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Movement means how people, goods, information, and ideas move from place to place. Movement is often described in terms of transportation and communication. The activities below are based on the theme of movement. Select the appropriate grade level for your child and try the activities!
Grade 1 : On the Move
Grade 1 : Things That Go!
Grade 2 : Then and Now
Grade 2 : All Around the Town
Grade 3 : Networking
Grade 3 : Plan Ahead
Grade 4 : How Do I Get There?
Grade 4 : From Around the World
Grade 5 : Travel Route 66
Grade 5 : Predict the Future
Grade 6 : Moving Ideas
Grade 6 : Watch the Skies!
Grade 1 : On the Move
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Have your child make a booklet about movement. Movement means how people, goods, information, and ideas get from place to place. In this book, include illustrations of ways that family members, goods, and ideas get from place to place. Your child can use drawings, photographs, or pictures cut from magazines to place in the booklet. For example, have your child use a drawing or picture of a school bus to show how she or he gets to school.
Help your child make one page to illustrate each of the following:
- how your child gets to school
- how your family gets to the store
- how family members get to work
- how food gets to the store
- how your child learns about the weather
- how your family sends information to other people
- how your family learns about the news
- To brighten the pages, you may wish to use colored paper. You may wish to bind the completed booklet with colored yarn.
- pencils, crayons, colored pencils, or markers
- scissors
- glue
- butcher paper or colored construction paper
- magazines (optional)
- photographs (optional)
- hole puncher (optional)
- colored yarn (optional)
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Grade 1 : Things That Go!
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Work with your child to understand the theme of movement by helping your child create a new "thing that goes." Read storybooks with your child that describe transportation methods, such as Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry. If you don't have this book or a similar one in your home library, check books out at your community library! Movement means how people and goods get from one place to another. Movement also means how ideas and information are spread.
Use the following steps as a guide:
- After reading the story with your child, let your imaginations run wild and create a new "thing that goes!"
- Talk with your child and decide how the new "thing that goes" will move.
- Draw pictures of the "thing that goes" and/or make a model of it.
- When your creation is complete, share it with family members.
Materials Needed:
- storybooks about movement
- paper, cardboard, wood, or other building materials for making a model (optional)
- crayons, colored pens, pencils, markers, or paints
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Grade 2 : Then and Now
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Help your child make a poster showing how the methods of movement have changed over the past 100 years. Movement explains how people and goods get from one place to another. Movement also means the ways that ideas and information spread through newspapers, books, the Internet and other ways.
You and your child can use the following steps as a guide:
- Research encyclopedias, reference books, nonfiction books, and the Internet to find information about inventions that have changed and/or improved the movement of goods, people, ideas, and information over the years. You and your child may want to ask older relatives or neighbors about methods of movement they remember from the past. They may have some interesting stories to share!
- Draw two columns on a piece of construction paper or poster board. In the first column, write "100 Years Ago." In the other column, write "Today."
- Find pictures on the Internet or in magazines and newspapers of inventions or methods that have changed or improved movement. Paste or glue the pictures in the correct column on the poster.
- When your child has finished the poster, talk about the changes that have occurred in movement in the past 100 years. Ask your child to describe how she or he thinks life was like 100 years ago using the methods of movement that people used then. Share the poster with family members and neighbors.
Materials Needed:
- encyclopedias, reference books, nonfiction books, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet
- construction paper or poster board
- pencil and markers
- paste or glue
- scissors
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Grade 2 : All Around the Town
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Help your child draw a map of your community that shows movement. Movement explains how people and goods get from one place to another. Movement also describes the ways that ideas and information spread through newspapers, books, the Internet, and in other ways. Your map should include ways that goods enter your community from other areas, and ways that goods move out of your community to other areas.
You and your child can use the following steps as guides:
- Research your community and obtain a community map. You can generally find one in the local telephone book or from your local government.
- Talk with your child and decide what to add to your map. Help your child draw the map on paper. You may wish to add some of the following suggested items to your map, using symbols where possible:
- a map title
- the location of your home
- major streets and highways, including the street where you live
- other transportation routes, such as bike paths, bus routes, railways and airports
- places that provide goods and services
- places that help move ideas and information such as libraries, schools, newspaper offices, radio towers, cable towers
- Be sure to include a map key to explain symbols used on the map!
Materials Needed:
- community map
- drawing paper or butcher paper
- pencils, crayons, colored pencils, or markers
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Grade 3 : Networking
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Work with your child to build an imaginary town. You can use boxes, blocks, a sand table, or a sandbox to build your town. The main focus in the imaginary town is to build transportation and communication networks. Movement means how people, goods, information, and ideas move from place to place.
Help your child include some of the following transportation and communication networks in the imaginary town:
- streets and highways
- railroads
- bus routes
- cable station
- airport
- subway stations
- bridges, tunnels
- hike-and-bike paths
- sidewalks
- library
- schools
- stop signs, bus-route signs, railroad-crossing signs, and others
Materials Needed:
- blocks, boxes, or sand
- toy cars, trucks, airplanes, or other things appropriate for the town
- materials for making signs
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Grade 3 : Plan Ahead
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Imagine that the growth-planning committee for Adams County has asked you and your child to plan the location of several new buildings in Adams County. Based on the transportation networks in Adams County, you and your child must decide the best location for the new buildings. Movement means how people, goods, information, and ideas move from place to place. Movement also represents how people in one community depend on people in other communities for goods and services.
Use the following steps as a guide:
- With your child, analyze the map of Adams County attached below. Discuss with your child the importance of being near transportation networks when deciding where to place new buildings.
- Help your child decide where to place the following buildings: shopping mall, high school, hospital, housing subdivision, fire station, county sheriffÍs department, newspaper office, furniture factory, canoe rental business, and a library.
