Thursday, August 26th

Today, I returned the test papers from Tuesday so everyone knows their first test grade.   We turned in some completed workbook pages and reviewed our vocabulary words.  Our topic today in lesson three was using the land and settlement patterns.  We learned about  physical features, and how they affect where towns and cities are built.  Some physical features are landforms, climate and natural resources.
We discussed some different kinds of settlements such are metropolitan areas, small rural communities with a square or a "village green."  We also talked about the grid plan where communities have straight roads and square plots of land. As an upcoming project everyone is going to design  and name their own town and decide which of these types of settlements to use. 

Here's a couple of interesting facts we've learned:

About 1/2 of the land in the U.S. is used for farming or agriculture.

About 1/3 of the land in the U.S. is forested.

Our vocabulary words for this lesson are:
land use
technology
crossroads
rural
urban
suburb
metropolitan area