Juniors (3rd- and 4th-graders) are spending the year traveling the world! Each unit focuses on a continent. The students will delve into the history, culture, geography, and stories of all seven throughout the school year.
As a culminating project for their Africa unit, the students designed and constructed collaborative African village dioramas. Juniors researched the best ways to accurately portray village life in their region. The groups discussed where to place important features on the diorama including environmental elements, water, shelter, food sources, and arts and crafts. Each Junior created an individual and clothed them using authentic patterns and styles worn by the people of their region, then assigned their individual a role in the village and created an object to accompany the figure to demonstrate their function and role.
During the Africa unit, the students challenged themselves to dive into reading for a good cause. For each book read, family members pledged a small amount. All of those small amounts added up to a big sum (and lots of books read!), allowing the Juniors to send many animals to African villages through the Heifer International Project.
Stay tuned to see where they visit next!
(Many thanks to Coe Sweet Photography for capturing the intricate details of the dioramas.)
