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

bibliothèque de salle de classe

For those who have expressed interest these are some of the series we have in our Kindergarten to grade 4 classrooms. These series are used for Daily Five, home reading and guided reading.  The classroom libraries are well rounded with both these types of levelled series of books, trade books, fiction and non-fiction.

Most of the series are followed by a link to the publisher's website.

Depending on your school's philosophy you may or may not decide to level your book collections. A handy website for this task is Atelier. You can type in just about any title and any publisher and this site will suggest a level that encompasses them all (many publishers use their own levelling system and they are rarely consistent across the different series).

In terms of best practice there is evidence that a book levelling system, especially when it segregates students and limits their book selection, is less than beneficial to students. The authenticity of this process has also been called into question as students transition from levelled books to the selection of books themselves for the pleasure of reading. Please refer to the book Beyond Levelled Books by Franki Sibberson and Karen Szymusiak to explore this further.

The Learning Commons teacher at École Edwards (librarian) is fantastic and supports teachers with ordering.  She knows what students like and how to guide students to books they might enjoy and be able to read.  As the younger classes come to the Learning Commons, they can choose their own books but are also encouraged to choose at least 1 French "I can read" book.  She has tables of books at the students' level to help with book selection.

Envol en littératie (scholastic):

- fiction and non-fiction

Alizé:

- especially good for k-1

- very simple beginning texts, students are pleased that they can read something early on in the year in French immersion, fiction and non-fiction

- simple stories are humorous because of clever and engaging illustrations

www.readinga-z.com:

- photocopiable books, simple, inexpensive, k-1

GB+:
- this series was purchased with multiple copies of each title for guided reading, they are in the bookroom and can be signed out each week by teachers

Alpha Jeunes
- also purchased in multiples and signed out by teachers from the book room

Du plaisir à lire:

- comic book style illustrations, goofy stories, a favourite for grade 1-2

En avant (scholastic):

- mostly non-fiction

Colorissimo:

- non-fiction

Lire-tôt:

- an older series, having the big books is convenient

Paul et Suzanne:

- kindergarten, has big books, songs, multi media options, illustrations explain the story, very reader-ish but a good place to start when students have 0 vocabulary
- these are used for read-alouds early in the year in K (not "I can read") although by the end of grade 1 students remember the series and are surprised to find they can now read the stories they remember from K

Mille-feuilles:

- this one has been around for a while, humorous stories, a wide range of levels, seems to often be some of the first books FI students read

Je lis mes mots utils

Je peux lire

Grades 3 and 4:

Teachers find the students like non-fiction more in the later grades, they need something at their level but not babyish:

Scholastic biography series

Petit roman:

- easy forst chapter books (my youngest son loved these because it was a "chapter book"!)

Cheval masqué

Cabane magique series

Choisis ta propre aventure

Junie B. Jones in French

À la une - cartoons & graphic novels (loved by older boys, harder vocabulary)

What's on your classroom bookshelves? What do you and your students in French Immersion love to read? Let us know in the comments section.

Thank you so much to Mme Cyrzan, Mme Masson and Mme Brownell for letting me look through your books and loiter in your classrooms!

les couleurs

We begin with the Alberta learning outcomes written in clear student friendly "I can" statements.  Students, parents and teachers can track and document learning throughout the unit.

The colour unit visual dictionary includes "foncé" and "pâle".  Even before we learn those terms students may use them in their journals.  One of the sentence structures we learn early on is "Voici + a noun, c'est + a colour".

Colour unit word strips.

Begin by giving students trays and pipettes and ask, how many different colours can you make from red, blue and yellow?  You don't need the cool Steve Spangler trays, you can use ice cube trays.  Pipettes, food colouring, and an open-ended question - what could be more fun?

The link will give you more details on how to proceed.

Let your grade 1 students paint the first week of school.  Get the paint pallets above for a dollar from the dollar store and quit being scared of paint.

This book is fun, self-explanatory.  Grab a visual dictionary, pick a colour, paint and print.  Don't make them colour.  We don't colour stuff.  This is about teaching the routine of using paints and learning the colours.  PAINT!

