Design Your Own Town

Children will learn about map skills, landforms, bodies of water, different types of communities (urban, suburban, rural), goods, and services as they design their own town. Students do not need any background knowledge for this course, but having some knowledge of landforms and bodies of water is helpful. 

***PLEASE READ: Due to varying number of students/amounts that they want to talk/if they want to share or not our class times may differ slightly (slightly shorter or longer). The 1st session will probably be closer to 50 minutes, and the 2nd 45-50 minutes depending on how many children want to share their towns. Also, it is my management policy to have students muted unless they are talking so that there is not any background noise so that students can hear myself and each other. I will post recordings upon request. Due to my already scheduled teaching commitments, I am not able to add any more sections to my schedule at this time, but I do have a flex version of this class that is available.***

During the first session students will:
-learn about what an urban planner is and what they do
-come up with a name for their town  (I will provide a planner for students to print out to use)
-plan what buildings they will have in their town (including those that will provide goods and services)
-choose landforms and bodies of water that they want to have in their community
-draw their landforms, bodies of water, roads, and parks
***It is important that students have a large piece of paper or poster board, pencil, eraser, ruler/yardstick, and the planning printables that I will post in the classroom the day before for them to get the most out of this session.***

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A HOMEWORK INTENSIVE CLASS IN ORDER FOR STUDENTS TO GET THE MOST OUT OF IT:)
Homework between sessions:
-color their landforms, bodies of water, roads, and add grass, sand, etc. 
-design and/or color buildings (I will provide blackline drawings of different buildings for students to label or students are welcome to draw or design their own as well)
-cut their buildings out so that they will be ready to glue them on during session two

During the second session students will:
-learn about the characteristics of urban, suburban, and rural communities
-learn about placing their buildings (ex. you would probably not want to place the store on top of the mountain when the houses are all down in a valley)
-place their buildings onto their poster board and glue them
-share their towns

By the end of the second session, students should have a town that they are proud of! Please note, that due to the nature of the class and the varying amount of students attending, instructional time per class may be a few minutes under or over 30 minutes.

After the class, I am including some writing and other learning extensions for this project as well that are optional.

Mine is simple. 

***Please note: I will not be able to honor requests for transfers, refunds or withdrawals within 48 hours of class start time or after class has started (unless there is an extreme emergency with a limit of 1 per family per year). I invite you to watch the class recording (which I will post if asked) at your earliest convenience.***