Our Social Studies Inquiry: La vie au Canada entre 1780 et 1850
In this inquiry, we aimed to compare ways of life among some specific groups in Canada around the beginning of the nineteenth century, and to describe some of the changes between that era and the present day. Using the inquiry process, we started out by identifying some key aspects of daily life and chose 5 topics together: homes, food, transportation, clothing and communities. We then determined a question we wanted to answer for each of these topics, and began our research. Since we have an excellent resource in the classroom, we used only that book to find information to answer the question for two different groups of people: one First Nations people (Wendat, Anishnabe or Algonquin) and one group of colonists (Loyalists, European immigrants). We answered each question on a different paper - writing lists, or sentences, or paragraphs - in our own words. We worked on a different topic each day for several days. Once our information was complete, we assembled our project into a poster format and added a title. Our final step was to draw some conclusions, using comparison sentences. We wrote a set of sentences or a paragraph about the aspects of life that still exist today, and the things that are no longer part of our daily lives. This project also allowed us to practice some of the language structures we’ve been working on in French, including the use of “et, ou, mais” to connect ideas in sentences. The best thing about this inquiry is that we were able to choose our own questions to explore, and we worked on our own to find information in a challenging French text. We started out with a bit of help, since the Grade 4/5 students were working buddies with us on our first day of the inquiry, but we took it from there all on our own. In the end, we all discovered different things, but we all have a better understanding of what life was like at this time in Canada’s history. We can see how some of the objects and habits that are part of the Canadian identity originated, and we also learned a lot about the influences and impact that our First Nations peoples have had on the Canada we live in today. In the end, some of us didn’t finish exploring all five topics. Some of us wanted to dig a little deeper into was important learning too, as we need to understand how to manage our time, and how to use a text to find information. During Term 2, our inquiry will be about Living and Working in Ontario as we focus on land use.
In this inquiry, we aimed to compare ways of life among some specific groups in Canada around the beginning of the nineteenth century, and to describe some of the changes between that era and the present day. Using the inquiry process, we started out by identifying some key aspects of daily life and chose 5 topics together: homes, food, transportation, clothing and communities. We then determined a question we wanted to answer for each of these topics, and began our research. Since we have an excellent resource in the classroom, we used only that book to find information to answer the question for two different groups of people: one First Nations people (Wendat, Anishnabe or Algonquin) and one group of colonists (Loyalists, European immigrants). We answered each question on a different paper - writing lists, or sentences, or paragraphs - in our own words. We worked on a different topic each day for several days. Once our information was complete, we assembled our project into a poster format and added a title. Our final step was to draw some conclusions, using comparison sentences. We wrote a set of sentences or a paragraph about the aspects of life that still exist today, and the things that are no longer part of our daily lives. This project also allowed us to practice some of the language structures we’ve been working on in French, including the use of “et, ou, mais” to connect ideas in sentences. The best thing about this inquiry is that we were able to choose our own questions to explore, and we worked on our own to find information in a challenging French text. We started out with a bit of help, since the Grade 4/5 students were working buddies with us on our first day of the inquiry, but we took it from there all on our own. In the end, we all discovered different things, but we all have a better understanding of what life was like at this time in Canada’s history. We can see how some of the objects and habits that are part of the Canadian identity originated, and we also learned a lot about the influences and impact that our First Nations peoples have had on the Canada we live in today. In the end, some of us didn’t finish exploring all five topics. Some of us wanted to dig a little deeper into was important learning too, as we need to understand how to manage our time, and how to use a text to find information. During Term 2, our inquiry will be about Living and Working in Ontario as we focus on land use.