Social Studies Grade One

Unit 3: Interdependence

Module One - Meeting Needs and Wants

Concepts

interdependence, needs, wants

Knowledge Objectives

Students will know that:

all children have basic needs and wants.
that many of the basic needs and wants can be met within the family.

Skills/Abilities Objectives

Students will:

identify and describe needs and wants and how they are met within the family.

Attitudes/Values Objectives

Students will:

value their own contributions and those of others within families.

Citizen Action Objectives

Students may:

participate cooperatively in various roles in group situations.

Suggested Approaches

Discuss with the students what they believe they need. Accept all their suggestions. Then ask them to imagine they have been swept away in a big storm to a far away land where there are no people. A fairy godmother will grant them 10 wishes. Have them suggest what they would ask for. If appropriate, the students might work in small groups to make a list.
Use the first and second lists to make webs of needs and wants.
Ask students to look at their list of needs and identify those that are met by their families.
Deal with all or selected needs and wants and explore how the family meets them. Although the Activity Guide provides many suggested activities around food, shelter and clothing, other needs such as the need for love, safety, health, and recreation may also be dealt with.
Make a "Needs Chart". Divide a page into 5 sections. Have students draw or cut/glue pictures of people of different ages (e.g., baby, 6-year old, teenager, adult, senior citizen) in each section. Then ask them to draw or cut/glue pictures showing the different things people need at different ages.
The teacher and students may decide to organize and present information by dramatizing various situations with an older student videotaping the performances.

Module 1: Activity Guide
Needs of all people
Note: Meeting needs and wants is dealt with in grade two from a community perspective (e.g., through community services such as heat, electricity, water, police, fire department, and transportation). The grade one teacher may deal with meeting needs and wants within the context of the family (e.g.,shelter, food, clothing, affection, safety).
Draw a picture of family members. Cut out a picture of something each family member might need or want and glue it beside the picture of that person.
In small groups have the students think of ways people all have similar needs. Record students' responses on a chart. Confirm or correct the responses. Revise the chart.
Using a familiar tune make up a song or chant about all humans having the same basic needs for example:
Everybody needs some food. A-E-I-O-U With some milk, milk here Some bread, bread there Here some milk, there some bread Everybody needs some food. A-E-I-O-U.
Set up two charts, one labelled:
Families Have Needs and Families Have Wants. Starting with the stems:
"Families need _____" and "Families want _____," have students suggest sentence endings. Ask students to support their choice of response. As the class develops an understanding of the difference between needs and wants it may become necessary to change some entries from one chart to the other.
Initiate research. Identify what is known already and what the students want to learn. Guide students in composing questions to direct the research. Have them identify resources and suggest ways information may be organized and presented.
Use a variety of resources to learn about families from around the world. Discuss how families everywhere have the same basic needs. The ways they meet these needs and wants will vary from one situation to another. Help them to understand that the ways their needs are met are suitable to their situation and location, but may not be suitable or practical in other situations or locations.
Explore the experiences and feelings of others through literature and drama. Provide students with opportunities to act, talk about, and write about themselves in the situations of others. Use pictures or anecdotal records to assessattitudes.
Make a chart identifying needs and how different families meet them make a chant, rap, or poem summarizing understandings.
Shelter
Discuss:

