Aboriginal Governance - Tying Things Together for my Students

The third aspect of the governance portion of my unit on Circles, Architecture and Government (starting with Ancient Greece and working forward) and one that I didn't think about until now, is how to incorporate traditional Aboriginal decision making and governance, but it's one that I think needs to be included and is a vital link between ancient democracy and modern democracy and how Canada is governed now.

I'm going to have my students do some research and think about the sharing circle model.

I've found a couple of useful links as well.

Such as this one from Canadiana.ca

And a website about First Nations governance today because Aboriginal culture did not stop when Canada was "discovered" by Europeans.

Getting some readings together

I want my students to read some things about Ancient Greek democracy and not just watch them, so I'm compiling a list:

There's one specifically for kids: http://greece.mrdonn.org/athensdemocracy.html
And a BBC link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml
And here's another reading for kids: http://www.ducksters.com/history/ancient_greek_government.php

http://www.historyextra.com/blog/ancient-greek-democracy-similar-ours-we-think
https://sites.google.com/site/ancientgreekdemocracyca/
http://www.ahistoryofgreece.com/athens-democracy.htm

http://www.nelson.com/albertasocialstudies/productinfo/gr6_9/docs/abss6ch3.pdf has some interesting things related to a textbook, not for my students but maybe for me.

I'm thinking that I'd have my students read these in groups and then jigsaw the information they get from each reading to the rest of the class.

The Birth of Democracy

So, I've been looking for short videos to help explain how Athenian democracy worked in Ancient Greece, and I really like this video from the history channel. I wouldn't use it as the first thing, but it asks some good questions and provides some good visuals.

This video is a is kind of fun, I think the kids might like the cartoon features.

This video is old, but contains some really great information.

This video is a great introduction to The Acropolis.

And this video is an hour long.  I'll have to see if it has a shorter part that I can show instead of showing the whole thing.  It is narrated by Liam Neeson though (he has an amazing voice).

Here's another good video about democracy: 

Badminton Planning...Watch the Birdie

Badminton is a bit more complicated than I remember from my time in high school and the backyard games I play in the summer.  But I have found some great resource from PE Central.

There's badminton baseball, badminton juggling, runaround badminton, and badminton golf.  If I can combine these with the unit plan I found from the badminton world federation, I think I'm on my way to a good unit.

Field Trip to City Hall

So, I was thinking about how to make my unit more interesting and to connect local government to the governments we will be learning about in Ancient Greece and around the world.

I emailed City Hall and it's really easy to set up a tour.  My students will get to see the council chamber and have a chance to meet the mayor and some of the other people who make PG tick.  I think I might pair it with a trip to the court house because they are close together and learning about how the courts are related to government is an important part of the Canadian political system.  Also, the court house has a dome and we can calculate the circumference of it ;)

Circles and Graphic Organizers

Thinking about my math unit and how I can help my students cement their mathematical understanding of the different parts of a circle, I found some interesting pictures of possible circle graphic organizers on Pinterest.  I still have to decide how to integrate them into my unit and what they will look like on the inside (I only found these picture) but I think it's a good starting point.

PE Planning is my Kryptonite

PE is the one area of planning where I hit major stumbling blocks.  It's probably a good idea that I'm required to put together a year plan as part of my assignments for my PE class because I do have such problems with planning PE but right now I'm not liking it.

I found a great unit plan for my badminton unit from the World Badminton Federation and it even comes with youtube clips but putting it into a different format is boring and probably useless (why would I retype something like this when I could just print and annotate it for myself?) and the year long plan is frustrating because it's so much work but I guess I should look at it as something I need to practice.

Anyway, it's been a learning experience.  You can't just say we're playing dodge ball all year and let that be that.

Olympics!

So, in keeping with my Greek theme, I plan on talking about the modern and ancient olympics and tying that specifically to my French winter sports unit.  To that end, I plan on having my students look at the sports coverage done on Radio-Canada and comparing it to coverage on CBC in English.  Because these are both web based resources, students can read articles, but also listen to and watch coverage (probably pre-recorded, although some live streaming will be possible) and if the timing is right maybe we will have the French version of an event streamed into the classroom.

The PLOs for French in Grade 7 include the acquiring information PLO: It is expected that students will extract and retrieve specific information from French-language resources to complete authentic tasks and the Communication PLO: It is expected that students will derive meaning in new language situations which I think fits with what I plan on doing with the Olympics and the broadcasting.  Even if they don't get many words, they will still be listening to and seeing authentic language usage.

I've also been trying to find a way to subscribe to a French daily newspaper (I think Dr. Cloutier told us this was possible), but so far it's been tough going.  We shall see how this goes.

Looking for pi resources

Planning a unit that integrates math with other subjects has been causing me some strife because I usually think of math as something separate which might have some minor connections to other subjects through word problems but that might only be coincidently.

But with this unit, I want to really integrate the math and have my students think about why a circle has been used for consensus building and how different forms of government have used different structures and why.

I want my students to really think about form and function, but to also really understand how circles are related to each other mathematically.

It's a balancing act.

So far, I've found a song about pi:

And this video about the history of pi: 

but it's a bit dry, I might not show it all. 

And there are whole websites devoted to poems about pi. 

In which I decide where I'm going with my joint Math-Language Arts-Social Studies Unit

I realized that circles have relationships mathematically (like the big idea from the new draft curriculum: Circles of all sizes contain and share important relationships) but that they also have symbolic and practical purposes within societies and that some of the mathematical properties (no corners, no beginning, not end) have let to these uses.

So, to that end, I plan on having a unit that connects the direct democracy of the Athenian Assembly with their circular buildings and the Aboriginal sharing circles where everyone has a voice to (as well as the concept of the medicine wheel) to the shape of the Canadian parliamentary chambers and talk about how the shape might influence the discourse and the way politicians interact with each other.

Good ol' Archimedes

So, to tie Ancient Greece to modern mathematics, we're going to look at Archimedes and his theories about circumference and the area of a circle. And pi (everybody loves pi) and I will be teaching on pi day - March 14 (unless that's during Spring Break, which would be a shame).

I need to develop a series of links to readings and other resources about Archimedes and pi.

In which I embark on a unit planning odessey

The purpose of this blog is to track my planning for my long practicum.  I will be teaching grade 7 at in a challenging class and I have have to teach:

Science - Chemistry
Social Studies - Ancient Greece
Math - Perimeter, Area, Circumference and Area of a Circle
Language Arts - Lit Circles on dystopian fiction, and graphic novel writing
French - Winter Sports
Physical Education - Badminton
Health and Career - Drug use in sports and eating for sporting health

I am looking for a way to create a through line that connects all of these things, and I think the question "How has Ancient Greece impacted the present culture in Canada?" might be able to do this.  But I need to work on how this will work.