If you walk down the third-grade hallway, you might think you’ve been transported back to a traditional New England colonial village! The signage on the walls and the trade shop replicas will certainly take you back in time. In social studies, students have been studying colonial times which is a part of their overall social studies curriculum that has them exploring America from the 1600s to the late 1800s.
In learning about the importance that trade played in daily life in colonial times, third graders were each assigned a trade to research and study. The capstone project for this unit was to create trade shop signs that might have appeared in a traditional colonial New England village and 3D trade shop models reflective of their research. These mini replicas are a family affair as students are encouraged to collaborate with siblings and parents to design and build their models. When it’s time to bring their models to school, third graders have so much fun giving their classmates a tour of their shops and sharing insights into the construction process!
