Social Studies Grade TwoConcepts
Students will know that:
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Skills/Abilities Objectives
Students will:
Students will:
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Timeline
To develop a sense of the sequence of events during the year, make and use a timeline. Place a long strip of white paper on top of the chalkboard. Place twelve pieces of different coloured construction paper end to end to form a line. Starting with September, label each month. The white paper above and below the line provides space for printing details. Put "First day of school" in the appropriate place. Have students suggest other dates to add to the timeline. As the year proceeds add special events in the school year.
Note: Time may be measured in a linear way represented by a timeline. However, many events are cyclical (e.g., life/death, seasons, timetable, year). The school year could also be portrayed in a pie shape.
The teacher may choose to have the students illustrate the passage of time using circular image. Divide a large circle into segments. To profile a person, write about and illustrate a period of her/his life in each segment.
Learning about past Initiate research with the students. The cultural background of classroom and school members should be reflected in the study. Identify what is already known and what students would like to learn. Include students in identifying possible resources and methods for organizing and presenting information.
Use brainstorming to identify all possible ways of accessing information about the community's past such as old letters, journals, diaries, photographs, recorded information in a bible, interviewing family members, history books, museums, official records, birth and death certificates, listening to parents and grandparents, taking part in family traditions, and asking questions.
Ask students to share old letters, diaries, and journals. Have the students bring a folktale or a song that has been in their family.
Local community of the past
Learn about community celebrations. Find out why these events are held. Integrate arts education by examining art forms connected to these events.
Learn about buildings in your community. Integrate this study with the visual art strand of the arts education curriculum. Identify architectural features that reflect specific cultures. Obtain pictures of buildings in the past and compare them with the present. Make a timeline for some buildings, identifying different uses for buildings.
If possible, take photographs of buildings depicted in old photographs and compare the old and recent photographs. Descriptions could include ways buildings, trees, other features, and people have changed.
Learn about stores and shopping in the past. Compare items for sale, prices, advertising. Learn about various methods of acquiring goods such as barter, peddling, and catalogue shopping.
Compile information about the oldest things in the community including school, store, business, citizen, church, street, tree, playground, and person. Make an "Oldest Things" book.
Use focused imaging or a story to develop the understanding that in the past people grew, gathered, and hunted much of their food and made most of the things they needed. Develop an appreciation of the resourcefulness of these people.
Assign pairs of students a topic (food, fuel, clothing, furniture, oap, gardens). Have them research the topic. Prepare an interview. One student takes the role of a pioneer and the other the role of the interviewer. Perform the interviews for the class or other group.
Learn about heating buildings in the past.
In the days of the early pioneers, particularly on the open prairies, it was common to collect buffalo chips to use as heating fuel. Pioneers also collected prairie grass and wound it into tight bundles to use as heating fuel during the winter. Pioneers often used these two sources of heat during their first winter on the prairies because they were not able to gather other types of fuel. Pioneer children helped gather the fuel to heat the home for the winter.
Present the information and pose this question: Why didn't they continue to use prairie grass and buffalo chips as sources of fuel? (The buffalo were becoming extinct and would no longer be providing the buffalo chips. As the land came under cultivation the prairie grasses also began to disappear.) Discuss the ingenuity of the pioneers in using what they found in their environment as a source of fuel.
Learn about the art forms of cultural groups in your community. Use Unit Four Life's Dance p. 116 - 117 of Arts Education: A Curriculum Guide for Grade 2.
Learn about the traditional dress of cultural groups in your community. Include the Indian and Métis peoples.
Photograph or videotape learning activities to use for assessment.
Make a picture timeline or `History Book' about the community. Use photographs and captions to explain events. Portions of this could be a homework assignment with assistance from parents. Use computer technology to publish books or portions for the timeline.
Have the students visit a seniors' home. Work in groups to prepare interview questions to ask elderly persons about their childhood. Use tape recorders to record responses. Include the tapes in the listening centre or add them to the library.