Why do we need shelter?
How does the family meet the child's need for shelter?
What parts of our homes fill the need for shelter and which ones are the result of wants?
Take students to visit your home, a retirement home, an apartment, or some other home that offers some contrast to students' homes. Make an experience chart about the visit.
Make a list of different types of homes. Have students bring pictures of different homes. Categorize the pictures.
Discuss the homes of nomadic people. Compare with families that live in a town or city during the winter and move to the farm for the summer. Discuss the advantages of that lifestyle. Discuss families that live in a cabin or tent while they are hunting, fishing, trapping, or gathering. Use resources such as Byron Through the Seasons that depict seasonal homes. Identify reasons for moving.
Have students draw pictures of their homes and label the rooms. Bring a model of a house (doll house) into the classroom. Make a model or map of the doll house modelling the procedure. Learn about scale by talking about relative size of rooms and the necessity to represent the relative size on the model. Talk about features of the house in terms of their relative location to other features. Identify uses of different rooms. Have students make a model or map of their home.
Ask the students to find poems, rhymes, stories, and songs about homes, for example Lady Bug, Lady Bug and Home on the Range.
Use pictures of various types of homes around the world. Identify possible materials used for construction, Make connections between the materials available, climate, and the type of home built.
People all over the world build houses out of local materials. Houses are built to meet needs in each environment. Houses in many hot tropical countries are built from brick or mud. This keeps them cool. Many activities, such as cooking, are done outside so there is not the need for big houses. If you are unable to obtain pictures of houses draw sketches on the board. Sketch an igloo, a tent, a house on stilts, and a round mud house with a thatched roof. Provide the following clues and have students identify the house that fits the clue:

Some houses are built near rivers that flood frequently. This house is built so that it won't get wet when the river flows over its banks. (After the house is identified explain to the students that the house is built on `stilts'.
Some people keep herds of cattle, sheep, or goats. They must move from one place to another so their herd can get the food and water it needs. (After the students have identified the tent, explain that the tent would be made out of hides from the animals they herd. The tent poles would likely be difficult to get and would be moved from one location to another.)
Some people live in the northern areas of the world where there is a lot of snow. There are no trees or materials for making bricks. What kind of material would these people use for making a house? (Inuit igloos are made from blocks of snow they cut with their knives. The snow is a good insulator and with a small stove the family is very comfortable.) Today building materials are shipped in to make homes similar to Saskatchewan homes.
Some people live in places where it is very hot all the time. They need to make their houses out of materials that will keep the house cool. (Houses made out of mud or bricks stay very cool inside.) In some of these places there is a rainy season and the house has to be built so it is sturdy enough to withstand the rains. Today these houses sometimes have tin roofs. The people who lived in these house were very skilled in making thatched roofs out of bamboo poles and straw.)
Locate areas on the globe and all map where these types of houses may be found.
Have students draw a picture or make a model of a shelter in which they would like to live, explaining why they chose that shelter.
Make some analogies about the shelter they designed, for example:

