Social Studies Grade One

Unit 4: Decision Making

Module Four - A Summer Celebration

Concepts

decision making, celebrations

Knowledge Objectives

Students will know that:

people make decisions regarding celebrations.

Skills/Abilities Objectives

Students will:

plan and organize a celebration.

Attitudes/Values Objectives

Students will:

value ethnic and national celebrations.

Citizen Action Objectives

Students may:

plan for and participate in a celebration.

Suggested Approaches

The teacher may choose to plan and carry out an ethnic family celebration for the end of the year that will reflect Canada's rich multicultural heritage.
The teacher may choose to have the students learn about summer celebrations in various cultures and communities. Many communities have a multicultural festival during the summer. Have a mini-multicultural festival. Learn ethnic dances and music from many cultures.
Have members of cultural groups visit your class and explain their traditions or traditional dress, music, and other art forms connected with summer celebrations.

Note: In planning an ethnic celebration, the teacher should plan it in conjunction with members of the ethnic community. This will ensure that the celebration is done properly and that specific protocol is followed. Be sensitive to the possibility that it may not be appropriate for a celebration to occur at school.

The teacher and students may wish to end the year with a general Canada Day celebration. This might involve integrating various concepts and themes dealt with during the year, such as:
- featuring the individual students as proud Canadians (identity),
- reviewing the families of the past and the family celebrations as valuable Canadian experiences (heritage),
- expanding the notion of interdependence to include all the families of Canada, and
- looking at decisions we make.

This might include activities such as:

Graphing information.
Designing family flags to fly with the Canadian flag.
Doing a survey among parents and grandparents to find out where they were born. Place small flags on the countries of origin.
Making up a song, dance or poem about being a Canadian.
Having students do pictures and short sentences about themselves as proud Canadians. One picture might be of themselves now and one might be of themselves as adults.
Having students do a giant collage of "Canada is ..." The collage might include pictures and phrases from magazines, or student made pictures and phrases.
Having an old fashioned family picnic.