During visits with seniors have students share some work they have completed during the year, read to them, or do an art project together. Students may interact with seniors on an individual or small group basis.
Many local museums offer excellent programs that allow children to handle objects and to participate in role playing experiences of the past. Arrange to have children experience a community activity (e.g., school, blacksmith shop, farm implement display, barber shop).
Stories behind place names
The following profiles are stories behind the names of three places in Regina.
Use them to introduce students to the idea that some place names have interesting
origins. Places such towns, streets, parks, buildings (e.g., school, hospital,
library, business, arena) may be named after certain people, in memory of special
events, after places that early residents were from, using words of special
significance, and so on.
Profile: Joanne Goulet When Joanne was a child,
her family lived next to the Gyro Community Golf Course located near the airport.
She watched the golfers from her house. Since the golf course ran along the Wascana
Creek, for Joanne and her friends, that creek was a gold mine in golf balls. But
Joanne thought she would like to try golfing too. A neighbour found a club in
his attic and gave it to Joanne. And that's how she got started with the game,
using just one club.
In Joanne's family, the children received presents at Christmas and for their
birthdays. For Christmas their presents were usually clothes like mitts, toques
or socks. But for their birthdays, the children could choose whatever they wanted
for a value of $5.00. For her 14th birthday, Joanne wanted golf clubs. Her dad
found some at an auction sale - 4 clubs and a bag.
"How much am I bid for these fine clubs?" shouted the auctioneer. Someone
bid one dollar. "$1.50," called her dad. "Going once, going twice, sold!" shouted
the auctioneer. With the $3.50 she had left, she paid $3.00 for a membership
at the Gyro Club. That birthday present was the start of many rounds of golf,
many championships, many awards, and a lot of fun.
At the Gyro Club, Joanne was the first girl to be really interested in the
game. Few of her friends played. There was no junior program. But there were
always people who would play with her. A number of people recognized her talent
and encouraged her to continue.
In 1951 she joined the Regina Golf Club. For her, as a junior, the fee was
$5.00. Some of the club members sponsored her and she entered her first ladies'
competition.
She could have moved to a place where the golf season is a little longer,
but she didn't want to. "I like Regina," she says, "I have lived here all my
life, and plan to stay."
She probably could have turned pro, but she didn't want to. She wanted to
golf for fun, not for a living. But as an amateur, she entered many tournaments.
She has competed all across Canada, in many of the states, and in many different
countries.
Until 1991, Joanne won every Regina City tournament that she entered. She
was city champion 30 times! She was provincial champion 9 times. She was senior
women's champion 3 times. Twice she was a member of the provincial team which
won the Canadian championship.
What was a highlight in her life? "Well", she thought a moment. "It was the
time the Saskatchewan team won the Canadian National. It was the first time
our province had ever won. We won it another year after that. But that first
time was great!"
What do you think was named in Joanne's honour? A golf course, of course -
the Joanne Goulet Golf Course! It is the first course in Canada to be named
after a woman.
Joanne is very pleased and proud to be honoured in this way.
Profile: Sister Yvonne Toucan
In 1988, Yvonne and two of her friends bought a house with 4 apartments.
They called it Sofia House. The name Sofia comes from the Greek language. It
means wisdom. It also means support for families who are suffering.
Sofia House is a second stage transition house, the first one in the province.
A transition house is a place where women and their children may go to live
for a while when they need to get away from abuse in their homes. A lot of people
need the safety of a transition house and there are not very many in Saskatchewan.
So usually a woman and her children have to leave after several weeks and find
another place to live. At Sofia House, a second stage transition house, a family
may stay longer, even up to a year if necessary.
Where did Yvonne and her friends get the money to buy the house? They didn't
get any from the government. They asked a lot of people for donations and they
hosted special events. It took them a few years to raise enough money.
Why did they do it? It is taking a lot of time and energy. But they think
it's worth it. Yvonne believes in the saying, "Love your neighbour as yourself."
Sister Yvonne was born in Paris, France. When she was three years old, her
family moved to California. When she was quite young, her parents separated
and Yvonne lived in foster homes and boarding schools.
