What does integrated, project-based education look like in practice?
 

Some years we begin with a “Building Community” theme. Every child in the class makes a “Peep”. Not the marshmallow variety, but a little clothespin person with fabric, yarn, paint, and lots of glue to hold it all together. These “Peeps” then set out to make a town. They come up with a way for making decisions which lets us talk about some different forms of government. Classes in the past have decided on majority rule democracies and consensus based decision making – I have yet to find a group willing to make me dictator, but I always suggest it. They name their town, and start the planning part. What does a town need to thrive? Everyone takes on different roles: librarian, chef, doctor, veterinarian, firefighter, teacher, postal worker, farmer, police officer, engineer, etc. Once they come up with a list, we start to visit these places to see what they have in them and what people there really do. We read books, generate questions, and try to answer the questions. Meanwhile we are building our town, a combination of houses and professional buildings built out of shoeboxes, fabric, egg cartons, pizza tables, and other great finds from the recycling bin. After lots of hard work, our town is done, and it stretches around the room. It’s time to bring our town to life, so we start playing. After a bit, we meet as a group to de-brief and figure out any issues. Our firefighter is feeling overwhelmed answering all the calls for help – maybe we need a team of volunteer firefighters. Eager hands shoot into the air. Do we need to pay for services and products? Let’s make some money. Then we play some more. I could leave the room for half an hour, and I really don’t think anyone would notice, but I much prefer to observe, ask the occasional question, and of course, have my little clothespin person join in the fun.

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During this theme, we engage in social studies practices as defined by New York State: gathering, interpreting, and using evidence; comparison and contextualization; geographic reasoning; economics and economic systems; and civic participation. We work on Reading Standards for Informational Texts, Writing Standards, and Speaking and Listening Standards as defined by the Common Core. But if you ask the children what they did in school, they would say, “Play!”