Repost: What Is Cool About Where We Live

We live in a really cool place! I have really enjoyed participating in the post card exchanges hosted by Teach Preschool this past year. It has really given us an opportunity to learn and celebrate the things that are wonderful about our community in addition to learn about and hear from other children all around the world! (I will have a new post coming sometime soon as we have been receiving another pile of great cards!)
 

In a couple of weeks we are going to participate in a really cool postcard exchange with other daycares, preschools, and homeschools from around the world. (We registered to participate through Teach Preschool on Facebook.) We need to send about 6 postcards a week to the other participating schools/daycares/homes where we can tell them a little bit about our state and our community. I know that I would be more than capable of completing the postcards, but what good would that be? This project is an opportunity for us to learn about other places in the world, but it is also about taking the time and an opportunity to learn more about where we live.

During our snack today, I explained to the children exactly what was going to happen. (That we are going to be sending postcards, and that other children would be sending postcards to us.) Then, I asked them, "What is cool about where we live, our town, our community, our state, and our daycare?" This is the list we came up with (exactly as stated, no editing):

1. Our town has a lot of parks.
2. We always do fun projects.
3. We play at the park.
4. We have a puppy named Scooby
5. We have 3 Subways (the restaurant, not the transportation system).
6. We have a big city with a bunch of beaches on Lake Superior.
7. We have cool stores like: Walmart, Target, Michaels, Dollar Tree, Big Lots, Kohls, the Mall, and Shopko.
8. There are lots of animals in our neighborhood. Sometimes we see: cats, dogs, deer, raccoons, skunks, black bears, moose, frogs, wolves, owl, fox, snakes, birds, chipmunks, squirrels, porcupines, turtles, horses, llamas, cows, rabbits, ducks, Canadian geese, pet parrots
9. Our town has lots of restaurants, our favorites are: McDonalds, Hong Kong Buffet, Burger King, Taco Bell, Applebees, Dominoes, Subway, Hardees, Jimmy Johns, Buffalo Wild Wings, Hudson's, Bonanza, Big Boy, Little Caesars
10. I like to eat ice cream at Frosty Treats or Jilberts.
11. I like to make art here, play with playdoh, color, and paint.
12. We have some parades
13. We have a children's museum. There is a toilet slide, grocery store, and apple tree.
14. We have a fun backyard for a lot of playing. We can balance on the edge of the sand box.
    
15. We have a lot of fun digging.
16. We make stepping stones every year.
17. The library is a fun place to go on a field trip. So is Moosewood.
18. Sometimes we play sports like baseball, hockey, soccer, and basketball.
19. There is a college. (NMU).
20. Sugarloaf Mountain is a really, really long walk you see our whole city from up there.
21. We have a county fair.
22. There are lots of trees.
23. There is a corn maze. (Not in our town, but many of the children drive to see it each year, and we usually go on a field trip.)
24. There is a BIG bridge between where we live in Michigan and the other part.
25. There is a really cool zoo where you can hold a monkey. (again, not in our town, but many of the children have been there.)
26. We have a bowling alley.
27. In the winter, our grass gets covered with snow.
28. (In the winter) We go sledding, drink hot chocolate, ice skate, go skiing (both cross country and downhill), snow mobiling, snow shoeing, and have snowball fights.

After our snack, we opted to talk a little bit more about Michigan. These are the main things we learned:

1. Michigan has 2 large peninsulas. The Upper Peninsula and the Lower Peninsula. (We live in the Upper Peninsula).
2. People call the Upper Peninsula the U.P.
3. People who live in the U.P. are sometimes called "Yoopers" (you-pers).
4. Many people who live in Michigan use their hands to show you where they live. When you hold your hands just right, it looks like a map of Michigan.

5. The city we live in is called Marquette.
6. The capital of Michigan is Lansing.

We had some fun making hand print maps of Michigan and adding our own features.









I think we are going to have a very hard time fitting all of the information we want to share on a post card! It is a good thing that we have the internet where we can share more! (Especially because we only had a few children present when we started this discussion and project!)