3 Tips for Teaching Ontario Grade 3/4 Social Studies (Strand B) Easily

I've spent most of my career as an Ontario teacher in split-grade classrooms, and I'm always looking for strategies and activities to make teaching two curriculums easier.   It doesn't have to be a messy, time-consuming process....at least for social studies!

Grade 3/4 Strand B:  People and Environments

Strand B is generally the "geography and government" strand.  The main focus is on how humans and the environment affect one another, and what role government plays in maintaining a balance between the two.

This strand includes the following units for each grade:

• Grade 3:  Living and Working in Ontario
• Grade 4:  Political and Physical Regions of Canada

I looked at the big ideas from the curriculum for each grade and then combined them to make blended big ideas that work well overall.  

1. The natural features of an environment affect how land is used and the jobs that people have.
2. People must make careful decisions that are good for nature and for humans.
3. Human activities and the environment in each specific region affect each other.

3 Tips for Making Strand B Work in Your Grade 3/4 Classroom:

1. Consider starting your unit with a local perspective:  what is unique about your local environment?  What environmental advantages did the area have that motivated people to first settle there?  How have people affected the environment, most positively and negatively?
2. Focus on physical regions as Grade 3s will look at the Hudson Bay Lowlands, Canadian Shield, and Great Lakes - St. Lawrence Lowlands, and the Grade 4s can extend the learning to the other four regions of Canada.
3. Do you know anyone in your community that has a job that is very uniquely related to the environment (a logger, for example)?  Consider inviting them to your classroom to explain the relationship between his/her career and the particular environment that made that job possible.  You could also invite a local government representative (town councillor, MP or MPP) to speak about how they support local environmental issues and promote jobs in their riding.

Can I find a ready-made resource to help me teach Strand B in my Grade 3/4 class?

Yes, of course you can!  I have put together a blended unit, Exploring Ontario and Canada that allows you to teach one lesson to both grades - no running back and forth between grades.  You can check it out here:  

I also have a digital version and a French version of this unit (a digital French resource is in the hands of my translator at the moment)! 

Teaching a 3/4 Split Social Studies Class in Ontario? You Need to Read this Blog Post!

 Teaching a Grade 3/4 split in Ontario can be extra challenging, simply because it is also a division split.  That said, it is actually my favourite split grade (well, except perhaps for the whole EQAO thing).  Since social studies is my favourite subject, I thought it was time to talk about how to approach Strand A:  Heritage and Identity. 

In Ontario the Strand A units are:

• Grade 3:  Communities in Canada, 1780-1850
• Grade 4:  Early Societies to 1500

Students from both grades are being asked to explore life in early communities, albeit from different time periods.  By looking at the big ideas of the social studies curriculum, it quickly becomes clear that there are very similar concepts being explored in both grades.

I took the 3 big ideas of each grade and merged them into three blended big ideas that can serve as overall foci for this unit.  By keeping these ideas in mind at all times, it becomes easier to develop a seamless unit.

When planning my unit, I kept referring back to these ideas:

1. Studying how communities in the past developed helps us understand aspects of our lives today.
2. The environment affected how people worked, played, and lived in early societies.
3. The lives of Indigenous peoples and settlers in early societies were different in many ways.

Why was the Social Studies Curriculum revised in 2018?

• In 2018 the curriculum was revised to meet the recommendations of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation on residential schools.  Not every grade or strand was affected by the changes.  Grades 4-8, as well as 10, were the focus of the revised curriculum.  This means that Grade 3 had no changes, but Grade 4 did!
• Both grades are expected to explore Indigenous Canadian communities:
• Grade 3:  First Nations and Metis (Metis did not exist before 1780.)
• Grade 4:  First Nations and Inuit (Inuit people have lived in North America prior to 1500.)
• Looking at the time periods for each grade, you'll see that Grade 3s are looking at 1780-1850  (post- European contact), well after the Grade 4 period which looks at life before 1500 (pre-European contact).  The gap between these time periods is not looked at until Grade 5!

What other communities can be explored?

Grade 3 students are focused solely on Canada but can explore the lives of European settlers, black communities, and other smaller groups.

Grade 4 students can expand their studies to look at Ancient Greece, Medieval England, Mesopotamia, and many other historical societies.  

