Unit 9: My community
Day one: Creating a map
Students will understand a map that approximates their community and will be able to create a facsimile of such a map.
Setting the Stage (5 minutes)
Teacher displays a variety of large geographic maps all around the classroom and encourages students to walk around, in a "gallery walk" to look at these maps. These maps depict cities, states, provinces and countries.
Input (20 minutes)
Teacher walks around the room and describes various features of the displayed maps, such as location of public buildings, neighborhoods, cities, states or provinces and of geographical features, such as rivers and mountains. As Teacher talks, he/she writes names of important vocabulary both in the target language (TL) and the native language of the students (L1) on the front board or on an overhead transparency. Teacher includes the map directions: north, south, east, and west.
EXAMPLES: park, school, store, movie theater, church, post office, hotel, train station, swimming pool, campground, forest, river, beach, city, country, gulf, sea, ocean, island, peninsula…
Throughout this input time, Teacher assures student comprehension and participation by asking yes/no, either/or, and what/where questions about the information.
Independent Practice (30 minutes)
Teacher divides the students into 3 groups. Teacher assigns each group to create a large map of a neighborhood, a city, or a country. Teacher provides each group with colored markers and a large piece of butcher paper. Teacher encourages creativity by having music playing in the background as students work.
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