Group 4: Michelle Phillips, Sara Shokry, Sandra Fahmy, Suzy Sakr, Farida El Ezaby
Group 4 Project Design: Elly, Sara, Sandra, Suzy, Farida
1. Project Overview
Project Title
Building Community
Driving Question
What can we do to get to know each other and strengthen our school community?
Grade Level/ Subject
First Grade
Language Arts/Social Studies/Math/PESE/Global Perspectives/21st Century Skills
Time Frame
6 Weeks
Project Summary
In this project, students will collaborate in groups to create a book, video, or poster and also
compile a class video that helps them learn about one another so that they can begin to create a
strong school community. Children will first learn what “community” means and then explore
their role in their own communities, sharing a bit about themselves, their families, and their
homes. They will further extend the idea to learn the roles of others in their community (school
and neighborhood) and how these ideas are related. They will also learn about non-fiction texts
to learn how to write and create their own content. Children will then bring all of these elements
together into one public product.
Parental Involvement
● Parents will make videos of their children interviewing various community members in
their neighborhood as well as at school.
● Parents will attend the launch party.
Community Engagement/Partners:
Children will interview various members of the neighborhood community such as employees at
local shops & supermarkets, the electric company, nurseries, police stations, etc.
Global Perspective
Students will share their final product with their class pen pal in another country.
Student Voice and Choice
Public Product(s) Individual and
Team
● Students will choose their project (booklet, poster, video, etc.).
● Students will choose which community members within the school they will interview.
● Students will plan the launch party and choose who will attend (i.e., parents or other
students, etc.)
● Students will choose how to share their creations with their pen pals in another country
(letters, pictures, zoom, etc.)
In groups students will create either a book, poster, or video to describe their communities and
to compile and share their ideas of events and activities that will make their school community
stronger which will be shared with parents and others via a launch party and also with their class
pen pals via a method of their own choosing.
2. Resources
What is a community :
https://youtu.be/zeM5ewySceQ
What community are you from :
https://youtu.be/cTujW74tLJw
Community helpers :
https://youtu.be/jt2q1cHsH6E
Types of communities:
https://youtu.be/lGC0zxgRNJQ
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3. Learning Goals: Students will be able to...
Social Studies Objectives
Math Objectives
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Describe and compare the various communities to which he or she belongs.
Explain how communities have natural and constructed features.
Recognize the components of a local community.
Identify the contributions of different members of a community.
Create and share his or her own story about being a community member.
Relate what it means to be a good citizen.
Relate knowledge of the concept of goods and services to the community.
Data Collection
● Explain that sets can be organized by one or more attributes.
● Recognize that information about themselves and their surroundings can be collected and
recorded in different ways.
● Collect and represent data in different types of graphs, for example, tally marks, bar graphs.
● Represent the relationship between objects in sets using Venn diagram.
Language Art Objectives
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PESE Objectives
● Examine different factors (heritable and non-heritable) that shape an identity (for example, gender,
sexuality, nationality, language group)
● Recognize personal qualities, strengths, and limitations.
● Reflect on how they cope with change in order to approach and manage situations of adversity.
Apply knowledge of print concepts
Show phonological awareness.
Develop a story through planning
Practice listening and speaking skills.
Use sentence level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
Distinguish shades of meaning among closely related verbs (e.g., Toss, Throw, Hurl) and closely
related adjectives (e.g., thin, skinny, scrawny, slender)
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Success Skills/ 21st
Century Skills
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Social and Emotional Learning.
Critical Thinking
Student agency
Self-awareness,
Oral/written communication.
Key Vocabulary
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Community
Role
System
Interview
Launch
Project
Pen pal
Citizen
4. Entry Event
Part 1:
Students will go on a field trip to a fire station where one of the firemen will talk about his community and what his role is in the community
and how they work together to be strong.
Part 2:
The teacher will have pictures laid out on the student’s tables of different
representations of communities. These range from family to neighborhoods and may even include bees or ants.
Teacher will ask students “Walk around and look at all these pictures. What is the same? What is different? What types of interactions are
going on? What words can you
use to describe these pictures? Do you think they are strong communities? Why or why not?