Her father came to Canada. Here he met the Sisters of St. Louis. He persuaded
Yvonne to go to high school with them. So, when she was 14 years old, she took
the train by herself from California to Medicine Hat. And that's where she stayed
for a long time.
When she was in school, she loved Science. At university she studied Physics,
Chemistry and Maths. As a teacher and later a principal, she worked in schools
in Melville, Marquis, Wilcox, Moose Jaw, and other places, often teaching Science.
All her life she loved to learn and go to school as well as teach. She went
to night classes and took classes by correspondence to get her teaching degrees.
When she was 60, she went to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver
to study about libraries. When she was 75, she enrolled in a school in Oakland,
California to take some courses there. For Yvonne, learning and teaching go
together. At 84 years of age, she is still teaching and learning. What is she
teaching? "Oh," she said with a smile, "I teach pretty well anything - to people
who can't afford to pay."
So how did she get to be interested in setting up a transition house for mothers
and their children in Regina?
Well, when she was in her 50's, she decided she wanted to do something different.
So she applied to teach in a teacher training college in Tanzania, a country
in Africa. She was there for three years. She loved the experience. It was so
interesting to live in a different country with people from another culture.
But while she was there, it really started to bother her that men and women
were treated differently. The women in the school lived together in big dorms
while the men had more private rooms. The women had to take pregnancy tests
when they came to the college, and could attend only if they were not pregnant.
One day one of the men at the college invited her to his home for dinner. After
sitting in his home for awhile, she asked about his wife. She was in the backyard
cooking the meal. When it was ready, the man and Sister Yvonne sat while the
man's wife served them.
When she thought about it, she realized that women and men in Canada are,
in many ways, treated differently too. When there is violence in a family, it
is usually the woman and the children who are abused. So when she got back to
Saskatchewan, she and her friends decided they would do what they could to offer
help to at least some of those women and children.
And that's how Sofia House was started. The house could have been named after
one of the women who started it. But they decided on a name that means what
the house is all about - "wisdom and support for families in need".
Profile: Ruth Pawson Tregarva, Saskatchewan.
That was the place where Ruth Pawson started teaching. The year - 1927. It was
a one room school, 36 students, Grades 1 to 10. When she visited the school during
the summer, she was shocked at how few books there were. How could children learn
to read without lots of books? Before school started, a salesman selling encyclopedia
visited her. She bought a set. She didn't have the money to pay for it right then,
but she paid a little each month for the whole year. "I don't know how I could
have got through the year without that set of encyclopedia," she recalled. The
students loved it too. They did all kinds of research projects using it. They
had never done things like that in school before.
And that's the kind of teacher Ruth Pawson was for many years. She loved and
cared about the children in her classes. They often came first in her life.
She was also a leader among teachers, the first to try new ideas and help other
teachers use them too.
Ruth had another love - painting. Her grandfather was an artist. Unfortunately,
she never had the chance to meet him. But when she was very young, her mother
became sick with TB (tuberculosis) and had to live in a sanatorium for a year.
So Ruth, along with her four brothers and sisters, went to live with different
relatives for that year. Ruth went to Toronto to live with an aunt. Her aunt's
house was filled with her grandfather's paintings. She especially remembers
a group of paintings showing ancient myths. She thought it would be wonderful
to paint like that.
She didn't ever illustrate myths, but she has painted hundreds of prairie
landscapes. Whenever summer holidays came, Ruth was off to Emma Lake to learn
about and practice painting. Two famous artists she studied with were A.Y. Jackson
and Augustus F. Kenderdine.
When Ruth retired from teaching, she painted a lot. She travelled to many
places - Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Morocco, Spain, and others.
But she also kept in touch with students. Teachers often invited her to talk
to their classes and show her art work. She liked to tell stories to children,
or help them prepare for speech or poetry contests. For several years she helped
make school broadcasts both for radio and television. These broadcasts were
used across Western Canada.
