Communities/Neighborhoods/Families

Cities and towns are made up of communities and neighborhoods and families. The word community has an implication of people working together. People and animals require homes and habitats which are safe places to live. It take many people in a variety of roles to make communities and neighborhoods safe and successful.

Sample some of the following activities to learn more about the communities, neighborhoods, and families around us.

Places To Go | People To See | Things To Do | Teacher Resources | Bibliography

Places To Go

The following are places to go (some real and some virtual) to find out about communities, neighborhoods, and families.

What did Salt Lake City look like 100 years ago? South Temple Street in Salt Lake City used to be called Brigham Street. Travel through time and see what this historic street looked like then and now.

Sign up for a free class at UEN to learn how to make virtual tours or learn from the online tutorial. Then make a virtual tour of the city, town, or community in which you live. These teachers and students made a virtual tour of the towns in southern Utah where they live, and these teachers made virtual tour of her their schools, Beacon Heights Elementary, Rose Park Elementary, and Franklin Elementary!

Find out if your community has its own historical society. Salt Lake City has one. So do Sandy and Grantsville. They can be a great source of information about your neighborhood and city.

Visit your school or public library and check out the book, Children Just Like Me by Barnabas and Anabel Kindersley. The book is a celebration of children and their families living in different communities across the globe. It chronicles the similarities of children and families--no matter where they live.

Communities and neighborhoods love their parks. Parks provide green space, recreational opportunities, and an atmosphere of relaxation within urban areas. Visit the most famous park of all - Central Park in New York City. You can take a virtual tour.

People To See

Talk with an older relative or neighbor. Ask them what their neighborhood or community was like when they were growing up and compare that to what it is like today.

Visit an Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Learn about their strong family ties and their religion which has its roots in the European Reformation.

Talk with McGruff! He's involved with keeping neighborhoods safe for kids. Meet McGruff's nephew, Scruff, and check out McGruff's puzzles and games.

Chat with Mr. Rogers about his famous neighborhood. Here are the words to his Won't You Be My Neighbor? song, and you can listen to a sound file of it, too.

Things To Do

Spend some time at CyberKids. It's an online community for worldwide kids. They have creativity contests, kids' art galleries, interactive puzzles and games, kids' writing, kids' music, and more.

Family.Com, sponsored by Disney, is a fun place to find family activities, crafts, vacation ideas, and more.

Research your family tree. Find out where your ancestors came from.

Plan on celebrating Grandparent's Day which is September 12th.

Discuss the differences and similarities between urban, suburban, and rural communities.

Teacher Resources

Online activities are a listing of internet sites with fun, interesting, and educational tasks attached to each one. (You can learn how to use this WWW Activities tool created by UEN for Utah educators).

Collective Nouns

Virtual Field Trips are teacher and student-created tours of curricular topics. (You can learn how to use this UEN Virtual Field Trip tool created by UEN for Utah educators).

Lesson Plan/Webquests/Activities

Ethnic Groups of Utah - From UEN
Personal Contributions To Utah - From UEN
Philanthropists - Servants Of The Community - From UEN
The Important Thing About A Family - From UEN
Oral Histories of Grandparents - From UEN
Many Places, Many Faces
A lesson plan about children and families of the world.
Family : The Roots of History
From Scholastic, this has links about making family trees and information about American immigration along with a teacher's guide.
Holes
A webquest for grades 6-8 based on 1999 Newbery Award novel, Holes, by Louis Sachar. Students will explore the concepts of friends and family.
Where Would You Like to Live?
A webquest on cities.
Cities of Today Cities of Tomorrow

Bibliography

Bailey, Donna. Families. Austin, Tex. : Steck-Vaughn, 1990.
Hausherr, Rosmarie. Celebrating Families. New York : Scholastic Press, 1997.
Kalman, Bobbie. Community helpers from A to Z. New York : Crabtree Publishing Co., c1998.
Time-Life for Children. Who Named My Street Magnolia? : First Questions and Answers About Neighborhoods. Alexandria, VA : Time-Life for Children, c1995.