a big yellow bus. Our shape was rectangle, our color word was yellow, and we were learning about our community. Perfect fun food! The bus is a graham cracker with yellow icing. The wheels are Lifesaver Gummies and the windows are Cinnamon Cereal. Yum!

The culminating activity for Community was very exciting. Each student in my class chose a hat at random with one of the community helpers we learned about. They colored it and cut it out. I stapled it together. Then we met with the other Kindergarten classes, who had different jobs than us, and we told each other about our jobs. It was great for listening and speaking. And the whole conversation took 5 minutes! Success!