Our final unit of social studies inquiry focuses on rural communities and farming. Earlier this year, students worked to memorize the following understandings using body movements:
- A community is a place where people live, work, and play together.
- An urban community is a big, loud city, with lots of things to do and see.
Last week, we received a letter from a penpal named Sam who lives in River Falls, Nebraska (a rural community with a population just above 1,000 people). Using Sam’s letter, we identified key phrases and ideas about rural communities.
- very quiet
- crops (such as corn, tomatoes, wheat)
- everything is spread out
- have to travel to other towns for grocery and/or department stores
- farming is hard work
- not much traffic
- transportation includes cars, tractors, four-wheelers
- livestock (such as chickens, cows, goats, ducks)
- not many people
- small town
- farms
We also watched this video to broaden our understanding. Students then used what they had learned to draw pictures of things they might find in a rural community.
We continued to broaden our understanding of rural communities by reading nonfiction books about the life cycle of chickens. Interesting facts we learned include:
- Chicks start the life cycle in an egg that has been fertilized by a rooster
- A mother hen broods by sitting on her clutch (a group of eggs) to keep them warm
- A baby chick uses their egg-tooth to break out of their shell about 3 weeks after it is laid
- A baby chick then pushes their body against the egg shell to break out all the way
- Three months later, the chick’s fluffy down feathers are replaced with shiny adult feathers
- The life cycle repeats!
