SA37 Welcome to the Neighbourhood! – A Kids' Guide to Canada – By Kids, For Kids ~~ Un guide du Canada

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Welcome to the Neighbourhood! SA37

Grades: K-8
Date: Jan. 15 onwards… (no deadline)
Share: Upload pictures to Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, or
email to akgtcanada@gmail.com
Hashtag: Please share student works, and photographs of your students
completing this activity using the hashtag #akgtcsa

OBJECTIVES

To identify and share important aspects of your local community
To learn about and celebrate the uniqueness and diversity of communities across Canada.

CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS

Geography (identifying features of a neighbourhood or local community)
Media Literacy (creating an effective message)
Visual Arts (photography – composition)

ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION

This week’s special activity challenges your students to take a picture of something significant in your community/town/city/village/hamlet/reserve/rural area, and use it to create a message welcoming other kids to your neighbourhood!

They could create anything from a simple photograph or poster to a collage, a video, or a even audio recording! Include your students saying Welcome! in each of the different languages they speak.

Please focus on your local neighbourhood. If your students live in a city, does the neighbourhood around your school have its own name? Are there a number of different neighbourhoods in your school’s catchment area? Check a map! How do people recognize that they’re in the YOUR neighbourhood? Whether it’s a street-sign, a building, landmark, object, or statue, etc., challenge your students to create a Welcome message that really invites people into your local home community.

Welcome to Guildwood Village – a neighbourhood in Toronto

How: Ask your students to share their photographs with the class. Then, have the students select the photograph or photographs that best welcomes visitors to your community.

If you don’t wish to include student faces, use a photograph without any students in the photograph, or students standing far enough away to be unrecognizable.

Share the photos on their behalf on social media using the hashtag #akgtcaSA, and help them welcome other children across Canada to their community with the country!

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Do your students think your neighbourhoods are boring and they have nothing to share?

Watch this video with them (shared with Derek Sivers’ permission), and ask them to imagine a visitor from across the country visiting your local neighbourhood: What kinds of places and events are OBVIOUS and uninteresting to you, but might be COMPLETELY AMAZING to kids who live in a different place somewhere else?