Introduction+and+Planning+Guide

=Essential Question:= =What is the importance of space and time in relation to the everyday lives of social beings?=

= = The development of this unit is solely based around the outcome DR 1.5 identify and represent the orientation in space and time of significant places and events in the community. This is a very important thing to teach children about because space and time are the foundation of the social world. Without the foundational knowledge of time and space, students will not be able to address further learning of these concepts because they will not understand the underlying ideas. The importance of time and space does not just apply in the classroom; it is relevant in everyone’s lives including children of all ages. This unit framework outlines a few different activities that can teach students the basics of space and time. This topic can be taught many different ways and in many different orders. There is reasoning behind the way these lessons are ordered. The first two lessons are introduction lessons for space. I was thinking of putting an introductory lesson for space and then one for time but I wanted to show how one lesson would merge into the next. Time is a big part of this outcome and it would most likely be introduced using literature. I found many books that I could use in the classroom and my favourite ones are listed in the additional resources. I just want to point out that many of these lessons are designed to keep the students motivated and engaged in learning. Grade on students are not bound to sit and listen to a teacher lecturing about time and space. This unit is very important and I would most definitely use some if not all of these activities in my classroom.  *** Lessons one and two are described in detail in the separate links.  __Lesson Three: __ Students will be given a piece of Bristol board to create their home, yard, park or even businesses. Desks will be cleared in order for students to lay down their Bristol board on the floor. Students will be asked to describe where their place is using the words they learned in previous lessons. For example, John will say his house is beside the Jane’s park. Each student will be given the opportunity to share where their place is in relation to other students’ locations. The activity can be accompanied by literature, class discussion or a partner share. This activity fits in with indicators F, G, and J of the outcome.

__Lesson Four: __ This is a modified game of Simon Says. Students will be able to be creative in creating a puppet that they will use for the game. There will be a basic template for the puppets to use. Once the puppets are complete, students will participate in Simon Says using their puppet. For example, Simon Says put your puppet under your desk, or Simon Says put your puppet on top of your head. Grade one is all about practicing the concepts of space to understand them. This game does just that. Not only have the students been working with the appropriate language to describe relative space, they have also been working on visuals of these words. This activity fits in with indicator F of the outcome.

__Lesson Five: __ This lesson is the introduction to time. The teacher will begin by reading //Around the Year// by Trisha Tudor. This book is about the four seasons in the year. Students will learn that the seasons can be used to describe time in a relative way. The teacher will have created a large circle to hang on the wall. The circle will be divided into four parts. Each section will represent a season. Students can create symbols for each season to be drawn in the corresponding section. For example, winter’s symbol could be snowflakes or snowmen. Each student will be given a sticky label to write his/her name on. The students will then have to tell the class their birthday according to which season it is in, for example John says, “My birthday is in summer.” The student will then place his/her name sticker in the correct season section. This activity fits in with indicator H of the outcome.

__Lesson Six: __  This lesson is called the Time Travelling Machine. The teacher will bring in a box that is labelled DO NOT TOUCH. The box also has two dials labelled past and future. The two dials are labelled day, week, month, and year. The teacher will tell the students that they are going to go on an adventure today. The teacher will ask the students what it means to go back into the past or go forward into the future. The teacher will ask the students what time they want to travel to. The teacher will turn the dial to that time. Students then have to act out what they might have been doing in that time period. For example, the time machine could be set to a month ago and the students could be “lounging on the beach” because a month ago they were not in school. Students get a sense of the length representation of the words being use; a year being longer than a month, a month longer than a week, a week longer than a day. This activity fits in with indicators H and K of the outcome.

__Lesson Seven: __  Students are going to create a week timeline of different events that are going to take place throughout the week. The student should pick one day to describe regular events that occur throughout the day, such as, in the evening, I watch football. The week timeline may consist of different things that go on during the week such as soccer on Monday, swimming on Tuesday, so on and so forth. The creation of these timelines will show the students the importance of time and its relevance to their own daily lives. This activity fits in with indicators H and K of the outcome.

__Lesson Eight: __ <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> The teacher will read a newspaper clipping about a time capsule opening, such as the time capsule opening of the Weyburn Mental Hospital which happened in the summer of 2009. After reading the article, the students will create their own time capsule box by drawing a symbol of whom they are on a piece of paper to be glued to the box. The students will then bring one item from home to put in the time capsule. The capsule will be sealed once everyone has an item in the box. The teacher will tell the students that the time capsule will be opened in one month. Students get to see the length of one month, as well as they won’t have to wait a long while to get their things back. This activity fits with indicators H and K of the outcome.