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Mi Casa Su Casa

Instructional Activities (K-6)	Teacher’s Reflection
Learning Objectives: Recognize how homes around the world reflect their environment. Geography and climate are reflected in architecture. Architectural form can communicate the technical knowledge and style of a culture. Architecture can communicate how human groups adapt to local environments and make use of locally available materials. Cultural beliefs and values that humans devise as ways of ordering their world can be seen in their art and architecture. Structures reflect the needs, visions, hopes, and aspirations of the societies that create them. Architecture has been produced all over the world and throughout time.
Essential Questions: Where do I live? What kind of dwelling do I live in? What is my house made of? Why did the architect use these kinds of materials? Who lives at my house? What do we keep in our house? What do we do in our house? ******** These same questions will be asked about the new group of people being introduced. Then we will ask the following questions: ******** How are these people similar to me? How are these people different from me?
Activities: Using the series Would You Survive as a…? Students will be introduced to the new group of people they are going to study. This series is very informative, especially in describing the home lives of each group of people. Grades K-2: Students will participate in a group discussion about their own living environments. Next, the new group of people being studied will be introduced. Students will learn facts about how families lived, what the homes looked like and were made from, the environment, chores of the children, etc. Students will share with the group things that are similar and different about the new human group’s home life, compared to their own. Grades 3-6: Students will work in groups of three or four to read about and research facts about how families lived, what the homes looked like and were made from, the environment, chores of the children, etc. Next will be a group discussion, going over the information the students have discovered. Students will pair up to compare and contrast their own living environment with the group being studied. Each pair will then present their partner’s similarities and differences to the class.
Assessment Criteria: After participating in the research and/or discussion about the living environment, the students will be able to: Describe what their house/home looks like, what is kept inside, who lives there, etc. Compare/contrast their dwelling with dwellings of people of other ethnicities being studied. Compare/contrast other modes of communication of each ethnicity being studied with their own. Accept and understand similarities and differences as characteristics of all human beings. The following page contains hands-on lessons that focus on different aspects of art and culture of the different groups of people being studied. The lessons focus on different art skills that students are required to master at each grade level.	This lesson is intended to be used as an introduction to each new unit , for each new civilization or ethnicity being studied. The lesson will be modified appropriately for each grade level. Since the curriculum revisits itself at different grade levels, obviously the lesson content will be more comprehensive than the first time the information about a specific group was introduced to the students. *Each lesson will be written up and posted as a link to be used with each unit being studied. The purpose of the lessons is to fulfill the art skills required by the state of Virginia (and Fairfax County), as well as further the students’ knowledge of each group of people they are introduced to at each grade level.*