Early Childhood Education Supersite
Classroom Activities: Paint the House
  


Where Do I Live? - Family Pride

Paint the House

Objective:
To recognize ways families contribute to the upkeep of the neighborhood or community.
Key Vocabulary/ Concepts/ Skills:
community, property, values, era, architectural style, and deterioration

Modifications to the Baseline
Include pictures and stories about houses and homes in the community.
Add blocks and construction materials for building model homes and gardens.

Background for Teachers
Young children appreciate their homes as places for the family to gather and rest. It is a space that represents the family socially and culturally. Within their economic means, families show their pride of home space by caring for the home - keeping it clean and in good repair, decorating and furnishing it for family comfort. Teachers can connect the family pride in homes to children's pride in their classroom. It takes all the members of the class to keep the room decorated, picked up.... Communities rely on similar efforts of everyone to contribute to the whole. Members of the community can also appreciate the diversity of housing styles in the city, town, suburb, or rural area.

Set-up   Age Range: 5 - 6
Art area   30 minutes and on-going
Materials   whole class initially
Paper, cardboard, fabric, wood scraps, glue, paste, markers, crayons, scissors

Description of Activity
Explain to the children that you will be constructing a community of homes.
Each child is invited to make a home for all the members of their family. It may represent the real home or a future home.
Once the homes are built, arrange for display so that the class may enjoy the new community.

Suggested Questions and Procedures
As the children build the homes, ask them to think about the distinctive features of their family homes. What are they especially proud of? Is it the color, the flower garden, the table that belonged to Grandmother?

What makes the homes in the community unique? How are they alike?

How do the homes of today compare to homes of the past? If children could change the homes in the community, what would they do?

Child Products
Contributions to the discussion, houses constructed

Assessment Procedure
Observe participation and note on the checklist whether children can identify the concept of family pride and how this pride contributes to the community good.

Extensions of Activity
Chart examples of kinds of homes in the community.
Make a class collage showing the ways that people live.
Connect the discussion of homes today to those of the past.

Parent Collaboration
Invite parents to contribute materials for the construction of the homes at school.
Invite parents to share pictures of other homes where they have lived.

Suggested Books
Dorros, Arthur. This Is My House / Esta Es Mi Casa.
Emberley, Rebecca. Taking a Walk.
Miller, William. VanWright, Cornelius & Ying-Hwa, Hu, Illus. A House by the River.
Strickland, Dorothy and Strickland, Michael. Ward, John, Illus. Families: Poems Celebrating the African-American Experience.

From Gayle Mindes and Marie Ann Donovan, Building Character: Five Enduring Themes for a Stronger Early Childhood Curriculum, ©2001, Allyn & Bacon, pp172-173.

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