Sims Kindergarteners Study Community
by Judith Saxton
If you're a kindergartener, how to
you learn the idea of community. You could drive around town or you
could look at a book or your teacher could try to describe the idea
with words.
If you're a kindergarten student at Annie Sims Elementary School,
you learn about community by building one.
"The concept of community is not an easy one to grasp," said Katie Fite, kindergarten teacher at Annie Sims. "Rather than just try to describe a community, our kindergarten team decided it would be fun for our students to actually construct one."
The students, along with their parents, selected buildings that were of importance to their family in Mount Pleasant and built models of them, Fite explained. They then brought those back to the classroom and laid them out as a community on the floor of each classroom.
"Our students and their families really bought into the project," Fite said. "They were able to say, 'My daddy works there or "We shop there' or 'We ate there last night'. We could tell by their comments that they understood the idea of community from the project. And their parents enjoyed the project, too."
Annie Sims Principal Michael Lide said "The research tells us that parental involvement is crucial to the success of students, even those as young as 5 or 6. This project got them involved early in their child's education. Hopefully, that trend will continue throughout their school career."
The photos shows students proudly showing off their projects.
Photo 1: Back Row (l-r) Lizbeth Tavares, Ethan Stephens, Colton Brantley. Front (l-r) Daisy Ayala, Carina Mendez, Aliyaah Howard
Photo 2: Back (l-r) Angel Perez, Lindsey Corona, Virginia Fuentes, Katia Gonzalez, Pedro Portillo. Front (l-r):Marco Garcia, Mauricio Galvan, Jennifer Deciga