Then one day in 1976, while she was having a family birthday dinner, the telephone
rang. The voice at the other end said that a new building was going to be named
after her. What kind of a building do you think it was? A school, of course.
She was so shocked, she started to cry.
Ruth visited her school as often as possible. She attended the assemblies,
went on field trips with classes, worked with small and large groups in many
ways. Every Christmas she bought special books for the library. Every Christmas
she gave a Christmas card to each student - with a picture (lithograph) of one
of her paintings. She learned to know many of the families in the school district.
"I feel very lucky to have this contact with children," she said.
The students, teachers and parents of Ruth Pawson School feel very lucky and
proud to have had that contact with her.
One day in 1994, she rushed home from the grocery store to get ready to attend
an opening in a local art gallery. When her friend called for her, she found
that Ruth had died very suddenly. Many people were sorry to have lost a good
friend.
(Note: Regina has a street named Pawson Street which is close to the oil refinery.
It is named after Ruth's brother who worked at the refinery for many years.)
As a follow-up to the stories, the teacher may choose to do the following:
Local heroes Use case studies to learn about local
heroes in the past and present. If possible, include people from various cultural
groups, children, women and people who have contributed in various ways (e.g.,
politics, sports, art, volunteerism).
Identify the qualities of people who are `heroes'. Identify actions that demonstrate good citizenship. Emphasize the fact that many `ordinary' people are `heroes'. Do reflective writing about being a good community member.
Ask:
What makes a person a hero?Learn about the work and contributions of women in your community's past. Make a web, using pictures showing responsibilities of women. Stage an `Awards Ceremony' where the women of the community's past are recognized. Students could work individually or in groups to research information about the woman and present her to the class along with a suitable award they have designed. Speculate upon what the women would have done if they lived in the present.
Is it only winning?
Is it the way a person performed?
Is it difficulties overcome?
Is it contributions to the community?
The teacher may introduce the following stories by identifying various local people working in health care and discussing their roles. Talk about women who are doctors and men who are nurses.
Well, almost all. Dr. James Miranda Barry was a doctor both in England and Canada during the early 1800s. Yes, she was a woman. But nobody knew that until she died in 1865.
We don't know much about her life as a child in the 1790s. We know she graduated with a doctor degree in 1812, and then studied surgery.
She came to Canada shortly after that. She performed the first caesarean section in which both mother and child lived.
In 1857, Dr. Barry became the inspector of hospitals for Upper and Lower Canada (now called Quebec and Ontario). She worked hard to improve conditions in hospitals and clinics - especially to make them cleaner, safer, and more comfortable for the patients.
Profile: Dr. Elizabeth BagshawInformation about Dr. Barry adapted with permission from the Saskatoon Women's Calendar Collective, Herstory 1990.
Later in the 1800s, another young woman wanted to be a doctor.
Elizabeth Bagshaw was born in Ontario, 16 years after Dr. Barry died. When Elizabeth was a child, her mother worried about her. She was always taking chances, riding horses and climbing trees. She was an average student and was often in trouble with her teachers for not writing neatly or for being sassy.
When she went to medical school, she had to work very hard. There were very few girls there, and the boys would laugh at them and make fun of them. So the girls had to work hard to prove that medical school was the right place for them to be.
Elizabeth wanted to be a surgeon. But she couldn't. She knew that she, as a woman, just would not get the patients. So she learned how to deliver babies and look after the health of mothers and children.
She had a lot of patients. It was a time in Canada before there were vaccines against diseases like small pox, diphtheria and measles. Without vaccines and antibiotics, these diseases were often deadly, especially for young children. As a doctor Elizabeth took chances too, often working with people who had diseases that could easily be passed on to her.
When she started working as a doctor, she made her house calls by horse and buggy during the day, and her bicycle in the evenings. Later when cars were for sale, she was happy to get around in her Model T.
Her Model T had two kerosene lanterns as head lights. These came in handy one day when she was delivering a baby during a storm and the lights went out. She just went and got her lanterns and under their light and her care, a healthy baby was born.
