Concepts

• identify, self, groups, families

Students will know that:

• the family is a group.
• people belong to families.
• families have similarities and differences.

Students will:

• describe and compare families.
• organize information using graphs or charts.

Students will:

• appreciate their own families and those of others.
• value behaviour that contributes to positive family relationships.

Students may:

• participate in role-playing situations that emphasize positive family relationships.

• Use a variety of resources to explore the general characteristics and the functions of families.
• Provide opportunities for students to share information about their families in various formats such as discussion, photographs, pictures, and models (plasticine). Create personal books, "This Is My Family", providing students with sentence frames .
• Explain that you belong to a family too. Describe your family. Make a web of your family and have students working in groups to make webs of theirs.
• Divide the students into small groups and give them a short period of time (5 minutes) to discuss, "What is a family?" Share ideas with the class. Prepare a chart starting with the frame: A family_________________.
• Invite students to bring pictures of their families. Display them on the bulletin board.
• Start a chart of words about the family. Add to the chart throughout the year. Learn family words in other languages.
• Tell the story of Olivia Poole.
• Extend language experiences by turning sentences that you have developed about the family into questions and using them as discussion starters. For example, "A family shares,"becomes "How does a family share?" Make a big book using the sentence frame to start each page. Give one page to each child to draw or glue in a picture.
• Make a graph or number book about family size.
• Have the students use Plasticine to make models of the people in their family.

Module 3: Activity Guide

About families

Definition: "The family is the group we go home to."

Use a variety of resources to explore:

• the various compositions of families (e.g., large/small, one/two parent, two/more generations, foster parents, adopted children, blended, extended); and
• the function of families (e.g., work/play together, share responsibilities, have problems, solve problems together, have problems that children can/can't change).

When choosing pictures and stories it is important to show different cultural backgrounds.

Discussion may emphasize the quality of relationships (e.g., the way family members care and help each other, talk to each other, and share interests, successes, failures) rather than the physical size and structure of families.

Note that children may identify a person as a family member because of the person's role or importance in the child's life. For example, a person who is not a blood relative may still be a child's "granny" or "uncle" or in some situations "mom" or "dad".

The teacher may choose to use resources depicting families from other countries to show the commonalities in all families.

Story of Olivia Poole

Introduce the story with the following:

• Discuss with the students their favourite toy now and when they were small. Make a list of each. Ask what they liked about it, how much time they spent with it. Was it noisy? Did their parents like them to play with it? Did it help them to grow in any way (e.g., learn things, develop muscles)?
• Have the students imagine that they are parents and have young children. Ask them what they as parents would look for in toys for their children.

Olivia remembered some things from her childhood on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota. She remembered that parents often made cradle boards for their babies. She remembered that sometimes parents used leather straps to hang the cradle boards from tree branches. The straps were long enough so that the baby could touch the ground and bounce up and down. In this way the baby was both happy and safe.

This gave her an idea. She used a broom handle, some strong cotton cloth, and a long coiled spring. Her babies loved it! She liked it too. It kept her babies happy. The bouncing helped the babies develop their muscles.

A few years later, Olivia, her husband Joseph, and her children moved from the United States to Vancouver, British Columbia. They started a factory in North Vancouver that made her idea into some new `toys'. Do you know what they called them? Jolly Jumpers.

Many other parents liked the Jolly Jumpers too. It was not long before the factory was making and selling thousands of them every month.

Now people have a choice of several different designs of Jolly Jumpers. They are sold in many different countries. Perhaps right now there are babies nearby and far away bouncing, laughing, and developing their muscles in a `toy' that Olivia invented.

Adapted with permission from The Women Inventors Project, Inventing Women: Profiles of Women Inventors, by Janet Panabaker, Waterloo, Ontario, 1991, p. 40 - 41.

