Communities Over Time
A Look Into the Third Grade Classroom
by Jen tenBensel
March 03, 2008
Silver Lake's 3rd Grade students have been studying "Communities Over Time" in their Social Studies class and learning how drastically life has changed from the early 1800s. They first started their unit on discussing "Transportation Over Time": emphasizing the changes from walking the plains on foot and riding horseback to the inventions of the automobiles and airplanes. Next, they discussed "Communication Over Time": from waiting weeks for mail delivery by the Pony Express, to the invention of the Morse Code, and finally the discovery of Radio and Television. The 3rd graders used Morse Codes to write all the names of their classmates! What a different way to look at communicating!! Finally, in their "Communities Over Time" Unit, they will discuss different "Inventions Over Time" that helped change their way of living: some of the items that will be discussed in that chapter will be the telephone, cameras, computers and cell phones.
