Beginning+Neighborhoods

Day One
**__Materials__**
 * big paper web to post student learning on at the end
 * index cards or half sheets of paper for students to write their thinking on
 * pens for students to use on the index cards
 * clipboards prepped with golf pencils
 * long term learning targets printed large [|long term targets large.doc]

__**Learning Targets**__
 * I can explain what makes a good neighborhood. (long term)
 * I can explain how a neighborhood meets different needs. (supporting)
 * I can investigate what makes a good neighborhood. (long term)
 * I can collect evidence of what makes a neighborhood a good place to live. (supporting)

**__Opener__** This year we will be studying neighborhoods in Boston. Today we are going to think about what makes a good neighborhood and we are also going to think about what makes our school neighborhood a good place.

__**Lesson**__
 * 1) Pass out checklist and have them self-evaluate in the September column only. Then file this in their portfolios. Have students self-evaluate using the checklist form. [|before after learning target checkin.doc]
 * 2) Put students into groups and have them write down what they think makes a good neighborhood. Have students put it on index cards. Most students can work in their home groups, or in pairs. They must discuss and agree before writing.

__**Sharing**__

Share out and write on web of what makes a good neighborhood.

Day Two
**__Materials__** __**Learning Targets**__
 * big web from the day before
 * clipboards prepped with golf pencils
 * I can investigate what makes a good neighborhood.
 * I can collect evidence of what makes a neighborhood a good place to live.

__**Introduction to Walking Tour**__ //Using the Elmo, demonstrate how to fill in this chart.// (Connect back to the learning targets). Now we are going to go on a walking tour of our school (inside). There are certain things that we are going to see that show us that our school is a good place. Our job is to explain how these good things we see "meet our needs." Meeting our needs is a fancy way of saying help us. So if you see the structure outside then you might write that as something good about our school. Under what needs it meets you would write that it helps us have fun. Or, if I see a bench, that is something I think makes the school a good place to be. Okay, how does it make the school a good place to be? What need does it meet? It gives us a place to sit down, it meets our need to relax.

This year we will be collecting this kind of evidence in different neighborhoods. This is a practice for when we go on field trips. So you need to practice walking quietly, listening to directions, stopping when I ask you to, and observing very carefully. You can also practice writing on a clipboard while you walk. When you can do this really well, without needing a lot of bossing, we will know you are ready for field trips.

__**School walking tour**__ Visit auditorium, cafeteria, hallways, middle school hall, playground, garden

[|school needs walk.doc]

__**Share Out**__ Record student thinking about what makes our school a good place to be and what needs it meets.

Day Three
__**Materials**__
 * class web of what makes a good neighborhood
 * class chart of what we saw on the school walk
 * ELMO
 * organizer [|needs at school and in the neighborhood.doc]

__**Learning targets**__ Same as above

__**Opening**__

In small groups or whole-group, share and make a class chart of what makes our school a good place to be, and how it meets our needs.

Teach how to fill out the organizer of what we need at school, and how that connects to our needs in neighborhoods, using the ELMO.

"I see on my note-catcher that I wrote that the mural makes our school a good place to be because it gives us beauty. So we have a need for beauty. I'm going to write that on the new organizer about neighborhoods. Now, how do we get beauty in a neighborhood?"

__**Work Time**__

Students complete the organizer. (in pairs or alone)

While students do the organizer, have one teacher pulling kids to find their address on the big map of Boston in the hallway, and mark it.


 * __Sharing__**

Add to web of what makes a good neighborhood. Did you get any new ideas from what you found in our school?