Starting in January at OCSI (Okinawa Christian School International), first- and second-grade teachers began planning for a never-before held event — Kid City, where the students could practise their oral language and maths computation skills in as close to a real-life setting as possible.
Inside their classrooms, the teachers and students began learning about how the various places in a city work, the essential vocabulary and common dialogue that goes with those places, and how to conduct business as producers in the community. Then, on April 3, the teachers and parents set up the whole gym to look like a mini city, including a park, a town hall meeting area, and ten establishments: a bank, city hall, hospital, pharmacy, police station, church, post office, store, restaurant, and school. The students entered “Kid City” in wide-eyed wonder and jittery excitement; they were eager to get started.
Each student was given a task card with two jobs as a producer and seven tasks as a consumer. After some opening remarks from the elementary principal, Anne Bezner, Kid City was in full swing as half of the busy first- and second-graders completed their tasks, and the other half worked at their jobs. There was wonderful dialogue and authentic use of maths skills as the students took on their roles very seriously.
This is definitely an event the school would like to continue in the years to come! — SARAH TURNER
