Social Studies
Grade Six
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Suggested Teaching Strategies
Discuss and list ways of getting information about events that have occurred in the past.
Discuss and list various historical facts and events and link them with sources of information.
Point out that although we now learn about history mainly from books, information about the distant past comes mainly from artifacts and oral history.
If possible and appropriate, a "tribal historian" might be invited from an Indian community. Sharing information may be done in the tradition of oral history.
Discuss the concept of time. Have the students make timelines of a day, a week, a year, their lives to date. Gradually "stretch" the line from A.D. into B.C.
Make a timeline for the classroom that can be used for this unit and/or throughout the year. On it place illustrations of a number of significant events. Discuss the relationships of the events and their relative positions on the timeline.
Note: The purpose of the timeline is for students to understand that events occur within a context of time.
Teachers may wish to explore the concept of cyclical time. For more information about this, see the Grade 9 S.S. program.
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The teacher may choose to do one or both of the following two activities.
First, have the students working in small groups in the following simulation activity. Each group will illustrate or collect about ten artifacts to be put into a time capsule. The artifacts should include items that students believe to be important in their culture (e.g. tape of favourite singer, running shoe, hockey puck, favourite novel, pen). The students will then imagine that it is the year 5000, and these time capsules have been discovered. It is believed that the artifacts belonged to an ancient people about whom little is known. Have the groups exchange their time capsules. As historians they will study the artifacts and draw some conclusions about the people who lived in that "ancient time".
Second, study various statements, news articles, stories, and historical documents. Identify and discuss the point(s) of view of each. Reword the statements and stories to represent other perspectives.
Designate a portion of the chalk board for statements that the teacher and students may collect during this unit. Title it History: Whose Point of View? Discuss the statements as they appear.
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Suggested Teaching Strategies
Discuss how our lifestyles are influenced by the environment (eg.:
housing, seasonal clothing).
Review the climate and vegetation regions of the Americas. Have the students predict how the people living in these regions might have met their needs/wants.
Discuss how our lifestyles are influenced by other people.
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Suggested Teaching Strategies
Discuss briefly what family and religious life were like in Europe
during this time. Consider health and sanitation, feudalism, lives
of children, monarchy, technology of war, Christianity, roles of
women, etc.
Discuss briefly what life was like in Africa during this time. Consider the emergence of African states and the spread of Islam.
Review the climate and vegetation regions of Europe and Africa. Have the students speculate on how the people living in these regions might have met their needs and wants (e.g. materials for building homes and making clothing, foods, utensils).
*Working in small groups, students will read and analyze short stories, case studies, and/or pictures to gather information using an outline similar to the one suggested on the previous page.
Students may share their information through discussion, displays, pictures, paragraph writing, etc.
*Note: This is not intended to be a major history unit. Students need, however, to develop a sense of the different backgrounds of the various peoples in order to understand their interactions with the environment and with each other. This section of study may be done in small groups of students and shared with the class. It may be done in conjunction with the study of the Aboriginal peoples of the Americas.
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Suggested Teaching Strategies
The teacher in cooperation with the teacher-librarian may plan to
deal with this material using one of the following resource-based
learning approaches.
Small group/individual research project. Working individually or in small groups, students may gather, organize and share information about an explorer in one of the following (or other) ways:
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Suggested Teaching Strategies
Have students read various case studies, identifying the "push",
"pull" motives for immigrating.
The themes in this unit may be integrated with comparable themes in Language Arts. (See the bibliography for some titles of novels.)
With the use of stories, films, pictures and any other documents available, discuss lifestyles of early immigrants.
Identify ways in which the new immigrants and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas interacted, and how the environment was affected.
The teacher may wish to consult the Arts Education curriculum for some suggestions as well as the planning process for one or more of the following expressive and responsive activities:
Other activities might include:
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Suggested Teaching Strategies
Using visuals or films discuss plantation agriculture, and how
cotton and sugar are grown/harvested.
Find the places (southeastern U.S.A., Caribbean Islands, Brazil) on a map. Review the climate and vegetation of the regions.
Review who the Indigenous people were in thoseregions. Discuss how the emergence of plantation agriculture affected their lives.
The teacher may choose one (or more) of the following approaches in conjunction with other subjects:
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Suggested Teaching Strategies
Study Atlantic region maps that show some major migration patterns.
Choose a few examples and discuss the environmental and
social changes the people would have experienced as they moved from
one location to another.
Choose a story or some case studies relating the experiences of an immigrant family that has moved to an Atlantic region country.
Have the students participate in a simulation activity that focuses on overcoming racism and stereotyping. (See Activity Guide for more information.) Be sure to follow the activity with a debriefing session so that the students make the connections between the "game" and "real life".
Arrange for the class to attend a session of Citizenship Court. Plan suitable introductory and follow-up activities.
Study some news stories of people who have or have not been allowed to remain in an Atlantic country. Research relevant laws.
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Grade Six Unit Two |