Notes for the Teacher:

1. Exploring Our World: Neighborhoods And Communities, by Kathleen Hollenback, published by Scholastic Inc. is a wonderful resource to develop a unit about a neighborhood or community. Teachers can find lesson plan ideas, maps, and model projects in this book.

2. Read Judith Caseley's On The Town published by Harper Children's Books, to formulate a definition of what a neighborhood or community is.

3. To develop the concept of what a map is and how to interpret information from a map, read Unit 3 in Holt Social Studies Neighborhoods, JoAnn Cangemi, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers, This may be read as a read aloud, guided reading activity. Important concepts to present include directional words, map key, map title,

3. Any type of camera , including disposables, may be used to take photographs of the neighborhood. Tips for taking photographs may be found at: 10 Tips For Taking  Great Pictures. Teachers may train a small group of students on how to use a camera and then have the students serve as turnkey trainers to train the others in their group.

4. Encourage students and their parents/families to take neighborhood walks and observe and photograph places and people in the neighborhood.

5. Have students use a word processing applications such as Student Writing Center, Microsoft Word, or AppleWorks to write their stories. Kidpix might be used to draw pictures for the Neighborhood Quilt. Have students work with an "evaluation buddy,"using the writing checklist and story planner to evaluate their work and make necessary revisions.

6. View student writing samples.

7.  For the "neighborhood quilt," students can also draw neighborhood pictures by hand and piece them together on a bulletin board if drawing software is not available.

8. A follow up unit might focus the people who live and work in the neighborhood;