School Time 9/19 - How Cities Change

Today Becca said yes to school time again. I told her we were going to learn about Utah today and how Utah grew over time, but first we needed to go over jobs again. We reviewed jobs and where people work. I would show her a picture and ask if she knew what it was. When she said yes I would say "yes, that's the post office" or "school" or whatever. Then I said, "can you think of somebody that works there?" and when she looked at me (usually after a second or two or three) then I'd say "a doctor works a the hospital" or whatever. After we did all four workplaces then I asked her where she goes every day, to school or to the farm. She wouldn't pick for a little while, and I asked her if she'd ever been to a farm. She wouldn't say yes. After that she looked at the school and back at me. I told her she had been to her grandpa's farm before and seen a horse and a pig, but it was a long time ago. Then I asked her which she thought would be more fun to visit, the farm or the post office. She looked at both pictures a couple times, then at the farm and back at me. I said I'd rather see the farm too, with all the animals and plants it would be so fun. Then I asked Becca if she were a grownup, where would she rather work, the hospital or the post office. She looked back and forth a couple times, then I think she looked at the post office and back at me. I held the post office closer and asked, did you pick the post office? She said yes, so we talked about why the post office is fun. I asked Becca's sister which she would rather work at and she picked the hospital, she said she wanted to be a doctor because she could help people feel better.

After that I said I wanted to talk about how Utah has changed over time. I talked about how Becca's grandma grew up in Utah and her mom and dad and their mom and dad grew up in Utah, but that lots of people didn't used to live there. Some people came to live here and they built some small houses out of wood, and I showed a picture. Then I showed a picture of when people started to build things out of brick and the city got a little bigger. We talked about how people would have kids and their kids would want their own houses because they didn't all fit in the houses anymore, and so they kept building more houses and bigger buildings. Then I showed another picture of when there was a downtown and some large building. Last I showed a picture of Salt Lake City today and showed how very big the buildings are now.

Next we had a quick hand game.

After that I showed the old Utah picture again and talked about what classrooms used to be like back then, one-room classrooms. Then I showed Becca a picture of her school and asked her if she knew what it was a picture of. She wouldn't say yes, so I asked Paula and she said it looked like Becca's school. Then I showed Becca another picture, this one of the pool at her school. I asked if it looked familiar and she looked over at Paula again. Paula said it looked like her pool. I talked about how now there are lots more people at the school and lots of different classrooms and fancy things they didn't used to have. 

After that I asked Becca if she knew what a neighborhood was. She wouldn't say yes. I explained that a neighborhood is a bunch of houses all close together. I talked about basically if we have to drive to someone's house then they're not in our neighborhood. I said grandma isn't in our neighborhood, but Samuel (a friend from her church class, but I didn't point that out) was in our neighborhood. I quizzed Becca and her sister on various people and if they're in our neighborhood. I asked Becca if her Olivia from her church class was in our neighborhood, and she said yes. I asked her if her cousin James lives in our neighborhood and she said no (she looked far away, not just not looking at me if that makes sense). I asked Becca if Berkeley (our next-door neighbor) lives in our neighborhood and she said yes.

After that we did another hand game.

Then I somehow tied neighborhoods back into school and asked Becca which school she'd rather go to, her school or the old school where everyone was in the same classroom. She looked back and forth a couple times and then looked at her school and back at me. I said her school does have a lot of fancy stuff in it, and it was a fun school.

Next I asked Becca which came first in Utah, the old wooden houses or the fancy buildings. She looked at booth and then looked at the old picture and back at me. Next I said I was going to do a hard one, and I showed her the two pictures of Utah that were somewhat similar, but one was a little newer. I said one had some wood and some brick buildings and the other had brick buildings that were a little taller. She had a little coughing fit and wouldn't engage, so we wiggled her arms just a little bit and then I switched the pictures (I realized I'd been putting the right answer on hear leaning side more than half the time) and asked her again. She looked quickly at the older picture and back at me, so we put that one next. Then I asked her which picture came last, which was newest, the picture with tall brick buildings or the picture with fancy metal and glass buildings. She looked back and forth for a little while and I had to prompt her a couple more times, but then she picked the newest picture.

After that we did a three-way clap because I was so impressed with how well she answered questions today. We cheered and cheered and sang a silly song.