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Activity

Our Homes, Our Town, Our Country

Subject

Social Studies (NYS K-12 Framework Common Core)

Grade Levels

Elementary, Intermediate, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade

Description

Kids Voting USA’s classroom materials are designed to aid teachers in addressing civic learning objectives. The activities are short and engaging and they foster group discussion and the use of critical-thinking skills.

Objective:
Students construct a concept map of households and discuss the ways that democracy impacts their lives.

Duration

30 minutes

Materials

Multicolored markers; Our Homes, Our Town, Our Country handout; butcher paper; government agencies information

Our Homes, Our Town, Our Country

Get Ready

Divide your students into groups of three or four.
Have ready a set of multicolored markers for each group of students.
Make copies of the handout so that each student has one.
Give each group one large piece of (butcher) paper.
Duplicate the page of city, state, and/or national agencies from your telephone directory for each group.

Instructions

Explain to your class that a useful way to think of democracy is to look at the household unit (the people who live together under the same roof). A democratic government, whether local, state, or national, provides services to the households of a community.
Model for the students a handout that you have completed, pointing out the various services the government provides for the different members of a household: Children need sports leagues and library services; adults need freeways to get to work; older people need health classes; the house needs a building permit.
Say, Add as many services as you can think of to the bubbles on the handout. You can use the list of city, state, and federal agencies to jog your thinking. Share your ideas with your group members. If you want to expand the activity you can say, If you feel a member of the household has been left out and want to add a bubble to your map, feel free to make that addition.
The group should next draw a large concept map (based on the one in the handouts) on the piece of butcher paper. They need to work together to make sure nothing is written more than once. They can then present their map to the class and the teacher can keep track of all the services mentioned.

Discussion Questions

Are there any services used by all the people in the household? (Police, garbage, libraries etc.)
Which services would you miss the most if the community did not provide them? (Garbage collection?)
If our government provides us these services, what is it that we provide back? (Taxes, votes, civic engagement)
Politicians often talk about the services they think are most important. Which ones are most important to you? (Education and transportation are the ones on the top of most community agendas.)
Why is it special that a democracy provides these services? (Because they represent the people’s interests, etc.)

More!

Students could invite a speaker from a city agency (police, refuse, animal control, recreation, libraries, etc.) to talk to the class about the agency’s work and how children can make a difference in that work.