Community Creativity

Collective

The 3C mascot: a chanterelle mushroom in a green hoodie, with roots spreading below

Project Understory

A K–3 project to build locally sourced social studies curriculum in Lane County

Bring it to your school How it works
A crowd of mushroom characters dressed as community members: a musician, a nurse, a baker, a hiker, a shopkeeper and more
KMe and My World
1My School and Family
2My Neighborhood, My Community
3Our Community and Beyond

The K–3 Oregon Standards for Social Studies are organized in themes deeply rooted in students’ lived and local realities. They ask students to explore and interact in the places, systems, and communities they see every day. From basic economics, to civics, to geography, students begin to understand their world, the people in it, and the impacts they can have.

The resulting learning should be culturally and locally sustaining — engendering a sense of pride in their local lived experience and making connections between their community and the big world around them.

It is the type of learning that textbooks and outside curriculum adoptions cannot create. It is learning that communities are uniquely placed to provide.

Who knows their community better than the people living in it?

You Bring the Ideas

During the Creativity Labs, teachers, families and community members combine their skill and knowledge into ideas for lessons. It is a fun and engaging activity on its own, but what emerges is amazing.

Families get to share what they know.
Teachers get fun and creative lesson plans.

Students get to see them both working together as active contributors to the teaching and learning.

The ideas could only emerge from your community. Every lesson is:

  • Creative & Engaging
  • Collaborative with families
  • Standards Aligned

We Build the Lesson Plans

Sample lesson plan: Knot Fishing School Sample lesson plan: Saving Natural Treasures
In a forest the tall trees that form the canopy filter the light, block the wind, hold the soil together, so that below them, in the understory, life can take root…

From community knowledge to classroom-ready lessons

  1. Scope

    We work with you to choose the grade band, school(s), and standards to target.

  2. Convene

    3C facilitates a Creativity Lab bringing together school personnel, family members and community members.

  3. Co-create

    Community content meets teacher pedagogy; together they build lesson concepts grounded in local knowledge.

  4. Build, Align & Differentiate

    3C builds finished lessons, each aligned to specific social studies standards and differentiated to specific classroom needs.

  5. Hand off

    Your district receives ready-to-teach lessons and implementation support.

Get in Touch to Find Out More

jay@create3c.org www.create3c.org
Mushroom characters dressed as a storyteller, a gardener and a dog walker Mushroom characters dressed as a hiker, an office worker and a student Mushroom characters dressed as a mechanic, a cook and a backpacker