Social Studies year plan - grade 1 Alberta

Using the Pearson Many Voices resource as a starting point I divide the grade 1 Alberta Social Studies curriculum into 4 units of study (those that are in Many Voices). They are listed below with the outcomes as laid out in the Many Voices resource. The questions for inquiry for each unit are not included here. Our grade team addressed those in our more detailed unit plans.

My grade team decided to focus on science curriculum themes first term and did not teach or report on social studies outcomes first term. We found that in grade 1 in French Immersion students have very little language to discuss the more abstract concepts in the Social Studies curriculum. Therefore, you will see that these units began in January and are taught and assessed in terms 2 and 3 of the school year.

Following these and the grade 1 science themes I divide the year up to follow these areas of study. Our writing, art, reading, and technology projects all have these themes at their root. So, when we learn new vocabulary or make a collaborative class book or a math journal I try to tie those learning experiences to these themes. I have not posted my unit plans for each unit, however the first unit can be found here.

Here are our class collaborative books (a small piece of our units of study) related to these themes:

Jan. - Groups I belong to and Rights and responsibilities

(see post about this unit here, download document here)

March/April Taking part in a community

(download the document here)

Feb. Looking at my world

We did not make a collaborative book for this unit but in science we were studying animals and adaptations and made a collaborative book linked to that unit of study. It can be found here (examples below). Download documents here and here.

May./June Changes in my world

(download the document here, first page is english, second is french)

This was a new inquiry project for our grade team based on artifacts from the past. We studied a class collection of artifacts and then compared them to present day objects meant for the same use. This book represents just the beginning of our final project. We took photos of the objects as well for students to include with their work. They completed a similar observation after a visit to The Calgary Heritage Park, taking photos at the park to record the object they were to study.

Note - I think our monthly collaborative class books in grade 1 went something like this:

Sept. - me voici
(download document here)

Oct. - les monstres
(download document here)

I have some "How to draw monsters" books in my class that I have taken apart and laminated individual pages. We use those for inspiration for monsters. Sometimes the monsters are a more major art project, students can use different media and we photograph and describe them later in this kind of writing piece.

See document here for some samples of 'learn to draw" ideas to print.

Nov. - la nourriture (see post here)

Dec. - dans la neige (see post here)

Jan. - mes groupes (see post here)
Feb. - les animaux et les adaptations (see post here)
Mar. - cent n'est pas beaucoup (with 100 day, see post here)

April - les responsabilités (above)
May - les changements dans le monde (above)
June - building things unit, we did not do a collaborative book