Recycle City

In 2nd grade I remember doing a very hands-on and fun activity.  It combined the lesson of recycling, city/suburban/rural regions, also designing and creating.  It was an ongoing project for a few weeks, bit it gave the class a very accomplished feeling.  I hope you're now wondering what is this amazing activity...

For a few weeks, our class recycled all kinds of materials.  We also asked the school to participate.  We had all kinds of things:  milk gallons, cereal boxes, bags, bottles, cans, all kinds of boxes, etc, etc.  Once we had a good amount of stuff, we started to plan our "little world".  We were to design a city, beside it, the suburbs, and then, connected by a "bridge", we were to build the country (or the rural region).  We spent lots of time measuring, cutting, gluing, arranging, etc.  We made buildings, barns, fences, houses, you name it, we made it!  This engaging activity will most definitely be a hit with your students, I'm sure!

 

Once we were done constructing our little world, we brought little toys from home to add to the effect such as policemen to put into the city and farm animals to put into the country.  I remember admiring this class project with great accomplishment.  It was lots of fun and in addition to that, I learned a lot!  Not just the things I mentioned above bu how to plan together and work together with others.