I would like to use this lesson plan as a guide in my art education class at Coastal Carolina University, All materials will be cited in my presentation. Thank you.

Well done.

I was really impressed with this activity because it shows the objects to size. I know that with working with Kindergarteners they need to be able to tell the difference between fiction and nonfiction and this is a wonderful way to introduce that concept along with the concept of size. My favorite slide was of the toy truck. I think the children will really benefit from seeing that children in Africa share some of the same interests as we do here in the United States. The children also will learn a lot about another place which is always good for introducing map skills. I think that there are a wide variety of uses for this activity in the classroom.

This is a wonderful resource for teachers. I am currently an Art Education student and I know when I start teaching, I will be using your site often. Thank you.

I love how this site integrates art, geography, and culture into the concept development of "big" and "small." I appreciate how the site makes a connection to
a child's personal experience through statements such as, "Is there a mother or grandmother in your neighborhood who always has after school snacks no matter how many kids come by?" The quality of the objects chosen and the photographs themselves is excellent. Young children may need additional instruction in order to understand the use of scale in the relative sizes. Overall, this is an excellent resource for parents, caregivers, and teachers to share with children.

What a great lesson! I look forward to using this with my First Graders this next school year. I will use this during the first month of school as the children explore the building. This is a great cross-curricular activity that can be used in Language Arts, Social Studies, and Math. I know the children will be enthusiastic about it because it involves pets. Who doesn't love pets? One thing I might add.. comparing/voting on the most practical design and then actually building a small scale pet house using cereal boxes, paper towel rolls, etc. Thanks for the great idea!

I love this lesson and I plan to use it for an Art project for my students. This way they can have a hands-on experience and understand how buildings are made and the thinking that goes into it.

I really liked using this resource. It was very well done and through for this age group. However as a parent, I had to modify some of the activities because I didn't have a large group with which to work.

I teach special education and my students have high interest in visual and hands-on art, but don't always have the reading skills to learn about the artists.

My son is autistic and this proved as a valuable resource for helping him to receive hands-on learning. He enjoyed creating his own toy - with my help. It is also a great cognitive resource. The visual concept will capture your child's attention. He even engaged in play. If you have a child with a learning disability, you really need to try this out.

This is an excellent lesson to teach kids about the art of toy making. My kids were more engaged with these how toys than they ever are with any store bought toy. Probably because they're proud that they built it themselves. Have kids? Then give this resource a try.

This unit is a great way to get into history as well as design, art, science, and general fun. We are currently studying Early American History and as a side are adding the historical toys into our units. The kids will see that fun doesn't mean a Television cartoon, or computer game. Fun doesn't have to have an electric cord attached to it.

While reviewing this lesson, I can also see how this impacts decisions made by businesses that want to be more environmentally friendly. The mini dump looks like a great way to demonstrate to the students the amount of waste our country is generating on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. I plan to use this lesson in my own classroom.

Assign the students a project to contact their local landfill or recycling plant to learn about ways to recycle at their school or their community. They could also follow up with letter to their local legislature about ways the community could start recycling.

This is a great activity to get students thinking about the products they purchase and the wasted resources in the packaging. I am going to have them write to the companies to suggest ways to reduce the packing.

This lesson does a good job at keeping the topic relevant to the lives of student as well as apply it to a modern situation.

I liked using this lesson, I try to stress the connection to history within my classroom. I created an additional aspect to this lesson, I had my students create a book based on their own personal history, and how they think it will effect future generations. One example my students had was recycling...it would create a cleaner world.

I think this is a good 2-day lesson for a language arts class or as an introduction to 3-d design in a design class.
The lesson does not include a hands on art activity, but is more of an exercise in evaluating design (chairs), giving students a chance to think and write about what they like and what makes good design.

I use the Smart Growth Unit as an Introduction to a design project that my students complete at the end of Housing and Interiors (grades 10-12 in family Consumer Science). Our town has a new senior citizen housing project which utilizes Smart Growth and Universal Design. My students measure a housing unit, draw it in a CAD program (3D Home aRchitect) and present design boards for display in the complex for the senior citizens.

The idea for this project is one that students should enjoy. Each group member should be able to find a role that they would enjoy. While the student prompt was great, the teacher materials were a bit weak. Having a rubric included, instead of suggesting that one be created by the teacher would have been more useful. Most teachers will modify any lesson plan that they find, but they would like more of a starting point. My students would laugh at me if I suggested that they use Yahooligans; maybe a list of websites? The design of the webpage makes reading the lesson difficult; one almost needs to print it from the beginning. I however plan on sharing this with our technology education teacher who loves to do creative projects with her students.

I am a homeschool Mom and I did this lesson with my 17 year old son. It was a positive educational experience all around. We modified it somewhat to fit a homeschool setting, and it worked great. This was a great writing assignment for a young man whom is very interested in cars but not so interested in writing. It worked well.

The lesson really encourages students to work collaboratively! I think it is great that the lesson incorporates both art and language arts to make the activity interesting. It also allows for more practice with the writing process.

This was fun, especially with the first graders-what imaginations! We learned some new vocabulary with the assessment portion as well.

The concept of this activity is solid. The resource links were no longer usable; however, you could easily substitute current/local information. I would like to see more structure provided to assist students with learning challenges. This could be a pre-made rubric, a vocabulary list, or simpler paraphrases of the Building Background Activity One. Overall, I liked it and will probably use it after making some modifications.

I highly encourage using this resource for your AP classes. I presented this game to my AP class and they were completely engaged the entire time. They raved about it for many days afterward. From my experience it was a huge success.

After reviewing cell biology in class, I gave my freshman biology students the challenge of creating a cell biology game. Only 4 students were willing to try - and that was after much coaxing. The 2 teams (of 2 students each) presented their game designs to the class afterward, and none of the students were able to participate in the game (not able to recall or even guess the answers). The rest of the class focused on technical aspects of creating a video game, right from the beginning of the game design, so valuable class time was lost for all those students. I would only recommend this type of game design for upperclassmen HS students, and only as an extra credit project, instead of taking class time. I believe this type of lesson would be successful in a computer skills class.

For this lesson I was really impressed with the worksheet as well as the different links that were provided. The students were able to learn along with having a ton of fun.