The best way to explore what it takes to make a community is to build one! Our Build A City project is part of an integrated theme that includes visits to local businesses, math, poetry, report writing, and group decision-making. We begin by brainstorming what is in a city and generate a long list including parks hospitals and donut shops. Children work in small groups sorting the items into categories, then choose what part of the town they would like to work on. We hold a crucial “Town Meeting” to decide what are the most important things to have in our city. Can we have a candy store and a donut shop if we don’t have anywhere to buy clothes? As practice, we make a scale map of the classroom, shrink a drawing using graph paper and draw buildings and people to scale. Then children decide what parts of the town each will build. Children make a building with foam-core and add details like windows, doors, and perhaps a turtle pond(!)on the roof. We continue to have “Town Meetings” to decide what should go where and vote on a name for our city. Children then add trees to the town, make playground equipment and add people and animals for the town out of modeling clay. Finally, each child writes a short report about what they built and why it is important for the town.