Oral Language, Listening, Speaking, Social Studies, Geography, Art, Mediums, Techniques

Grade 3- 5

Objective

Students will work together to create a small town. After the construction of the town, the students can learn about all the aspects of town life by further working on their new creation.

Directions

Tiny Town Materials
There are several ways that Tiny Town can be constructed. Use whatever works best for you. Remember that valuable measuring and directional skills are involved in this process. You will have to consider various factors, such as the following: class size, student ability, and available adult help.
These factors will help you determine whether you want to have the children measure and cut the brown paper strips for the roads or have a teacher's assistant or parent volunteer do it ahead of time. Prior to making the roads, you may want to show a video or movie on how roads are constructed.
Form teams with four to six children on each team. Carefully select children with different abilities to help contribute to the teamwork on each team. For example, a child who is not strong academically could be the caretaker of the materials. He or she would be responsible for having everything ready for the team to begin work.
Directions

1. Have each team fold the green paper exactly in half lengthwise and in half again in the other direction.


2. Have students cut out the directional words (North, East, West, South) on page 11. Reduce or enlarge signs as needed. Have them decide the correct placement for each sign. (Give them a hint: Each sign will be on one of the creases they just made.) Point out that the four main directions spell out the word n-e-w-s. Please be sure all four signs are at the edge of the paper to allow adequate space for Tiny Town. When the four signs are correctly placed, the students may glue them on the paper.
3. Next, use the brown butcher paper to design the streets. The paper should be 1 yard wide and 1 yard, 30 inches long. See page 12 for placement of the streets, driveways, and parking lots. Each 'lane' is two inches wide. Use a yellow pencil to make a dashed line exactly down the middle of each street (as real streets have). If it is not exactly in the middle, the toy cars will be driven illegally on the yellow line. Next, use a white pencil to make the edges to represent curbs. Then cut out the 'Street Signs' on page 11 and glue or tape them onto each street.
4. Glue the streets to the green paper according to the Tiny Town Street Layout on page 13.

Resources

• pencil
• ruler
• yardstick
• 1 yellow colored pencil
• 1 white colored pencil
• scissors
• glue stick
• green bulletin board paper (2 yards x 48 inches)
• brown butcher paper (1 yard, 30 inches x 36 inches)
• a copy of street names and directional words (see activity sheet attachment below)
• crayons
• colored pencils
• toy vehicles (such as a school bus, police car, fire engine, recycling truck, ambulance, cars, vans, other various trucks, etc.)
• copies of building patterns (see activity sheet attachment below)
• copies of student activity sheets (see activity sheet attachment below)