The student’s answers will be recorded on the board along with initials of who answered.
The teacher will explain what it means to be a strong community.
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Part 3:
“I’d like you to pick a partner who is sitting near you to find out what kinds of
communities they are part of and if they think their community is strong and why?”
The teacher will write these questions on the board:
“Which community do you want to tell us about today?”
“What kinds of things do you do in your community?”
“What words can you list to describe your community?”
“What is your favorite thing about your community?”
“How is your community different from one of the images we saw in the beginning of
class? How is it the same?"
The teacher will remind the students of these questions during the interview.
After the students interview each other they will be instructed with directions written on
the board that says: “Draw a picture representing your partner’s community. Include two
things that your partner told you about their community. Circle these two things on your
Picture to remind yourself.”
5. Project Milestones
Milestone #1
Milestone #2
Milestone #3
Milestone #4
Milestone #5
Milestone #6
Public Product
Entry Event /
Need to Know/
Inquiry & Discussion
(Class)
Inquiry & Discussion
(Group)
Discovery/
Communication
(Individual)
Inquiry &
Discussion/ Critical
Thinking
(Individual/class)
Creating/ Final
Product
(Group)
Planning/Collaborati
on/Public
Presentation
(Class/Group/Individ
ual)
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Key Student
Question
What can we do to
get to know each
other and create our
school community?
Key Student
Question
Key Student
Question
Key Student
Question
Key Student
Question
Key Student
Questions
What is a
community?
What communities
do I belong to?
What can we do to
get to know each
other and make our
community
stronger?
How can we put all
of our work
together to describe
our community and
how we work
together?
How can we share
what we learned
with our
community?
Formative
Assessment(s)
Formative
Assessment(s)
Formative
Assessment(s)
Formative
Assessment(s)
Formative
Assessment(s)
Questions Generated
by Students
Community Web
Model
*students will
create a mind map
of communities to
display how they are
interconnected
1) Self-portrait
of family
drawing or
family picture
with labels
2) Individual
videos of
interviews
*Parents will take
students to
interview different
community
members and record
a video of the
Formative
Assessment(s)
Student's ideas for...
Final Product:
1) events and students will choose
activities, e.g. to collect their ideas
lunch with a in a book, poster, or
staff member
play.
every once in
a while, game
nights, bake
sales, etc.;
2) what do we
want to know
to get to
know each
other
How can we share
what we learned
with someone
outside our
community?
1) Plan a launch
party to
exhibit and
explain their
final
products
2) Choose a
method to
share their
final
products
with their
class pen
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interview which will
be compiled into
one video for
viewing at the
launch party.
*each student must
contribute at least 1
idea for both
pals in
another
country.
6. Project Calendar
Driving Question
What can we do to get to know each other and strengthen our school community?
Week #
1
Project Milestone
Launch the project, share the driving question and introduce the public product. Then, generate a list of
questions your children need to know in order to answer that driving question. Those questions will guide the
project.
Inquiry/innovation (Key
What is a community? Can I be part of more than 1 community? Is the school a community? What do we
want to know about each other?
Student Questions)
Anticipated Challenges
Students may object to their groups, students may feel uncomfortable talking about their homes and
families, may be shy to join groups, need to ensure groups are mixed levels and abilities and intelligences
Driving Question
What is a community?
Week #
1
7
Project Milestone
Students will explore the concept of “community” and dig deeper into this topic by investigating the different
types of communities, including their own.
Inquiry/innovation (Key
Is a community big? Is a family a community? Is a sports club a community? Do people make a community?
Is a community a place?
Student Questions)
Anticipated Challenges
Students may struggle with the concept of different types of communities especially family or school as a
community, groups will need adult support and supervision
Driving Question
What communities do I belong to?
Week #
2
Project Milestone
As students become familiar with the different aspects of a community, they begin to understand how
different members of the community, including their family, plays an important part in the school
community.
Inquiry/innovation (Key
Student Questions)
How can I be in more than one community? Do I need to join all the communities? Is everybody part of the
same community? Is everyone part of my community?
