We begin by telling our students what we will be doing during this first marking period:
Studying our neighborhood
Learning to problem solve and work together as a group
Creating a class run virtual city on the computer
Looking at books and videos that show how other communities developed
Building a scale model of our virtual city using oak tag, construction paper and glue
included will be an imaginary “dream building” by each student
Learning the process of the critique - how we analyze and evaluate our work

Our School’s Neighborhood - Where are we and what can we see?

A walking tour of our neighborhood. We point out different buildings and their shapes (the geometric elements), materials (stone, wood) , parts (roof, window, etc)
We begin to talk about what each building is used for and how it can be classified
Residential, Commercial, Industrial (defining each in simple terms)
We talk about other aspects of our neighborhood (streets, sidewalks, trees, etc
We talk about our neighborhood’s history (communities change, grow, shrink)
We ask students to look for evidence of changes in architecture and purpose
Variations: A virtual visit via video, slide show, books
Field Trips: Philadelphia’s Center City, Trenton or Princeton Walking Tours

Founding our New Community - We elect ourselves Mayor!
We introduce SIMCITY game on the computer, showing how it works
We announce the founding of a new community and they are the government
Their task: to grow the settlement into a thriving city and stay in power
More Industry, More Housing, More Business, More Wealth.
Problem Solving is the Focus (Intro to Civics)
What do we do when the community has needs (Jobs, Housing, etc)
Our city is growing; where should the new stuff be put?
Videos by Macaulay show how others in Rome, Egypt, England, France did it
Are we done Yet? (deciding when to move on)
Variations: Work in small groups, compete for top spot
Work on specific type of building or neighborhood in one city per class

Quick, How do we build it? - Making our scale model city

We have our city on the computer, let’s make some maps
Introduce different viewpoints (map view, bird’s eye view, street view)
How big is that, anyway?
Concepts of Scale and Ratio
Manufacturing our structures
Organizing into good working teams to divide up the work fairly
Team leaders, designers, artists, etc
Putting it all together
Streets, Rivers, Lakes, Transit
Variations: painted or fired clay/tiles; printmaking, painting facades, mattboard buildings; focus on details

I Liked the Part Where...Conducting the critique

Reviewing steps of work completed, original goals and assignments
Defining the process
positive comments, active listening, good body language, descriptive phrasing