Hey look, a crayon colour mini book for our book boxes that grade 1 students can read.

Make this colour texture book.  Find things in the classroom and the playground to use for each colour.  

Red:  pompoms

Orange:  Orange PEZ candy wrappers

Yellow:  feather

Green:  yarn

Blue:  sequins

Purple:  ribbon

Gray:  tin foil

Brown:  bark mulch

Black:  rubber crumb

Use toothpicks, teach DABS of glue, not GOBS.  There, you've taught a painting and a gluing routine and it's only September.

Students who are able can write their own sentences, make their own book from blank pages or add pages and colours.

Don't have them colour the cover like I did, let them use PAINT!  Pop out only the primary colour pucks and have them mix on a plastic lid to get the other colours.  It will be messy.  The pucks can be rinsed off (this is the cover of the texture book).  Oh look, another I can read for for our book boxes.

1.  By large paper on sale at Michaels' really big and maybe cut it.  These were .40 each, not easy to find.

2.  Tape the sides to your art boards with painters tape (have a parent volunteer do this for you).  Gail at www.thatartistwoman.org will explain how to make art boards.

3.  Trace with pencil those card boards shapes you can find at Michael's, keep it simple.

4.  Demonstrate how to overlap and then erase the lines behind (this is tough for gr. 1, go around and model).

5.  Talk about having things face different directions, go off the edge, overlap (oh look, elements and principles of design!!).

6.  Trace with Sharpies (I know, sharpies, in grade 1, cray-zay).

7.  Give each pair pf students 2 primary colours.  They paint INSIDE their designs with both colours.  Only once BOTH are finished they mix up their paint and paint the back ground the resulting SECONDARY colour.

8.  Once dry peel back the tape, check out that beautiful crisp white border.  Post them in the library.  Gorgeous.  Make sure you plaster the wall with the science outcome:  We mixed primary colours to make secondary colours.

Read some of these books.  They're simple, easy to understand for K and 1 French Immersion.  There may be some animations on YouTube or Vimeo.  Check my Pinterest board for updates.

Read this one.  Then make your own Mouse Paint Book.  Watch and listen to the animation on YouTube.

Template for your own Mouse Paint Book. (note there has been a correction made to this file, the book should read "la souris" not "le" as in the following photo)

Learn about the difference between manufactured and natural materials (these are Alberta outcomes) with a manufactured and natural colour book.  I use the Edmonton Public Science resources.  They are available in both French and English and have great hands on science lessons.  I won't post it all here.  There is a simple version and one with longer sentences

For this booklet we covered the natural item with tissue and the manufactured is coloured.  It was also a review of the school vocabulary we learned early in September.

A fall book of colours, focusing on spelling, letter formation (les giraffes, les coccinelles, les singes).

Read Petit Bleu and Petit Jaune.  I love this sweet story.  Give students pieces of playdough in primary colours, let them smush them together to make secondary colours.  Here's the story and video animation on Vimeo.

Let students choose a paint chip.  Have them practice making tints (add white) and shades (add black) of a colour.  The goal is to match your paint chip.  Encourage students to use the guess and check strategy, just like in problem solving in math.

This document has some other experiments and activities we did.  Some are worksheet-ish.  They were accompanied by experiments,  sometimes we put the learning on paper, other times we didn't.  Click to download and have a look.  We  dyed cotton using beets, split the stems of celery and carnations and left in food colouring etc.  We also experimented with the concept of transparent and opaque colours.

Our collaborative class book this month was based on a book in the library and now I can't remember what it was . . . here is the format (there is a page for every colour).  Each student completes a page, we bind them together and add them to the class library.

Our kindergarten colour class book was simpler, we coloured and painted balloons and glued on a string.  Bound and in the class library it's a favourite in September.  I add a photo of each student as we get to know each other and learn names.

This was an ice cream cone colour project we made in Kindergarten, maybe too young for grade 1.  They could make their own labels?

To find more great stuff, links, videos, books for this unit go to my Pinterest Board.  If you're not on Pinterest and need an invite e-mail me and I will make it happen.  shannonwiebe@hotmail.com