Urban, Suburban, and Rural Sort

1st Grade Social StudiesCommunities4 pages

About this worksheet

Across four pages, first graders meet three kinds of community and then sort 12 words into them. A picture and two sentences introduce urban (city), suburban (suburb), and rural (country) places. Students then write words like cul-de-sac, subway train, and cornfield in the right column, name the hardest one to sort, and add one new idea for each place. The answer key gives four words per column and example reasons. It supports the C3 Framework indicators D2.Geo.6.K-2 and D2.Geo.2.K-2.

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Urban, Suburban, and Rural Sort: Communities - page 1

Urban, Suburban, and Rural Sort: Communities - page 2

Urban, Suburban, and Rural Sort: Communities - page 3

Urban, Suburban, and Rural Sort: Communities - page 4

Curriculum objectives covered

D2.Geo.6.K-2

“Identify some cultural and environmental characteristics of specific places.”

Sorting the 12 words asks students to match features such as cul-de-sacs and cornfields to the kind of place where they are found.

D2.Geo.2.K-2

“Use maps, graphs, photographs, and other representations to describe places and the relationships and interactions that shape them.”

The three Meet the Communities photographs, with their short captions, are the evidence students use to describe each place before they sort.

What's inside this worksheet

Meet the Communities

Three pictures show a city street with a subway entrance, a quiet suburb with lawns and a driveway, and a farm with a red barn and a dirt road. Each has two short sentences, such as "You might drive to a shopping mall."

Sort the Mix-Up

The town map got mixed up. Students write the 12 word-bank words, including skyscraper, big yard, apartment building, crowded sidewalk, and tractor, into Urban, Suburban, and Rural columns.

Think About It

Question 1 asks which word was the hardest to sort and why. Question 2 asks for one new thing students might see in each community.

Answer Key

Urban holds skyscraper, subway train, apartment building, and crowded sidewalk. Suburban holds shopping mall, big yard, cul-de-sac, and driveway. Rural holds barn, dirt road, tractor, and cornfield.

How teachers use it

Vocabulary preview

Teach cul-de-sac before the sort. Almost no first grader knows the word, and without it the suburban column comes up one short.

Cut and glue

Cut the word bank into cards so students can move words before they commit. Shopping mall and apartment building get moved the most, and the key explains why both are tricky.

Home connection

Ask each student which column their own street belongs in. Most classes split across two columns, which starts a good talk on the carpet.

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