Dr. Elizabeth had many friends. She liked to laugh and have fun. She was also very good at her work.
She finally retired after 60 years as a doctor, when she was 85 years old.
Discuss with the students the differences in the work and roles of health care workers now and in the past.
Have students make a plan for a project where they can be local heroes in the school, neighbourhood, or community, (e.g., reading to children in a daycare).
Transportation
Using various resources, learn what means of transportation were used in the community in the past.
Explore ways this transportation has changed and evolved. How have changes in transportation changed lifestyles?
Life on the farm Use various resources that illustrate that in past years there were many more farms and many children grew up on farms. In the past, farm life was quite different. Children took responsibility for many of the farm chores. (Caution must be taken not to portray the past as gloomy. Include materials about quality of family and community life and the enjoyment of working close to the land. Learn about things children of the past did for entertainment and enjoyment.) Have students complete the stem:
If I were a farm child many years ago I would_______.
Illustrate the sentence. Compile the sheets into a book called "Our Farm Heritage". Model the writing of a then/now paragraph. Start with the topic sentence, "Life on the farm is different for children today," or "Some things about living on the farm are the same as they were long ago and some things are different". Each sentence could have the format: Then ______ , but now ______ ."
In the past there were many more children living on farms than there are today, and the farms were smaller and closer together. How does this affect the lives of farm children? Use drama in context to explore changes in friendships, communication, and travel. Do today's farm children meet more or fewer children at school? What new methods do they have for communicating with friends they meet at school?
Use the pictures in A Prairie Alphabet to discuss changes in agriculture. Ask the students to identify different aspects of agriculture in various pictures. Ask students if the picture is about pioneer times or about present times. Have them find things in the picture to support their decision. Ask the students to predict what artists might paint when they use an agriculture theme in the future. Will the machinery be bigger or smaller? Why? Do they think there will be more or fewer animals? What type of animals might be included in pictures about agriculture?
Technology
Make Then and Now posters, charts, or booklets that show changes in farm technology.
Use various resources that show technologies that affect the way we produce food. Collect pictures of agricultural activity over time, discussing the changes in technology used.
Slides from Saskatchewan Art Works: A Visual Art Resource for Kindergarten to Grade Eight may be used as follows: #5, Victor Cicansky's "Saskatchewan"; #12, McGregor Hone's "Milking"; #14, Ernest Luthi's "Wheat Combining Near For Qu'Appelle"; #16, Allen Sapp's "Everyone is Busy Out in the Country"; p. 36 Frances Robson's "Dad, with ripe tomatoes, standing by the first swath of wild oats and barley, late morning" August 14, 1984; #39 Allen Sapp's "Kids Playing Outside"; #41 Inglis Sheldon - Williams' "Fire Guard"; Jan Gerrit Wyers' "Good Old Threshing Days";
Use drama in context to help the students understand that developments in agriculture occurred over a period of time and were largely affected by advances in technology. Explore the intensity of labour required to produce food in the past, how food production changed with advances in technology, and the implications of this change. Ask students to write in their journal about how they would feel if they were not allowed to go to school but rather had to stay at home and help with the farm work.
Suggested Resources
(listed in other bibliographies and catalogues)
The Auction Jan Andrews (ELA)
The Big Sneeze Ruth Brown (ELA)
The Comeback Dog Jane Resh Thomas (ELA)
The Day the Goose Got Loose Reeve Lindbergh (ELA)
Farm Animals (MHP, V2892)
General Store Rachel Field (ELA)
Grandfather Symons' Homestead Book R.D.Symons (ELA)
Magic Camera Visits Old Farm (MHP, V6637)
Pioneer Days (MHP, V207)
A Prairie Boy's Summer
A Prairie Boy's Winter William Kurelek (Arts Ed)
Up the Haystack Sally Moss (ELA)
Use Mini-unit 1 Visual Images and Daily Life, p. 334, Arts Education:
A Curriculum Guide for Grade 1 and Mini- unit 2 Artist Study, p. 342 of
Arts Education: A Curriculum Guide for Grade 2.