Anticipated Challenges
Students may come from broken homes, some students are shy and insecure
Driving Question
What can we do to get to know each other and make our community stronger?
Week #
3
Project Milestone
Students learn about how group activities and events require important social and emotional skills that help
make us closer to each other and build a strong community.
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Inquiry/innovation (Key
Student Questions)
What do I want to know about someone I meet for the first time?
What activities do we enjoy?
What activities make us have to work together?
What can we do to help others?
Anticipated Challenges
Students will have to be instructed on how to conduct an interview and be guided through the interview
itself. Parents and community members might not cooperate, students may be shy to conduct an interview
Driving Question
How can we put all of our work together to describe our community and how we work together?
Week #
4
Project Milestone
Students learn about the important parts of informational books, posters, and videos and collaborate to put
all of their work together in the creation of their public product.
Inquiry/innovation (Key
Do we need pictures? How can we get them? What do I need to create my book/video/poster?
Student Questions)
Anticipated Challenges
Students not collaborating well with groups
Driving Question
How can we share what we learned with our community?
How can we share what we learned with someone outside our community?
Weeks #
5&6
Project Milestone
Children rehearse and then share their work with families and other school members in either in a virtual
family celebration or in person.
They then share their work with their pen pals in another country in various ways (letters, videos, virtual
meetings, etc.)
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Inquiry/innovation (Key
Student Questions)
Anticipated Challenges
Who will be invited? Who else will share with us? What do we need for our party?
What's the best way for our pen pals to see what we did? Can our pen pals come to visit us? Did our pen
pals do this project? Is our pen pal part of their community?
Technical difficulties, arranging a time and the organization for the launch party, funding or providing
necessities for the party
7. 4Cs
Clarity
Students will be given a question and come up with their own “need to know” however the learning
objective will be made clear and they will be shown examples of the final product.
Context
Students are exploring their own communities from the smallest to the largest scale (family, school,
neighborhood, global) and their role within each.
Challenge
Students will explore the idea that they can belong to more than one community and think of ways to make
their community stronger.
Culture
Multiple Intelligences Considered: Visual-Spatial, Verbal-Lingusitic, Logical-Mathematical, Kinesthetic,
Interpersonal, Intrapersonal
Consideration is taken for ADHD students and students with LD
Groups will be designed by mixing students who are approaching level, on-level, and advanced level. Roles
will be assigned.
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8. Rubrics
Milestones
1-Emerging
2-Developing 3-Proficient
Milestone#1&2
What is community?
Need to know
Students
incapable to
describe their
family and
community.
Students are
able to describe
their family and
their places in it
with support.
Milestone #3
Discovery
communication.
Students are not
clear with the
different aspects
of community
Students are
able to describe
who am I as a
member of our
community
only?
Milestone# 4
What can we do to
know each other and
make our community
stronger?
Students
incapable to
share or give
any idea for how
to make our
community
stronger.
students can
give one idea for
what can we do
and make our
community
stronger.
Milestone# 5
Provides rough
or specific
Students are
typically on task
4- Extending
Students are
able to describe
significant places
they belong to,
including their
family,
community and
school.
Students are able
to confidently
describe a wide
range of places
they belong to,
include their
family,
community and
school with
details and
accuracy
Student are able Students became
to collect
familiar with
information
different aspects
about what
of a community
communities are and understand
we a apart of
how family is an
outside of
important part of
school.
school
community.
Students start to Student challenge
set goals and do each other to do
some research
better, comes up
and activities.
with many ides
and many good
activities as lunch
party, games and
bake sale.
Students provide In addition of
kind, help,
proficient
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Collaboration
/student engagement
feedback to
others.
and focused so
as not to distract
the team
focused and on
track throughout
work time.
Milestone# 6
Project create
whatever book or
video or poster…
Not clear and
the information
is not correct
Little clearly and
information is a
little bit correct.
The project is
clearly and
information is
correct
students support
others in order to
help the team or
group of student
succeed.
Very clearly and
attractive to the
audience.
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