My shelter is like an orange with waterproof skin because I live in a wet climate.
My shelter is like a parka with lots of insulation because I live in a cold climate.
Discuss how homes are usually suited to the climate. Look beyond "have or have not" aspects of homes. For example in hot climates window panes can be a disadvantage. Stress commonalities and down play differences. The important thing about homes is the people who live together as a family and care for one another. Use resources such as Somewher eToday.
Compare our homes to the homes of animals. Discuss how animals use local materials for their homes and how their homes are suited to the climate they live in. What responsibility do humans have in protecting the environment that is the home for wild animals? What happens to animal homes when we cut down the forest or drain a marsh? Ask students to discuss this with one other person and then bring their ideas to a class discussion.
Integrate with arts education by doing a drama in context on building houses. In visual arts study elements reflected in homes (shape, line, texture).
Make a big book. Each page will feature a different type of shelter. The top of each page will have the sentence starter:
Some homes
Each page will end with:
But the important thing about homes is the people who live in them.
Each page will feature a different kind of home from your own neighbourhood and around the world.
Make a group poem about the important things about homes.
Integrate with Science by using Project Wild, Everybody Needs A Home p. 24.
Food
Divide the class into groups to discuss ways families meet their need for food. Report back to the class and record ideas on a chart "How Do Families Get Food?" Save the chart and add to it as you discover other ways families get food. Suggestions might include: families get their food from stores, restaurants, gardens, food banks, farms, hunting, gathering, and fishing.
Make a big book explaining all the different ways people get food. Include ideas such as riceor bananas coming on big ships from far away countries and getting food from gardens and food banks. Use resources such as Freight Train to help students visualize their food coming to them from far away places.
Make a list of foods families grow in gardens or on farms, or hunt, fish, and gather. Discuss the roles of family members in growing and gathering that food.
Take field trips to places where food is being handled, for example a grain elevator, a farmers' market, the produce section of grocery store, or a processing or packing plant. Learn that agriculture and/or aquaculture and/or hunting, gathering, and trapping are all important.
Use the story of the Little Red Hen to identify the steps that must be taken in baking bread. Identify other jobs in the family community that produce food.
Give groups of students strips of paper and have them illustrate steps in the production of bread or other goods. Label the chart It Takes A Lot of People to Make _______.
Visit the produce section of a grocery store and make a list of foods that have come from a distance. Get the information from labels and by questioning the grocer. Make a mural or a big book about the journey of a banana or other food. The following captions could be included:
People are needed to grow and pick bananas in hot countries.
People are needed to pack, ship and bring the bananas to our country.
People buy big quantities of bananas and sell them in smaller quantities.
The bananas are shipped to our grocery store.
We buy the bananas from the grocery store.
Learn all about a particular food such as vegetables or fruit. Use Bread, Bread, Bread as a pattern for a group book.
Food traditions in Northern Saskatchewan
Explore traditional methods for obtaining and preparing food in northern Saskatchewan. Compare and contrast contemporary and traditional food gathering methods. Make a then/now picture. As an extension explore traditional ways of obtaining food in other cultures. Use resources such as Byron Through the Seasons and Traditional Lifestyles: Activities and Ideas.
Learn about a caribou hunt focusing on how the hunters obtain the food and how it is prepared. Find out how all the parts of the caribou were traditionally used. Make up a chant or rap about how the Dené hunters made use of all the parts of the caribou. Today some of the people in the north use traditional methods for obtaining some of their food.
Prepare bannock. Discover the origins and significance of bannock. This unleavened bread was common to many cultures - the Scottish called it bannock.
Favourite foods
Invite students to tell about food that is eaten by people in their family and to explain how it is prepared and served. Have a special day for tasting favourite foods from different families. Using a wall map, identify parts of the world from where the food comes. Place pictures of the foods on a map of the world.
Foods from other countries
If possible take a field trip to a place where ethnic food is being prepared, for example a Dutch bakery or a Chinese restaurant. Invite a guest speaker to demonstrate special things about food from their culture. For example:

demonstrate a Japanese tea ceremony;
show the use of chopsticks; and
make chapattis.
Guide the students to appreciate foods from other cultures using literature. Use resources such as Green Eggs and Ham or The Village of Round and Square Houses.
Show familiar commodities such as rice, bananas and oranges that are grown in other climates or ask students to bring foods and wrappers from foods from other parts of the world. Make connections between climate and plants that grow in specific climates. Learn that some parts of the world do not have cold winters like we do and that foods like bananas grow in places with a warm winter but they will not grow where we live.
Relate the food people eat to the crops they grow and the technology they have available. Different foods may seem strange to us and the food we eat would seem strange to others. We should appreciate the difference. Eating different foods can be an adventure.
Develop critical thinking skills related to making assumptions and stereotyping by asking the students questions such as:
Just because____from____eats____ can we assume that everyone in that country eats ". If we make that assumption what are we doing? (stereotyping). Fill in the blanks with examples from the data you have studied. For example:

"Just because Michael from Saskatchewan eats porridge for breakfast every morning, can we assume that everyone here does the same?"
"Just because Cheng from Cambodia eats moon cakes can we assume everyone in that country eats moon cakes?"