- Help your child indicate the location of each building by putting a symbol on the map. Be sure to include a map key to explain your symbols.
Materials Needed:
- map of Adams County
- pencil, crayons, colored pens, and colored pencils
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Grade 4 : How Do I Get There?
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Help your child locate the most direct transportation routes from your community to selected points of interest in your state. Movement means how people, goods, information, and ideas move from place to place. Movement happens through transportation and communication.
On a road map of your state, help your child highlight the transportation routes to take to get to each point of interest. Talk about the most direct routes you could take and alternate routes you could take in the event of a detour. You might also look into transportation methods other than driving by car, for example, a bus route or railway route to get there.
Materials Needed:
- state road map showing points of interest
- highlighter, colored pencil, or marker
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Grade 4 : From Around the World
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Check the cupboards. Look in the refrigerator. Search the closets! Have your child take inventory of the products in your home to find out where they were grown or manufactured. Products grown or manufactured somewhere else are shipped to the store where you can then buy them. Movement demonstrates how people, goods, information, and ideas move from place to place. Movement happens through transportation and communication.
Help your child make a scrapbook of labels. Your child might designate a different state or country for each page. Then work with your child to make a collage of labels for each page. Be sure to write the name of the state or country on the page! Your child may wish to bind the completed scrapbook with colored yarn.
Materials Needed:
- labels from various products
- butcher paper or construction paper
- scissors
- paste, glue, or tape
- pencils, crayons, colored pencils, or markers
- hole puncher (optional)
- colored yarn (optional)
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Grade 5 : Travel Route 66
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Have your child pretend that he or she is a reporter for a television newsmagazine. Work with your child to develop a news report about the history of U.S. Route 66 and the important role it played in transportation. Movement represents how people, goods, information, and ideas move from place to place. Movement means people interacting. It means interdependence, or how people depend on one another to meet their needs and wants.
You and your child can use the following steps as a guide:
- Look in encyclopedias, other books, and on the Internet for information about U.S. Route 66. Find out why the highway was built and which states it passed through. Discover the importance of this highway to the movement of people, goods, information, and ideas. Also find out how Route 66 demonstrated the interdependence of people in the United States at that time.
- Help your child to make a map showing U.S. Route 66 to include in the news report. You may wish to use the outline map of the United States included below.
- Work with your child to tape record or video record interviews with older relatives, friends, or neighbors who traveled on U.S. Route 66. Prepare questions to ask the interviewees, such as: What do you know about U.S. Route 66? What are your most vivid memories of traveling on this road? Why was U.S. Route 66 famous? Help your child incorporate the interviews into the news report. Your child may wish to share the news report with relatives, friends, or classmates.
Materials Needed:
- encyclopedias, other books, and the Internet
- paper and pencil
- map of the United States
- video recorder or tape recorder (optional)
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Grade 5 : Predict the Future
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Movement represents the way people, goods, ideas, and information move from place to place through transportation and communication. Few people, if any, living at the turn of the century in 1900 could have predicted the advances in communication and transportation that we have in the year 2000. Discuss communication and transportation with your child and make some predictions about what communication and transportation methods will be available in the year 2100.
Use the following steps as a guide:
- Help your child find information about current methods of transportation and communication in encyclopedias, other books, and on the Internet. Talk about how transportation and communication methods might change in the future.
- Record your ideas for the future. You and your child may wish to make drawings or illustrations of your predictions.
- Put your predictions in a time capsule and bury it in your backyard. Your child may be alive in the year 2100 to dig up the time capsule!
Materials Needed:
- paper and pencil
- drawing paper, colored pens, pencils or markers (optional)
- time capsule (plastic box, tube, or other material)
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Grade 6 : Moving Ideas
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Work with your child to compare and contrast newspapers and magazines from other countries with those found in the United States. Movement represents the way people, goods, information, and ideas move from place to place. One way movement happens is through communication. Reading newspapers and magazines from other countries (some are translated into English) gives you an indication of the movement of information and ideas in those countries.
Use the following steps as a guide:
- Look for newspapers and magazines from other countries at newsstands, bookstores, the public library, and on the Internet. The web pages for some countries are listed in The World Almanac.
- Compare and contrast the newspapers and magazines in the following ways:
- types of major stories
- subjects and events covered
- types and quality of photographs
- use of graphics, such as charts, graphs, maps, and diagrams
- types and messages of advertisements
- classified ads
Your child may wish to make a scrapbook of interesting articles, photographs, or advertisements that you find and share these findings with family members and friends.
Materials Needed:
- foreign newspapers and magazines
- paper and pencil
- notebook or paper for scrapbook (optional)
- scissors (optional)
- paste, glue or tape (optional)
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Grade 6 : Watch the Skies!
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Work with your child to make a poster or booklet about one of these methods of air transportation: amphibian planes, or zeppelins (rigid airships), such as the Graf Zeppelin or the Hindenburg. Movement represents the way people, goods, information, and ideas move from place to place by means of transportation or communication. Air transportation is one method of moving goods and people.
Use the following steps as a guide:
- Talk with your child and decide on a topic: amphibian planes or zeppelins.
- Use encyclopedias, other reference books, and the Internet to find information and illustrations or photographs.
- Work with your child to make the poster or booklet. You may wish to include drawings or photographs on your poster or in your booklet. Also include facts about the method of air transportation, such as the number of average miles amphibian planes or zeppelins traveled, the number of passengers, and other information.
Materials Needed:
- encyclopedias, reference books, and the Internet
- poster board or construction paper
- world map (for air routes)
- colored pens, pencils, or markers
- scissors, paste, glue, or tape
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