social Studies examples
Ukraine (Gr. 3)
When I was first assigned the Ukraine unit in social, I panicked a bit because I didn't know much about the country! However, once I got researching the country and imagining fun projects to do with the curriculum, the whole unit took off and I was able to have a lot of fun with it! I started off by focusing on Ukrainian Easter traditions as it was close to Easter break when I began the unit. Next we learned some background knowledge about the country to prepare ourselves for the virtual school trip to Ukraine, and finally we toured around Ukraine by viewing many pictures of different cities across Ukraine. Below are some various examples of ways that I made the Ukraine unit more fun and engaging for the students!
UKRAINIAN EASTER (VELYKDEN)
I introduced the Ukraine unit by showing some things that Ukrainian people are famous for - such as their ornate cultural costumes and their beautifully decorated Easter eggs called pysanky. I showed the students many pictures that exemplified Easter traditions such as the ornate paska bread, the pretty Easter eggs, and the other traditional food that Ukrainians put into Easter baskets to take to church as a celebration after lent. I made up a special Smartboard presentation to show all of the pictures and videos, and then I had students design their own traditional "Easter basket" where they were to color their paska and pysanky using the traditional symbols and colors that we had learned about!
I introduced the Ukraine unit by showing some things that Ukrainian people are famous for - such as their ornate cultural costumes and their beautifully decorated Easter eggs called pysanky. I showed the students many pictures that exemplified Easter traditions such as the ornate paska bread, the pretty Easter eggs, and the other traditional food that Ukrainians put into Easter baskets to take to church as a celebration after lent. I made up a special Smartboard presentation to show all of the pictures and videos, and then I had students design their own traditional "Easter basket" where they were to color their paska and pysanky using the traditional symbols and colors that we had learned about!
A few days later I also brought in some of my own real pysanky eggs that I had decorated when I was a little kid. We also gathered all of the grade 3 students together to make Easter paska as one big group. When I went home for the Easter holidays I also took pictures of my 'flat Stanley' with even more pysanky that I saw while having Easter dinner. Below is a gallery of pictures showing my pysanky eggs that I showed the children, as well as some pictures of the Easter paska that we made! (KSA 13)
TRAVELLING TO UKRAINE
I set up the Ukraine unit as if we were going to be travelling to Ukraine with our tour guide Irena (the little girl from our textbook - I had made a drawing of her that was modelled after the Flat Stanley figure). However, before we went on our trip, we had to learn lots of background knowledge about Ukraine. In preparation for our trip, each student took a "passport" photo with Irena in front of the Ukrainian flag. While we were waiting for our passport photos to develop, we spent a few days learning about Ukraine's geography in comparison to Canada's, we learned about how different their towns and cities were, we learned about things like transportation and government, and we learned about their main imports and exports. Below are some screen shots of the Smartboard presentations and worksheets that I used in class to show these topics.
I set up the Ukraine unit as if we were going to be travelling to Ukraine with our tour guide Irena (the little girl from our textbook - I had made a drawing of her that was modelled after the Flat Stanley figure). However, before we went on our trip, we had to learn lots of background knowledge about Ukraine. In preparation for our trip, each student took a "passport" photo with Irena in front of the Ukrainian flag. While we were waiting for our passport photos to develop, we spent a few days learning about Ukraine's geography in comparison to Canada's, we learned about how different their towns and cities were, we learned about things like transportation and government, and we learned about their main imports and exports. Below are some screen shots of the Smartboard presentations and worksheets that I used in class to show these topics.
TRIP PREPARATION
The week before we 'flew out' for our adventure, we took the time to think about some of the important things that you would need to know before travelling to another country. As a class we brainstormed some useful things to know and the students came up with things such as language, money, weather, food, where to stay, and what to pack. I found information on all of these things, and we observed some facts as a class before our take off! (Below are just a few images of the slides that I prepared, click to enlarge)
The week before we 'flew out' for our adventure, we took the time to think about some of the important things that you would need to know before travelling to another country. As a class we brainstormed some useful things to know and the students came up with things such as language, money, weather, food, where to stay, and what to pack. I found information on all of these things, and we observed some facts as a class before our take off! (Below are just a few images of the slides that I prepared, click to enlarge)
TRAVELLING 'THROUGH' UKRAINE!
