Walking Trail Adventure

1. Work with a small group of classmates to design a recreational area in your community—either real or imaginary. Think about what facilities it might it include: Walking trail? Fish pond? Graffiti wall? Sunflower patch to attract birds? Rock wall? Boat launch? Stage? Ask classmates, family members, and others in your community to make suggestions.
2. Sketch your ideas with Crayola Twistables® Crayons. Determine how much space your trail will need. Recommend where it could be installed. Then prepare a replica of your plan.
3. Start with a flat base of Crayola Model Magic®. Model Magic fresh from the pack sticks to itself. Here are some suggestions for details. Use yellow Model Magic form sunflowers. Roll tiny terra cotta pieces into balls and press on for seeds. Add green coils for stems. Roll out rows of soil. Plant tiny Model Magic tomatoes, lettuce, and corn. Decorate a graffiti wall with thin rolls of Model Magic. Press blue modeling compound into a lake shape. Form an oval fish, attach a tail, and decorate. Roll a thin white piece to form a fishing line and make a pole.
4. Label areas with paper signs. Attach signs to toothpicks with Crayola School Glue. Compare and contrast your group’s plan with others. Consider presenting the most feasible plan to decision makers in your community.

LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

MATH: Graph points on the coordinate plane to solve real-world and mathematical problems.

SS: Describe how people create places that reflect ideas, personality, culture, and wants and needs as they design homes, playgrounds, classrooms, and the like.

SS: Use appropriate resources, data sources, and geographic tools such as atlases, data bases, grid systems, charts, graphs, and maps to generate, manipulate, and interpret information.

SS: Show how groups and institutions work to meet individual needs and promote the common good, and identify examples of where they fail to do so.

VA: Students will investigate, plan and work through materials and ideas to make works of art and design.

VA: Art communicates about and helps viewers understand the natural and constructed world.

Invite a community member that works in the recreation field to visit the class and share his expertise with students. Prior to the meeting, students compose questions for the guest. Afterwards, students post learning to a class blog.

Students work in small groups to design a new playground area for their school campus. Encourage groups to research new equipment available for playgrounds, safety regulations that need to be keep in mind when designing such a facility, etc.