1st & 2nd Grade Quick Pic Communities

As we head toward the end of the year and open house, one activity we do is create a community (after we spend a lot of time learning about them). Students are divided into groups and they choose a type of community (urban, rural, desert, mountain, jungle, and beach). To start they brainstorm what they would see in their given community. I give them categories such as homes, other buildings, animals, fun places, and plants.

In the past students within a given community group have simply talked about the categories and written notes if they wanted to, the goal being to all have the same mindset about the community before they create anything. This year I gave each student an iTouch or an iPad and assigned them to 1 of the categories above. They had 5 minutes to draw a quick picture of what the home/building/animals, etc. in their community would look like. Then, within their community group they shared their drawing and talked about it with the rest of their group.

Here's a house drawing from the rural group (made of wood, nothing else around it, plain and not decorated).