Grade 3 · printable course

Communities Near and Far

Grade 3 · 315 pages · 69 lessons · PDF, print at home

A full-year study of what a community is, how geography shapes daily life, and how rules, government, and economies organize people's lives together. Students build map and globe skills, compare communities across the world and across time, and examine local and national government at the level of who makes rules and why. The course closes by asking students to apply everything learned to their own role as a contributing community member. All cultures studied are presented with specific, accurate detail, never as costume or stereotype.

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What is inside

Every unit and lesson in this book, in order. The same lessons are taught online at lettersanddevotion.com, so a family can move between paper and screen.

Communities Near and Far

69 lessons · try a lesson online free

Unit 1: What Makes a Community8 lessons
  1. 1.The definition of community as people who depend on each other, not just people who live near each other
  2. 2.The distinction between a community and a group that merely shares a location
  3. 3.The difference between a need and a want
  4. 4.Interdependence among roles within a specific community (e.g., class or town, held apart from the family example used in instruction)
  5. 5.The differing needs met by two named communities the student belongs to
  6. 6.The minimum conditions for a group to count as a community, applied to an unfamiliar hypothetical case
  7. 7.Needs met by family, class, and town communities
  8. 8.The structure connecting a named community, the need it meets, and the reason members depend on each other
Unit 2: Map and Globe Skills10 lessons
  1. 9.Cardinal directions (N, S, E, W) shown on a compass rose
  2. 10.Relative cardinal direction between two locations on a given map
  3. 11.Intermediate directions and their position between cardinal directions
  4. 12.Map symbols and their listed meanings in a map key/legend
  5. 13.The idea that mapmakers choose what to include, so maps of one place can differ
  6. 14.Scale as a tool relating map distance to real-world distance
  7. 15.Landforms (mountain, valley, island, plain) and bodies of water (river, lake, ocean)
  8. 16.Shape distortion that results from flattening a globe into a map
  9. 17.The seven continents and five oceans
  10. 18.A complete original map including title, legend, symbols, and compass rose
Unit 3: Communities Around the World8 lessons
  1. 19.Urban, suburban, and rural settlement types
  2. 20.The effect of climate and landform on daily life
  3. 21.Location of studied communities using map tools
  4. 22.Same need met by different methods across two communities
  5. 23.Resource choice inferred from climate and landform
  6. 24.Respectful versus judgmental language about another community's way of life
  7. 25.Comparison chart structure for community evidence
  8. 26.Written comparison of two communities' solutions to one need, applied to a new pairing
Unit 4: Communities Across Time8 lessons
  1. 27.Primary vs. secondary source classification
  2. 28.The defining feature (time of creation) of primary sources
  3. 29.Then/now comparison of homes, work, and transport in the studied local or regional community
  4. 30.Change and continuity within one community's traditions
  5. 31.Citing source evidence to support a then/now claim
  6. 32.The limits of a single piece of evidence for future historical inference
  7. 33.Unit vocabulary: primary source, secondary source, then/now, change, continuity, tradition
  8. 34.Map location of the studied local or regional community
Unit 5: Rules, Laws, and Government9 lessons
  1. 35.The distinction between rule and law based on maker and scope
  2. 36.Local government roles (mayor, council)
  3. 37.The difference in scope between national and local government
  4. 38.Classification of rules by level of government
  5. 39.The distinction between right and responsibility
  6. 40.The purpose behind a specific real local rule
  7. 41.Variation in rules across communities solving similar problems
  8. 42.The relationship between personal disagreement and a rule's fairness
  9. 43.The summative task structure of maker, reason, and responsibility for an unfamiliar local rule
Unit 6: Goods, Services, and Trade9 lessons
  1. 44.The word labels 'good' and 'service' matched to a picture
  2. 45.The difference between goods and services
  3. 46.Producer and consumer roles
  4. 47.Scarcity of resources in a specific place
  5. 48.Trade motivated by differing regional resources
  6. 49.The path of one specific good from production to sale
  7. 50.Opportunity cost as a simple trade-off
  8. 51.Fairness of unequal regional resources
  9. 52.The reason a specific community imports a specific good, and the benefit to the trading partner
Unit 7: Connected Communities8 lessons
  1. 53.Modes of transport that connect distant trade communities
  2. 54.The import/export distinction from a community's point of view
  3. 55.Location of a trade origin point on a world map
  4. 56.Reasons a community imports rather than produces a good locally
  5. 57.Distance and steps in two different supply chains
  6. 58.The effect of a distant problem on a local community's access to goods, including non-obvious or indirect links
  7. 59.Responsibility for shared environmental or resource problems across distant communities
  8. 60.The supply-chain journey of a chosen everyday object
Unit 8: Being a Contributing Community Member9 lessons
  1. 61.Citizen rights and responsibilities (Unit 5 vocabulary)
  2. 62.Scale difference between a rule and a law
  3. 63.The difference between a specific local need and a vague complaint
  4. 64.Cost/benefit of a proposed community action
  5. 65.Connection between a proposed rule-change and a community need
  6. 66.Map location of a proposed action
  7. 67.A full community-improvement proposal
  8. 68.Oral defense of a community-improvement proposal
  9. 69.Cumulative vocabulary and facts from Units 1-7

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