Unit Plan

Subject: Social Studies

Teacher: C. McKelvey

Topic Two: Moving Forward with the Past: My Family, My History,

and My Community

General Outcome 1.2 – Students will demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of how
changes over time have affect their families and influenced how their families and communities
are today.

Values and Attitudes

1.2.1 Appreciation how stories and events of the past connect their families and
communities to the present

Knowledge and Understanding

1.2.2 Analyze how their families and communities in the present are influenced by events
or people of the past

Overview of Unit One

Topic: Past, Present, and Future
Grade: One
Timeline: January 8th-26th (nine- 45 min. classes)

Central emphasis
 This unit explores the terms past, present, and future. Students will examine objects
from the past see how they have changed over time.
Daily instruction
 Daily instruction will include examining different “artifacts” from the past that we find in
our time capsule and discussing how and why the artifact has changed over time. The
students will take part in multiple activities that will help them sequence events, and
organize objects between past and present.

Major assignments
 A Timeline of Me- students will be asked to think of three separate events in their lives.
An event from when they were younger, an event from the present, and something they
want to do in the future. They will write about these events and will draw a picture of
each to make a timeline of their lives. (formative)
 Artifacts- throughout the unit, students will examine changes that different artifacts
from the past have gone through and record them in their artifact booklet. These
 artifacts will help get the students thinking about how changes effect us and our
families. (formative)
 Pictorial timeline- students will be asked to sequence an object’s different forms from
oldest to newest. This project will help build the students’ understanding of sequencing
and build skills needed to make their final timeline that will be used for a summative
mark (formative)
 Then and Now flip books- students will be asked to organize a number of pictures into
past and present. This will help students learn similarities between objects from the past
and present that will give them clues on how to categorize them. Being able to
categorize objects into past and present will be essential for students to be able to do
their final project where they will have to decide how to organize events (past, present,
or future) in their final timelines.
 Past and Present T-chart- This will be the final activity the students will do before they
create their final timelines. We will examine a variety of pictures of objects found in
school rooms from the past. The students will pick three objects that we discuss as a
class. On one side, the students will draw the object from the past. On the other, they
will draw what we use today instead of the object. For example, the student could pick a
picture of a blackboard and place it on the left of their T-chart. On the right of the chart,
the student will draw a picture of a smartboard. On the next page, the student will be
asked to write a sentence about how the object has changed over time.

Connections to English Language Arts Strands

Reading- Throughout this unit, the class will be exposed to a variety of different texts. We will
be reading a variety of picture books as a class and will also be reading different
instructions in our booklets to help practise our reading.
Writing- Students will be asked to do close activities to help practise their writing skills which
will eventually lead up to them writing complete sentences about their discoveries and
observations.
Viewing- Students will be exposed to many objects from the past. Some of which they might
have never seen before. Through their observations, students will discover how things
have changed over time and how theses changes effects us
Speaking – Students will be sharing their work with their peers, as well as presenting their
findings to the class. Strong communication skills are essential for student learning.
Students will need to communicate and rationalize their findings.
Listening- students will practise attentive listening skills when listening to their peers present
their ideas.
Representing- Students will be able to represent their ideas in a variety of visual charts, graphs,
and illustrations as a way of managing information.
Essential Questions
 How do things change over time?
 Why do things change?
 How can we represent changes visually?
 Unit Learning Outcomes
By the end of this unit students will be able to:
 Represent change visually using a variety of charts, tables, and graphs, including
timelines
 Explain why things change
 Assess how common objects have changed over time
 Explain how change effects the way we live
 Understand and be able to represent the past, present, and future
Assessment
 Students will be asked to do a variety of formative assessment activities. These activities
will be used to check for understanding of key concepts needed to do the final
summative task. If students are struggling, more formative assessment task and mini
lessons will be added to the unit before the student is given the final project
 The final project is a timeline activity that will assess the student’s ability to assess if
something is from the past, present, or future. This project will be assessed using a
rubric. The student will need to be able to sequence events from oldest to newest using
a timeline format to complete this activity. Although there is a writing aspect to their
final timeline project, the student’s writing will not be marked on writing technique but
instead it will simply be used to assess the student’s understanding of this unit’s key
concepts.
 Social Studies. January 2018
Monday Wednesday
8-Read “when I was five” on carpet 10-recap the changes that
-Pass around the talking rock and
have each student share something
that has happened to them in the
past
-talk about how things in our lives
have changed as we have gotten
older
-finish the sentence in booklet of a
change that has happened in
Jeremy’s life and illustrate the
change underneath
15 -look at an artifact and fill out
our artifact charts to see how it
has changed over time (VHS tape
compared to a DVD)
-do a mind-map as a class as to how
the artifact has changed over time.
How has it changed over time? What
has changed about it? How has that
helped us use it?
-Use this to talk about why we think
things change
-have the students make a timeline
using different objects by placing
their pictures in the correct order on
the timeline sheet in their booklet
and then circle how the item has
changed on the next page
-now they are smaller, easier to store
and carry, lighter, and their machines
are smaller as well
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-today the time capsule will hold
pictures of desks throughout the
years. In small groups the students
will organize the pictures from the
oldest to newest desk
happened in Jeremy’s life from last
class and how they affected him
- introduce timelines and show my
example
-Each student creates a “Timeline of
me” (then, now, future) with pictures
-have each student show their
picture and tell the class how they
have changed over time
These will be used to check for
understanding on past, present,
future (formative)
17 -look at another artifact
-talk about what it is and what we
use now instead and fill out our
artifact booklet
- make then and now flip books by
organizing photos into things from
the past, present, and future and
gluing them in their booklets
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-the time-capsule will have a story
book In it that has a good story line
of something changing (maybe a
butterfly book or a person etc)
-As a class we will discuss some of
the changes that happened in the
book and write them on the board
Friday
12-Go over what past, present, and
future mean to us as a class on white
board with examples from the class
using our timelines (using chart on
the board)
- talk about what artifacts are (things
from the past that are old) also talk
about time capsules
-Pull out an artifact and get the kids
to guess what it is. (camera film and
camera)
-talk about what the artifact looks
like now
-talk about what it could look like in
the future.
-fill out “past and present artifact”
chart in artifact booklet
-discuss why the artifact has changed
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-the time capsule today will hold
pictures. We will put the pictures on
different desks and the students will
look at them and guess what they
are in small groups. All of the
pictures will be of things that were
found in classrooms in the past.
When I say “scoot” they move on to
the next picture
-we will discuss as a class what they
think each picture is of and then go
over what they actually are and what
they were used for in the past on the
carpet
- the students will pick one item to
use in their artifact booklet and will
fill out the sheet
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-finish projects. If we have extra
time we can go back and finish
coloring in our artifacts. If the class is
finished we will read the book then
and now by tracy sato or watch the
video online

-using a powerpoint, I will go over
different features of school houses
from the past
- the students will pick three of the
objects from the powerpoint. They
will paste the past object on one
side of a T -chart and then draw a
picture of that object presently on
the other side draw what these
things look like now
Then write a sentence about them
on the lined paper on the back
29 Start community
unit
-recap about timelines
-students must pick one of the We can combine our artifacts to
changes and make a timeline for it in create a “artifacts booklet”
their activity books by drawing a
picture of how the thing changed
and then writing underneath how it
changed.
-Students will be given a summative
mark on this project using a rubric
that assesses if the children
sequenced the events in the correct
order and if they were able to
identify the change that happened.
(summative)
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