Mission Project (Due Monday, 11/24)

Dear 4th Grade Parents,

On Thursday, 11/13/2008, your child was given the information for the mission building project they will complete for social studies. The information is below in case the paper didn't quite make it home (how does that happen?)

The due date for the project will be Monday, November 24th. This is to give you two (2) weekends to work on it as well as the weekdays. We will begin presentations on that day and hope to get all of them completed before Thanksgiving to include the grade in their report card.

I hope this will be a fun project for your child. Please let me know if you hit any big snags.

Best wishes,
Mary Welsh

---

Building a Mission (due 11/24/2008)

Your mission model project is worth 100 points. You will build a model of an imaginary mission and give an oral presentation about your design.

Imagine you have been asked to add one more mission to the mission system of 21 locations here in California. Your mission may use some ideas from existing missions, but it should have its own name, appearance, and design. You will construct your mission’s buildings using air-dry clay, beginning with the church building which you will build at school. We may construct one small building at school using brick-by-brick adobe style construction, if time allows. We will have some time to design the layout of your mission at school, but you should plan to build most of the buildings at home. You may use other building materials (cardboard, popsicle sticks, clay, Legos, or other) if you like, as long as they fit the same scale.

Your entire mission complex must fit on a 12” square cardboard so it can be displayed in the wire shelves at school. You can decide which buildings to include and how they should be laid out.

Your model itself is worth 50 points, 10 points for a well-constructed model, and 5 points for showing answers to each of the following:

1. Where do the different types of people sleep?
2. Where do they work, and what work do they do?
3. Where do they grow their food?
4. Where do they cook and eat?
5. Where do they worship?
6. Where do they place the bodies of the dead?
7. How do they defend they mission against enemies?
8. Where do they get water?

Your oral presentation (2 to 5 minutes long) is worth 50 points: 10 points for presentation skills (loud, clear, expressive voice, strong stance, eye contact with the audience) and 5 points each for answering the questions below. You may refer to written notes as long as you can maintain eye contact with the audience. Please practice at home.

1. Who lived there? (Be sure to name the native group, and tell about all the different kinds of people in the mission.)
2. What did the members of the community eat?
3. How did the mission earn money?
4. How did they worship?
5. How did they protect themselves?
6. How did they stay healthy?
7. What were the main differences faced by this mission?
8. What were the advantages of this mission?