Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson XLV · Unit 10: How people live and work
45. A review lesson: work in our own town
Goal: Your child describes the work people do in their own town, where things in the stores come from, and completes the book's fill-in sentences.
You'll need
- A walk or drive through your town's main street or shopping area
- A grocery receipt or a few labeled products from the pantry
- A geography notebook (any notebook kept just for these lessons) and a pencil
What's in the book
The last lesson asks about the child's own town: whether people are farmers or work in shops, mills and factories, what is made nearby, what manufactured things are at school and home, what is sold in grocery, dry-goods and shoe stores and where it came from, and what railroads, canals and boats carry. It ends with fill-in sentences about farmers, miners, quarrymen, shoemakers, blacksmiths and merchants.
The lesson, step by step
Our town
Ask the book's questions about where you live: What kind of work do people here do? Are they farmers? Do they work in shops, mills, offices or factories? Name a factory or business near us. What is made there?
Manufactured things at home
Ask: What manufactured things are in our home? (almost everything) Walk around one room and name five, and what each is made from.
Store visit
Visit a grocery store or look at pantry labels. Ask: Where did these things come from? Which were made or grown near us? Which came from far away? Find one from another country.
Transport
Ask: What railroads, highways, ports or airports are near us? What do the trucks or trains take away from our town? What do they bring in?
Fill in the sentences
Your child copies and completes the book's sentences:
Farmers raise (write the names of all the things you can think of).
Miners dig out of the earth.
A shoemaker makes
Also: Quarrymen dig from the quarries ... A blacksmith makes ... Merchants buy and sell ...
Look back
Page through the geography notebook together: the compass rose, the room plan, the water cycle, the sand-tray photos, the lists. Ask your child which lesson they liked best and why.
Afterwards
Draw a map of your town's main street, showing the stores and what each one sells.
Answers to the book's problems
Model fill-ins: Farmers raise wheat, corn, oats, vegetables, fruit, cotton, cows, sheep, pigs and chickens. Miners dig coal, iron, copper, gold, silver, lead and salt out of the earth. Quarrymen dig granite, marble, limestone, sandstone and slate from the quarries. A shoemaker makes boots and shoes. A blacksmith makes horseshoes, nails, chains and tools, and shoes horses. Merchants buy and sell food, clothing, shoes and many other goods. A grocery store sells food; a dry-goods store sells cloth, thread and clothing; a shoe store sells shoes. A farmer makes his living by selling what he raises in town and buys sugar, tea and other things at the stores there. Questions about your own town will have your own answers.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.