My Virtual Tour!

Rural, Suburban, and Urban Communities: Where do I fit in?

2nd Grade
Standard 2
Students will develop a sense of self in relation to families and community.
Objective 2
Examine important aspects of the community and culture that strengthen relationships.
• Compare rural, suburban, and urban communities.

Lesson Objective:
Students will be able to differentiate between rural, suburban, and urban communities after viewing a digital tour showing examples of each community. Students will be expected to complete 90% of a worksheet assessing their understanding.

To begin this lesson I will use guided imagery to get students thinking about the topic. Students will lie down on the floor and close their eyes for this activity. I will ask students to imagine they are walking out of their home to go to school one morning; however, on this particular day they decide to stop and look at what surrounds their home. They walk to the back of their house, to the sides and then back to the front and think about everything they see outside their home. Then they walk to the street and look up and down the street taking note once again of everything they see. Soon they realize they need to get to school, so they hurry and go.

After this imagery is completed I will have students gather on our classroom rug for a shared writing. I will ask students to share what they saw during the guided imagery activity and will make a list. After the list is complete, I will tell students we are going to learn about rural, suburban, and urban communities today. I will tell them that it is important to understand the community we live in, because our community is an important part of who we are.

We will then use the Google Earth digital tour I am creating, to learn about the differences and similarities of the communities we are studying. After we have viewed and discussed the tour we will continue our shared writing. I will add a chart with 3 columns labeled rural, suburban, and urban. We will take traits from our previous list and place them under the column where they best fit. We will also add traits or facts learned from the virtual tour to our chart. Once we have completed the shared writing activity, students will fill out a worksheet to reinforce how to differentiate between these communities.