Foods indigenous to North America
Discuss the foods that originated on this continent such as potatoes, corn, pumpkins, beans, popcorn, cocoa, and gum. Read a legend (such as The Coming of the Corn, Keepers of the Earth, p. 137) about how the Indian peoples got corn or some other food. Using the jig - saw method of group work guide the students to understand the contributions of the Indian people. Use pictures and short captions as resource material for each expert group. Have students go to the "expert" groups and sketch the picture of the food item and copy the caption. Return to base groups and make a booklet using the information from each expert group for one page of the booklet.
Identify various foods such as potatoes, tomatoes, beans, squash, and pumpkins were first cultivated in North and South America. Make pictures of these foods and add them to the outline map of the world in the proper places.
Food customs
Using various resources introduce your students to eating customs in several different cultures or ask a student or other resource people in the community to talk about eating customs in different cultures. Consider the following:
Most Chinese and Japanese people use chopsticks when they eat. It is impolite to leave your chopsticks standing in your dish when you are in the middle of a meal.
Most East Indians prefer to eat with their fingers. They use onlytheir right hand for eating. The left hand is reserved for unclean tasks such as washing after using the toilet. Because the fingers areused, East Indians are strict about washing, both before and after a meal.
In some countries all the men sit around one big bowl and all the women sit around another big bowl. They eat from the same bowl. You eat only the food in front of you in the bowl. If there is a piece of meat on the rice in front of you it is yours, but you can give it away by moving it to another part of the bowl. These people would also eat only with their right hand. The right hand only would be used in the preparation of food. Two women would work together to do a task such as kneading dough. Practice this with a friend using plasticine.
In Korea rice and soup are eaten with a spoon and the other foods with metal, wooden, or bamboo chopsticks.
In some cultures it is polite to make slurping sounds when you eat. It is a sign of appreciation to the cook.
Taoism is a way of life in China. Taoists say that when you eat you should lift your bowl close to your mouth. They believe that it is very important to keep the spine straight. Keeping your spine straight helps you breathe properly. This increases your vital energy.
Record ideas on an experience chart or in a big book.
Develop the critical thinking skills of distinguishing fact from opinion. Use the information about eating customs in other parts of the world to make fact and opinion statements for students to identify orally.For example:
"Many people in Saskatchewan eat porridge for breakfast." "Many people in Japan use chopsticks. "These are facts.
Avoid stereotypical statements such as:
"All people in Saskatchewan eat porridge for breakfast." "All people in Japan use chopsticks. Chopsticks are better than forks."
These are opinions. Is there a situation where one utensil is better than the other?
Have the students draw a picture showing their family eating and then print sentences about eating customs in their home. Through discussion reinforce the point that eating customs vary and there is not one correct way of eating.
Using a story such as How My Parents Learned to Eat help students recognize how their own preferences and habits may have changed or may change in the future. Encourage students to try new foods. Have a food tasting seminar. Challenge students to learn to eat with chopsticks. Have students interview parents or other adults, inquiring about ways their food preferences and habits have changed since they were in grade one. Record the ideas in a chant or make a play incorporating unders
Use the following scenario:
In Japan it is customary to slurp your food especially your noodles when eating to show the cook how much you appreciate the meal. Many young Japanese people no longer do this.
Why do you think that the younger people no longer do this? (The young people associate the slurping with old fashioned ways. Japanese youth like to learn about the ways of the west and are changing their customs to be more like those of the west.) Do students know any customs their parents or grandparents did in the past, that are no longer practised in their families? Ask students to predict possible changes of customs in the future and to give reasons why they think those customs might change.
Read a story such as How My Parents Learned to Eat that depicts people adopting new customs.
Breakfast foods
Have students use the jig-saw method of cooperative group work to learn about what children in other countries eat for breakfast.
Prepare the materials needed by making one copy of an outline map of the world for each child and six other copies.