By the time that we were finally 'going' to Ukraine, the kids were super excited for all that we were going to see! We had a few different geographic and economic regions to visit including the capital of Kyiv, the port city of Odessa, the vacationing Crimean peninsula of Yalta, and the quaint cultural villages in the Carpathian Mountains. While visiting Irena we also got the chance to see how different Ukraine was from Canada in terms of transportation, grocery shopping, school, etc. We also had the chance to visit some historical places such as the Friendship Arch for peace between Ukraine and Russia, and the Chernobyl plant that exploded in a horrible accident in 1986. The full Notebook file can been viewed by clicking on the red button below, and the pictures beneath that give you a quick glimpse of some of the slides that helped to cover our diverse trip through Ukraine.
By the time that we were finally 'going' to Ukraine, the kids were super excited for all that we were going to see! We had a few different geographic and economic regions to visit including the capital of Kyiv, the port city of Odessa, the vacationing Crimean peninsula of Yalta, and the quaint cultural villages in the Carpathian Mountains. While visiting Irena we also got the chance to see how different Ukraine was from Canada in terms of transportation, grocery shopping, school, etc. We also had the chance to visit some historical places such as the Friendship Arch for peace between Ukraine and Russia, and the Chernobyl plant that exploded in a horrible accident in 1986. The full Notebook file can been viewed by clicking on the red button below, and the pictures beneath that give you a quick glimpse of some of the slides that helped to cover our diverse trip through Ukraine.
Because much of the curricular content of this unit was delivered through visual slides such as the ones above, I wanted to make sure that we tried something more interactive near the end of the unit. I had originally wanted to bring in some Ukrainian foods such as pirogues or borsch, but due to some severe allergies in the class I had decided that it probably wasn't the safest choice to try food! Instead, I decided that the class would visit a music and dance festival (shown in the middle slide above) to engage in the Ukrainian traditions. We watched the video to the right as a class. Next we split up into groups of 3, assigned each kid with one of the 3 colors, pushed all of the desks aside, and tried to perform the dance ourselves the second time around! The kids had a BLAST trying to get the coordination down, and we all got a bit of physical activity in while trying this tricky dance! (KSA 9) |
|
CROSS- CURRICULAR
There were a few picture books that I had read to the students to help them understand some background knowledge about Ukraine. One book was "The Mitten" by Jan Brett, the other was "Enough" by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch. I used both of these stories as a way to include some English Language Arts into the social lessons.
There were a few picture books that I had read to the students to help them understand some background knowledge about Ukraine. One book was "The Mitten" by Jan Brett, the other was "Enough" by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch. I used both of these stories as a way to include some English Language Arts into the social lessons.
Jan Brett "The Mitten"
While reading "The Mitten", I pointed out parts in the story that we had already learned about Ukrainian culture. It was also a good chance for us to review cultural folktales as we had already had studied them a few weeks prior to this. For example, one page shows the inside of Baba's house which was decorated with fancy plates just like we had seen in some pictures. Another page of the story demonstrated the traditional embroidered clothing like we had observed as well. The kids were excited to see things in the story that they had already learned about! After reading the story, I had the students do a reader's theater of the book in their following LA class! (See ELA class examples for more details! )
|
Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch "Enough"
The kids were having a really hard time understanding why the country doesn't mind being a poorer country. They were struggling to imagine how cruel the government was under Stalin, so I decided to bring in this book as a way of bringing the 'rein of terror' down to their level, and in a less threatening way. The story dealt with some pretty heavy context like people starving to death, and unfair government, but the students REALLY connected with the protagonist in the story and understood how upsetting it would be to be mistreated by the government like that. I asked them to write a very small journal response to the story, and their entries made it clear that they sympathized with what the Ukrainians had to go through - which was exactly what I had hoped for!
|