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Looking at landmarks and buildings to see how the local neighborhood has changed.
Imagine walking out your front door and seeing a horse and carriage instead of a car! How can a building tell us a story about people who lived years ago?
Every neighborhood has special places called landmarks. A landmark is a building or a place that is easy to recognize and has a special story. Some landmarks are very old, like a school built in the or a library where your great-grandparents might have read books. These buildings are like 'time machines' because they show us what life was like a long time ago. When we look at an old building, we look for clues like the shape of the windows or the materials used to build it, like heavy stone or red brick.
Let's look for a landmark together: 1. Find a building that looks different from the new houses. 2. Look for a sign or a 'plaque' that has a date on it, like . 3. Notice if it has tall towers or big stone steps that we don't see on new buildings today.
Quick Check
What do we call a special building that has a story and is easy to recognize?
Answer
A landmark.
To see how a neighborhood changes, historians use comparison. They look at a photo from 'Then' (the past) and a photo from 'Now' (today). You might notice that a dirt road from years ago is now covered in black asphalt. Or, you might see that a small grocery store is now a big apartment building. Even though many things change, some old buildings stay exactly the same. This helps us remember where our community started.
Imagine looking at two photos of Main Street: 1. In the 'Then' photo, you count cars and horses. 2. In the 'Now' photo, you see cars and horses. 3. You notice the big clock tower is in both photos. This means the clock tower is a protected landmark!
Quick Check
If you see a horse in an old photo but a car in a new one, what is one thing that changed over time?
Answer
Transportation (or how people get around).
Sometimes people want to knock down old buildings to build new ones. But many communities practice preservation. This means they protect old buildings and keep them safe. We do this because old buildings are part of our history. They remind us of the people who lived here before us. Saving a building is like keeping a giant, beautiful treasure that everyone in the town can share.
A town has an old firehouse from the year . It is too small for modern fire trucks. 1. The town decides not to knock it down. 2. Instead, they turn it into a museum. 3. Now, children can visit to see how firefighters worked years ago while the building stays safe.
What is a clue that a building might be very old?
Why do we keep old buildings instead of knocking them all down?
Comparing a photo from the past to a photo today can show us how a neighborhood has changed.
Review Tomorrow
Tomorrow, try to remember the word that means 'keeping an old building safe.' (Hint: It starts with 'Preserve').
Practice Activity
Ask a grown-up to show you an old photo of your town or school, then look at that same spot today. What is one thing that is the same?