On one map colour India and print: Some children in India have yogurt for breakfast.
Colour China on another map and print: Some children in China have steamed buns for breakfast.
On another map colour Japan and print: Some Japanese children have rice porridge for breakfast.
On another map colour Mexico and print: Some children in Mexico have tortillas for breakfast.
On another map colour New Zealand and print: Some children in New Zealand have Kiwi fruit for breakfast.
Divide the class into base groups of five each. Have one member from each group go to a station where they will learn what children from one country eat for breakfast. They will take an outline map of the world with them. When they get to the expert group they colour the country they are learning about and print the sentence stating what many children in that country eat for breakfast.
Students return to their base groups and share their information and add the other information to their maps.
Use Saskatchewan's twin province, Jilin in China to develop understandings about foods eaten in other parts of the world. Locate China on a wall map or globe.
Many children in Jilin eat steamed buns for breakfast. The Chinese like these buns hot and fresh and so often they go out to buy them every morning. Often they buy them from a cart on the street corner. How is this different from how you get breakfast? Other children in Jilin province may have rice porridge and pickled cabbage for breakfast. What food groups are represented in this meal? Draw a picture showing how they might shop for breakfast food if they lived in Jilin. Use focused imaging to develop understandings about the crowded street early in the morning, the cart selling the hot buns, and the delicious smells.
Experience breakfast foods from other cultures and countries. Have an international breakfast. Serve yogurt from India, rice porridge from Japan, kiwi from New Zealand, and steamed buns and pickled cabbage (sauerkraut) from China, and Kimchi from Korea.
Rice Porridge or Zhou (jo)
Put l cup of rice in 4 cups of water and cook it until it is the consistency of porridge. Serve pickled cabbage or sauerkraut with the rice porridge.
Steamed Buns or Man Tou (to)
Making steamed buns requires a steamer. Invite a person from the Chinese community to demonstrate the preparation and cooking of these buns.
Saying "thanks" for food
Ask the students why people say grace before a meal. Share the following graces with them. Compare the messages in the graces. Invite students to share graces their families use. Print graces on a chart and use them as reading experiences.
Indian peoples give thanks
Traditionally the Indian peoples sat around the fire to eat. One of the older people in the group would take a small piece of each type of food and throw it in the fire as a way of saying thank you to the spirit in that food. For example if they were eating fish, they would throw a small piece of the fish on the fire as a gesture of thanks to the Creator.
Hindu Grace
Sit together for taking food Praying to God We should all eat together We should invite others to join our meal This food will give us strength to develop all our potential It should develop our special talents Developing our talents we should live a complete and longer life And we should think about all of humanity.
Christian Grace
For health, and strength, and daily food We give thee thanks O Lord.
Jewish Grace
Blessed are you Oh Lord our God King of the UniverseWho brings us forth Bread from the earth.
Table manners
Have students work in groups to make a list of table manners. Bring the class together and share lists. Record ideas on a chart. Read a storybook such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears or watch a filmstrip about table manners. Add to or change the chart.
Work through role-play situations to reinforce understandings about the responsibilities of all family members cooperating to make meal time pleasant for everyone. Role play eating a meal in a restaurant or at grandma's house. Discuss proper manners. Remind the students that it would be part of traditional Indian culture to offer to help when visiting grandma's house. Ask students to identify parallels in their families.
Have students write in their journals about how they plan to be more cooperative at meal time. Guide the students in making a personal action plan. Enter objectives on a template and assess progress.
Learn about the famous Indian leader, Gandhi, who taught his people that they should take only what they could eat on their plates and they should eat everything on their plate and as they do this they should think about hungry people. Remind the students that part of being a good citizen means making wise choices about the food.
Using grains
