First Peoples Principles of Learning

Hobiyee Kindergarten Unit Plan

UNIT PLANNING TEMPLATE

	Unit Topic / Guiding Question: Social Studies/ What is a family and why is it important? What is my identity? What is a responsibility?
	Rationale: Families no longer follow the standard “nuclear unit” and are more diverse. Learning your own identity within your family, your community and as a whole is so important. It is also important to learn about the culture of the people on the land you live in. For many kindergarten students, this is their introduction to people outside their family/community.
	STAGE 1: Desired Results
	UNDERSTAND	Big Ideas		Essential Questions
		Our communities are diverse and made of individuals with much in common.		What does family mean to you? What is your family’s culture? What is the culture of the land on which you reside?
	DO	Core Competencies:
		Communication			Thinking		Personal & Social
		¨ Communicating ¨ Collaborating Positive Personal and Cultural Identity involves the awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the factors that contribute to a healthy sense of oneself; it includes knowledge of one’s family background, heritages, languages, beliefs, and perspectives in a pluralistic society.			¨ Creative Thinking ¨ Critical & Reflective Thinking		¨ Personal Awareness & Responsibility ¨ Positive Personal & Cultural Identity ¨ Social Awareness & Responsibility
		Learning Standards – Curricular Competencies: Explain the significance of personal or local events, objects, people, or places. Acknowledge different perspectives on people, places, issues, or events in their lives.
	KNOW	Learning Standards – Content: Students are expected to know the ways in which individuals and families differ and are the same, personal and family history and traditions, rights, roles, and responsibilities of individuals and groups people, places, and events in the local community, and in local First Peoples communities.
	First Peoples Principles of Learning	¨ Learning ultimately supports the well-being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors. ¨ Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place). ¨ Learning involves recognizing the consequences of one’s actions. ¨ Learning involves generational roles and responsibilities. ¨ Learning recognizes the role of indigenous knowledge. ¨ Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story. ¨ Learning involves patience and time. ¨ Learning requires exploration of one’s identity. ¨ Learning involves recognizing that some knowledge is sacred and only shared with permission and/or in certain situations.				Comments on how you will address the FPPL: I will bring in my own culture to shrea with the students, my family. Provide students a safe space to share their own thoughts, and feelings, and be themselves.
	STAGE 2: Assessment Plan
	Formative Assessment (Assessment as Learning and Assessment for Learning):
	Through the discussions, students will be prompted to participate and extend their thinking. They will be given informal verbal feedback throughout each lesson.
	Summative Assessment (Assessment of Learning):
	The summative assessment will be the same as the formative assessment.
	Stage 3: Learning Plan
Date/Lesson	Learning Intentions		Instructional Activities (brief description here – lesson plans will be used to flesh out each lesson)
Tuesday Lesson 1	Introduction to Hobiyee and its cultural significance		I will introduce the topic to my class and the K/1 class that joins us at this time. I will ask if any students know what Hobiyee is, I’m sure there will be some as there are students from both classes who are Nisga’a. Get the students thinking. Introduce the culture and talk about the lands where they primarily reside and where the people live.
Thursday Lesson 2	Students will understand that there are multiple ways you can be a family		This lesson is just without class. I will be choosing a book that talks about all different kinds of families and reading it to the students. After we will have a class discussion. After the discussion, we will do an art activity where students will draw a picture of them and their families and my coaching teacher and I will hot clue a house picture frame onto their art.
Tuesday Lesson 3	Students will learn about the phases of the moon and its ties to Hobiyee		In this lesson I will review what we talked about in last Tuesday’s lesson. Then I will introduce “moon phases” then show a video so the students can see what the phases look like. We will have a class discussion on how the crescent moon hails the beginning of Hobiyee, and will tell if the harvest will be good or bad this coming year. Then we will finish with a class art activity.
Thursday Lesson 4	This lesson students will gain a basic understanding of careers and how they impact our community		I will introduce the topic. Ask the students if they know what careers are, get them thinking and then play a short video for them on different careers and the duties required. We will have a class discussion about the video and what they would like to try when they grow up and how careers help our community run, doctors, teachers, grocers etc. Then I will send the students to the tables with a coloring page about a different career. They will color it then at the end of the lesson share what career they will share what the person in their picture does and some of the duties they perform.
Tuesday Lesson 5	Students will learn about the oolichan fish and the cultural ties to the Nisga’a people		I will review with the two classes what we had learned about in previous classes. Then I will introduce the new topic and get students thinking about the little fish. Next I will play a video showing culturally what the oolichan fish is used for. We will have a class discussion and if anyone has tried the fish before or helped their parents/grandparents prepare it. Then I will read the students a story on the life cycle of the oolichan. Finally, we will do a class art activity involving the oolichan.
Thursday Lesson 6	Students will learn about respect in the community, to their family, to their peers, to themselves		The students learned about respect from their teacher at the beginning of the year, but I will be introducing the topic once again. I will get them to tell me what they think it means or looks like, then I will read them a story, and we will have a discussion afterwards. Finally, after we talk students will write and draw in their journals what they think respect looks like.
Tuesday Lesson 7	Students will learn a simple Hobiyee song, dance, and drumming		This lesson will be co-taught with my coaching teacher, who is Nisga’a and has participated in Hobiyee many, many times. We will teach the students about clans (I will share the different clans from my culture), the different dance each clan has, a Hobiyee song, and drumming that goes along with it, plus show the regalia worn and the meaning behind it. I will also show a video of Hobiyee that features my coaching teacher and her daughter. Students will get to try and practice.
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	Resources needed:
	Native drums and drum sticks, regalia, colouring pages, colouring tools, books, laptop, tv monitor.
	Interdisciplinary connections: (e.g. How did you weave ELA, Social Studies, Science, Math, Fine Arts, and/or ADST together in this instructional sequence?)
	Art – every lesson will have an art component, including drawing, colouring, singing, dancing, and drumming. Careers – we will be introducing careers and how our communities need them to run ELA – In every lesson, they will need to read or write
	Reflection
	How did the unit go? How do I know? The unit went over really well, the students always enjoy it when they can interact with the lesson and can relate it to things in their own lives. Plus they got to learn about me and their teacher and they always love that. The students who showed up to school for every lesson were able to recall facts about topics that we had learned. Students were eager to participate and raise their hands to offer information (not always on topic but they were happy to talk), and they also loved listening to stories. It helped that there were often three other adults besides myself to help with classroom management between our combined classes.
	Where to next? Each month or so my coaching teacher alternates between socials and science, so after this unit we will be moving on to the science unit.