Social Studies Page

June: Election 2004

Students will be learning about the campaign platforms of the major political parties, and will study the process of running an election in Canada. We will then pick students to represent the party leaders (Paul Martin, Jack Layton, Stephen Harper, Gilles Duceppe etc.) and our riding candidates (Mike Savage, Susan MacAlpine-Gillis, Mike MacDonald), prepare campaign posters, and run a mock election throughout the school.

April/May: Explorers and Acadians

Students will be learning about the Vikings, John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, and Samuel de Champlain and Pierre Dugua (Sieur de Monts). They will discuss the changes they brought to North America, and the ensuing conflicts between the English and the French. Then we will be reading "A Proper Acadian", and doing centres to learn about life in Acadia.

   February/March :The Mi'kmaq and Inuit of Canada

During February and March, students  will study the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia and the Inuit of northern Canada.  They will learn about the culture of the Inuit and the encounter with the white missionaries through the novel Minuk: Ashes on the Pathway. To learn about the Mi'kmaq, they will view a series of 6 video presentations prepared by Media Services of the Department of Education. Students will research the food, clothing, shelter, leisure, education, and spirituality of the first inhabitants of our country.  Students will construct snow houses, eat unprocessed foods, and dress in natural fibres. During "Back to our Canadian Roots" week, we will sit on the floor, use only natural light from the windows, and avoid using computers and other modern conveniences. We will learn the "Mask Dance" and the Berry Dance" of the Yupik people, and make dreamcatchers. Each student will create a 3-D model of life during one of the seasons, for a Mi'kmaq family.  They will make oral presentations to parent volunteers, explaining the details depicted in the model. Modern-day issues are discussed at the end of the unit.

January

As part of our Medieval Unit, students will be learning about life and times in England, Scotland and Wales during the Middle Ages. Topics will include the feudal system, castles and crusades, knights and chivalry, troubadours and storytelling. Our Medieval Festival is the culmination of the unit.

November/ December

In preparation for our role in the December concert, our class is studying the Islamic religion. In art, we have looked at photos of mosques, and have copied the symmetrical designs to make silhouette drawings with geometric designs as borders (see website  http://www.muslimuzbekistan.com/eng/ennews/special/uzbekistan/toshkent000.html ) We are also learning about Ramadan and Eid-al-Fitr.

Throughout the year, students will be studying the location of major cities, countries, rivers, mountain ranges, and lakes around the world. They goal is to be able to identify them from memory on a variety of maps and the globe. The first set of 20 places to identify are: England, France, Spain, Iceland, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Cuba, New Zealand, India, Japan, China, Russia, and Sweden. The second set of 20 places is Egypt, Australia, Scotland, Canada, Israel, Germany, Poland, Norway, Turkey, Ukraine, Mongolia, Jordan, Yemen, Palistine, Greenland, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Finland, and Madagascar.

Through reading, activities and our themed spelling lists each week, students will be learning about major events in the history of Halifax and Canada: Halifax Explosion (week 7), the wars in which Canadians have participated (week 8), the Holocaust (weeks 9 and 10) and the bombing of Japan (week 11). Each student will be reading a novel that deals with the topic of war and peace, and the two grade 6 classes are preparing a Readers' Theatre presentation about "Peace Begins with You" for the Remembrance Day ceremony on November10.

In December, students will be learning about slavery and the Underground Railroad. The rest of the themed spelling lists for December will examine the celebrations of the major faith groups in our culture: Christmas (Christian), Ramadan and Eid (Islam), Hannukkah (Judaism), and Kwanzaa (African-Canadian).

October 26/27:  CBC Special 8:00p.m.: Halifax- Shattered City.

Students are asked to watch this mini-series in preparation for our study of the Halifax Explosion. The spelling unit for this week will focus on this event. Students and parents can get further information at http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/

September/October

Students will be learning about our province's geography, symbols, and defining characteristics. We will be going to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and taking a trip on the Harbour Hopper, to begin to get a sense of how the sea has influenced the development of our peninsula. Students will make a class video presentation about what they learn.

Students will write their first test on October 16. It will assess their knowledge of the world map (continents, oceans, lines and zones), the map of Canada (provinces, territories and capital cities), and the first map of Nova Scotia (surrounding provinces and bodies of water, major towns and cities). There will also be an open-book section of the test based on the notes they have been preparing about the symbols of Nova Scotia, the introduction to Nova Scotia geography, and the field trip to the museum and on the Harbour Hopper.