Learn about many types of grains such as rice, wheat, barley, and corn. Look in the kitchen cupboard and find out which grains are used to make breakfast cereals. Find out what we can cook with grains for example, bread, roti, rice and peas, rice pudding, popcorn, and porridge. Bake bread for a harvest celebration. Learn about bread from different cultures. Emphasize the importance of grains in our diets. Use Bread, Bread, Bread.
Grow some grain or beans in the classroom.
Clothing
Have students bring clothes from other climates. Identify places on the map where the clothing originated and discuss the climate in that area and the reason why the people might wear that type of clothing. Guide students in understanding the connection between clothing and limate. Use Clothing, People pages 24-25 to develop understandings about clothing and climate.
In places where it is hot and it rains frequently people wear very few clothes. Scanty clothing is cooler and dries quickly if it gets wet in the rain.
In deserts people wear long cloaks and cover their heads. They don't have to worry about rain. The long cloaks and head covers protect them from the sun and wind during the day. It can get very cold in the desert at night. The long cloak and head cover provide warmth at night.
In Northern Canada your life depends on warm clothing. Traditionally Inuit children wore thick trousers made of seal or reindeer skin, thick skin gloves, wolf trimmed jackets,and sealskin boots stuffed with dry grass. Today many Inuit children would wear a snowsuit much like the one Saskatchewan children wear in the winter.
Record the information on a chart. Have a fashion show to present information. Find pictures in magazines and usethem as illustrations for a class book. Make individual booklets. Each page could start with the stem: If I lived where it was very hot and wet, (hot and dry, cold and wet). Students can finish the stem telling what they would wear and what they would do.
Plan a day for dressing up in clothing from other places.Students could either wear authentic clothing or make something. Clothing could include hats and shoes.
Identify clothing worn in your community in different seasons and settings. Establish reasons why different types of clothing are necessary.
Learn all about a particular item of clothing, for example hats. Use Hats, Hats, Hats as a model for a class book.
Suggested Resources
(listed in other bibliographies and catalogues)
Resources - shelter
Byron Through the Seasons LaLoche Children and Friends (ELA)
The Fire Stealer Elizabeth Cleaver (ELA) (pictures of Anishinabeg homes)
A House is a House for Me Mary Ann Hoberman (ELA)
Somewhere Today "Home Sweet Home" January 1992
Somewhere Today "Where I Live" April 1992
This is the Place for Me Johanna Cole (ELA)
Tree-Trunk Apartments (MHP, V6733)
Resources - food
The Baker (MHP, V2565)
Blueberries for Sal Robert McCloskey (ELA)
Bread and Jam for Frances Russell Hoban (ELA)
Byron Through the Seasons LaLoche Children and Friends (ELA)
The Chicken Book Garth Williams (ELA)
Chicken Soup With Rice Maurice Sendak (ELA)
Chime In: Going on a Picnic Jean Malloch (ELA) (some selections)
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Judi Barrett (ELA)
Crackers and Crumbs Sonja Dunn (ELA) (some selections)
Eating the Alphabet Lois Ehlert (ELA)
Freight Train Donald Crews (ELA)
Gregory, the Terrible Eater Mitchell Sharmat (ELA)
How Food Was Given (ELA)
How My Parents Learned to Eat Friedman (ELA)
How Pizza Came to Our Town Dayal K. Khalsa (ELA)
I Can't Have Bannock but the Beaver Has a Dam Bernelda Wheeler (ELA)
Jamberry Bruce Degen (ELA)
Keepers of the Earth, "The Coming of the Corn" p. 137 (Sci, 1991)
Little Red Hen Paul Galdone (ELA)
The Magic Porridge Pot Paul Galdone (ELA)
Mashed Potato Mountain Laurel Gugler (ELA)
Monster Cheese Steve Wolfson (ELA)
Pasta Maker (MHP, V2371)
Pizza Man Majorie Pillar (ELA)
The Sandwich Ian Wallace (ELA)
The Three Wishes Margot Zemach (ELA)
Tony's Bread Tomie De Paola (ELA)
Resources - clothing
Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing Judi Barrett (ELA)
Big Sarah's Little Boots Paulette Bourgeois (ELA)
Farmer Joe's Hot Day Werner Zimmermann (ELA)
The Fire Stealer Elizabeth Cleaver (ELA) (pictures of Anishinabeg clothing)
The Hat Maker (MHP, V3176)
I Like Hats Blair Drawson (ELA)
The Jacket I Wear in the Snow Shirley Neitzel (ELA)
Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? Nancy W. Carlstrom (ELA)
The Mitten Alvin Tresselt (ELA) (traditional Ukrainian clothing)
The Mystery of the Missing Red Mitten Steven Kellogg (ELA)
Shoes From Grandpa Mem Fox (ELA)
Two Pairs of Shoes Esther Sanderson (ELA)
The Very Special Sari Feroza Mathieson (ELA)
Where Did You Get Your Moccasins? Bernelds Wheeler (ELA)
Whose Shoes Are These? Ron Roy (ELA)