Follow up the story with the following:

• Ask students whether they used a jolly jumper when they were babies.
• Jolly Jumpers are designed for babies. However, there are other things designed for older children or even adults that involve some of the same principles. Ask students to try to name some and tell in what ways they are similar to jolly jumpers. (For example: bungie jumping, swings, a tire on a rope, trampoline)
• Look back at the list of `favourite toys' the students identified earlier. Have them identify ways in which each toy is beneficial to their development. The benefits may include learning skills or knowledge, developing their bodies or coordination, using their imagination, or sheer enjoyment.

Have students print their names or draw faces on adhesive-backed notes. Print the numbers representing family size along the bottom of the graph (2 people) and the number of families along the left side. Complete the graph with the students. Interpret the graph using a chart (e.g., "There are three families with two people.").

Bigger or extended families

Using a picture of a family reunion, learn about the "bigger" family that includes other relatives.

Make a pictorial web with "family" as the main idea. Use families from literature. Put the name of the main character in the middle and web from there.

The teacher may choose to assign homework and have students ask their parents about their "bigger" family. Record the information in a web. A letter to parents will explain the assignment.

Using drama in context

Use drama in context to explore family gatherings. For example, dramatize a dance on a reserve, Treaty Day, or a family reunion. You may want to use a fictitious family. Plan the activities. Have students dress in role. Groupings of dolls representing some family members may be used.

Develop a global perspective by having students pick places where each family member lives and locating the places on a globe or map of the world. Discuss how the people would travel to the family reunion.

The teacher may wish to use the numbers of people and the amount of food, space, etc., needed to develop mathematical skills. For example, have small figures to represent the people who will attend. Have students use Plasticine to make two hot dogs for each person.

Suggested Resources
(listed in other bibliographies and catalogues)

Angel and the Polar Bear Marie-Louise Gay (ELA)
Anna's Red Sled Patricia Quinlan (ELA)
Anna's Secret Friend Yoriko Tsutsui (ELA)
Apple's Not The Only Pie(K)
Auntie's Knitting A Baby Lois Simmie (ELA)
Ben's Snow Song Hazel Hutchins (ELA)
Chime In Jean Malloch (ELA)
Circle Reading Program: Williams Family John McInnis (ELA)
I Dance in My Red Pyjamas Edith Hurd (ELA)
Granny is a Darling Kady M. Denton (ELA)
Night Owls Sharon Denslow (ELA) (visiting relatives)
Clifford's Family Norman Bridwell (ELA)
A Difficult Day Eugenie Fernandes (ELA)
First Snow Emily McCully (ELA)
Here We Are Together Aileen Fisher (ELA)
Is Your Mama a Llama? Deborah Guarino (ELA)
Little Snowshoe Ellen Obed (ELA)
Love You Forever Robert Munsch (ELA)
Loving Ann Morris (ELA)
Mama, Do You Love Me? Barbara M. Joosse (ELA)
My Mom is So Unusual Iris Loewen (ELA)
Night Cars Teddy Jam (ELA)
Old Enough Peter Eyvindson (ELA)
Say It! Charlotte Zolotow (ELA)
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble William Steig (ELA)
The Very Special Sari Feroza Mathieson (ELA)
Visiting Granny Kim Fernandes (ELA)
When Summer Ends Susi Fowler (ELA)

Resources - Siblings

Do You Know What I'll Do? Charlotte Zolotow (ELA)
Jamaica Tag-Along Gahnite Havill (ELA)
Katie's Babbling Brother H.J. Hutchins (ELA)
Maxine in the Middle Holly Keller (ELA)
Noisy Nora Rosemary Wells (ELA)
Norman's Snowball Hazel Hutchins (ELA)
A Place for Ben Jeanne Titherington (ELA)
Whose Mouse Are You? Robert Kraus (ELA)
Resources - Only Child
Bonnie McSmithers is at it Again Sue Ann Alderson (ELA)
Bonnie McSmither, You're Driving Me Crazy Sue Ann Alderson (ELA)
Daniel's Dog Jo Ellen Bogart (ELA)