Random House
Mapping Skills
Spark interest and enhance your pupils' map skills using Matteo Pericoli's book, See the City: the Journey of Manhattan Unfurled. Through Pericoli's illustrations and text, learners explore the East and West side of Manhattan. Then,...
Teaching Tolerance
Community Spotlight Cards
Not all heroes wear capes—or cleats. Class members identify unsung heroes in their schools or towns for interviews, then create trading cards. A celebration including presentations or trading of cards completes their investigation of...
Curated OER
Community Helpers
Young scholars identify examples of community services, identify jobs/services performed by community helpers and relationships between community needs and community services, and work cooperatively to create Bubble map, flyer, and...
Curated OER
Making a Connection
Students research why government community workers are important to us. They work in teams to identify and illustrate the jobs and services provided by these community workers. Assessment comes from their Student Concept Maps.
Teaching Tolerance
Fairness Fair
How can we create a more fair world? Chances are, class members have some ideas! After reading a text about fairness, individuals create skits around the ideas of fairness. Extend the learning and make their presentations a...
Teaching Tolerance
Identity Self-Portraits
What symbols represent you best? Individuals consider how they would draw peers using symbols about their identities with an interview and art activity. After conducting interviews and portraits, the art makes a great centerpiece for...
Teaching Tolerance
Identity Artifacts Museum
Who are you? It's a simple question, but younger learners have the opportunity to express their complex identities by making artifacts that represent parts of their identities. After engaging in the activity, they share who they are with...
Curated OER
Gingerbread Map
Second graders read the book Gingerbread Baby, identify local features and cardinal directions on a map, and then construct their own map. In this mapping lesson plan, 2nd graders construct their own map in groups based on where the baby...
Curated OER
Special Places in Our Community
Students compare and contrast cities whether they are large or small, rural or urban. They use digital photography to take pictures of the different types of cities.
Curated OER
It Matters to Me: Iowa quarter reverse
What matters to your pupils? What values do they hold dear and how does that shape your classroom community? These are some the questions you'll get your class thinking about when they engage in this lesson from the US Mint. They will...
Curated OER
Mapping Our Home
Students explore how communities participate in census counting. In this census activity, students recognize the absolute and relative location of a state and understand ideas about civic life and government.
Curated OER
Neighborhood Map Machine
Second graders study building placements in a neighborhood. They discuss businesses, roads, houses, rivers, police/fire stations, and use Neighborhood Map Machine to create a new map. They complete an exploratory map and community of...
Curated OER
My Community
Students identify how their school has changed. For this local community lesson, students listen to a brief history of their town and school and interview someone that graduated from their school. Students then create a map of their...
Curated OER
Making a Difference Globally
Young scholars discover what the common good is and how to be a part of it. In this community lesson, students discuss the war in Iraq and how people are working for the common good. Young scholars then discuss the term philanthropy.
Curated OER
Song Mapping
Young scholars explore locations on the United States map. In this map skills instructional activity, students recite the song This Land Is Your Land and locate various places listed in the song on the map.
Curated OER
America: The Land We Live In: Landmarks
Young scholars explore the concept of landmarks. In this landmark lesson, students brainstorm different landmarks around their community and nationally. Young scholars then identify the patterns in Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings or...
Curated OER
My Community
Learners engage in a instructional activity about the community in order to find out what different things go on within it on a daily basis. They conduct field research and look up information in order to answer some key questions...
Curated OER
Friends in the Community
Second graders build a classroom community by getting to know each other better. They ask classmates various questions and use graphic organizer software and Microsoft PowerPoint. Students practice their oral language skills while asking...
Curated OER
Where I Live…
Second graders explore their community. In this social studies lesson plan, 2nd graders use Internet tools to locate their community on a map and then locate where they live.
Compton Unified School District
How Can We Locate Places?
How can we locate places? Maps, of course! Expose second graders to the tools available in maps and discuss how these tools can help people find locations. Students also look at communities, including what makes a community and the...
Schools Linking Network & Lifeworlds Learning
How Do We All Live Together?
Explore the concepts of community and point of view with these activities complementing the children's book Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne. Following a class reading of the story, ask students to either draw a map of the...
Curated OER
All Around the Neighborhood
Second graders explore the roles, responsibilities and skills of community leaders as they discuss the definition of community. They brainstorm businesses in the community and explore the importance of each profession represented in the...
Curated OER
Bradford England
Students explore the locality and diversity of culture within the Bradford District of England. Through map activities and discussion, they identify the major forms of transport, people and places in the region. Students compare and...
Curated OER
The Big Circle
Students explore geography by participating in a mapping activity. In this concentric ring lesson, students utilize a poster board, string and markers to identify their current location within the entire world. Students write about their...