BUILDING A RIVER COMMUNITY

Grade II River Project

Our Second Grade River Project came from their central subject which focuses on the history and geography of the Charles River. Students also learn about rivers around the world and the cultures of those waterside communities.

After reading the book “If You Lived Here,” by Giles Leroche, which features pictures and descriptions of different types of dwellings from around the world, they traced and cut out a piece of wood to serve as the foundation for their riverside structures. They used tools like coping saws, sand paper, wood glue, and a myriad of mixed media along with immense creativity to build their individual pieces and provide reasons why they made their specific design choices.

All of their pieces fit next to each other like a puzzle, so the individual dwellings became a winding row of homes that bordered the flowing river. By collaborating and ensuring that all of their pieces fit together they created what looked like a giant game board community.

Through this project the children learned about a variety of global cultures. Shady Hill’s integration of the Pollyanna Curriculum played into this hands-on study. The Pollyanna’s Racial Literacy Curriculum is designed to help students gain crucial knowledge about race and enhance students’ awareness of their own racial socialization and skills to engage in productive conversations about race and racism. Unique in its multidisciplinary approach, the Racial Literacy Curriculum incorporates history, language arts, geography, science, and sociology to better understand the social construction of race and ethnicity.

The use of this curriculum in the project enabled the students to learn about multiple perspectives, diverse cultures, and races while informing the construction of their dwelling.

Their Second Grade River was displayed in Assembly Hall for several weeks. The students were able to see the fruits of their labor, with all of their pieces together creating this beautiful work.