Both grades can look at these communities while keeping in mind the blended big ideas of the strand, making life easier for both teacher and students!  

So How Can I Teach these Units at the Same Time?

• Mapping can be a great starting point for any social studies unit.  I have students look at a variety of maps, globes, and atlases to discuss their distinct features.  Then we move on to locating some of the societies we will be exploring.  In this particular unit, students look at why and how Europeans came to North America, and what life was like for people before and after this contact.
• Using a large timeline on classroom walls is a great way to chart when societies developed over time.  All the communities studied by both grades can be noted on this timeline.
• Teach lessons focused upon the big ideas, and then give each grade separate texts or resources to apply those big ideas to the communities they are studying.  For example, in exploring how the environment affected the types of shelters older societies used, Grade 3s can look at how the Inuit people created shelters in the frozen North, while the Grade 4s look at medieval homes in England.  
• At the end of each lesson, return students' attention to the big ideas.  How did the lesson help them understand that big idea a bit better?
• Use similar tasks, so that the two grades aren't doing something completely different.  For example, in the "Exit Ticket" below, both grades are describing food used by the communities studied.  Grade 3s look at First Nations, Metis, and European settler cuisine, while Grade 4s look at First Nations, Inuit, and Medieval English foods. Just cut the sheet apart to give to your Grade 3s and 4s!

Can I find a ready-made unit to help me teach Strand A in my Grade 3/4 split?

Yes, of course you can!  I've done all the work for you.  This Life in Early Communities unit contains 18 complete lesson plans, with all student texts, tasks, and assessments ready to go.  

Do you have a digital version of this unit?

Again, yes I do!  This version contains movable pieces, editable texts, and clickable links, while also including the same content as the original printable version!  Check it out here!

But I teach French Immersion - do you have this unit translated?

French Immersion teachers, I haven't forgotten about you!  I have both printable and digital versions of my Strand A unit.  Click here to see the "printable + digital" bundle!

If you have any questions about teaching this strand, whether or not it's specific to my own TPT resource, please feel free to email me at:

coachsteachingcorner@gmail.com!

Have a great week!

Margie

3 Tips for Using Word Walls in Elementary Social Studies

I am a huge fan of word walls in any subject, and have happily created walls for each math unit, science strand, and novel study I undertook.  Social studies is my particular love, though, and I find that students can struggle without concrete strategies being provided to help them master the content vocabulary.  A word wall is a quick and easy tool to make students comfortable with the new words and terms they encounter.  

Here are 3 tips to help make the most of any word wall in Grades 4-7.

1.  Display Strategies

a)  Word/Phrase + Definition + Image = Comprehension

Students do best when they can see an image related to a word or phrase has a short definition.

b)  Arrange by topic.  In the image here, you can see that an upcoming  municipal election is being studied by the class, and images of the candidates are displayed, as well as election terminology.

c)  Consider individual word walls for some students.  Students who struggle to maintain concentration when using a word wall on a bulletin board may do better with some key vocabulary gathered on a ring or in a folder.

2.  Play Games!

A word wall should never be a stagnant display, but a living tool in your classroom.  When you have a few extra minutes before it's time to go home, play one of the following games using the word wall.

a)  Hangman:  the traditional game, but students know ahead of time that each word is one that is already displayed in the room.

b)  5 Clues:  Choose a word card ahead of time, and create five clues that students can use to figure out what word card you have chosen. Read one clue at a time, and have students use each clue to determine what card you've chosen.  They win if they can guess the card before you have given all the clues.  For example, for the word "foothill", for example, the clues could be:

1.  It is one word.

2.  It is a compound word.

3.  It can be found in the environment.

4.  It is a land feature.

5.  It has two sets of double letters.

c)  Bingo with Clues:  Distribute blank 5 x 5 (or 4 x 4 or 3 x 3) bingo cards to your students.  Have them fill in each box with a word or phrase from the word wall.  Without calling out the actual word wall words themselves, give them a clue.  For example, for "elder", you could say "this is a word that describes a wise person in the community".  

Political and Physical Regions of Canada Word Wall
(image courtesy of Sidney McKay)

3.  Have Students Choose Some Words

Sometimes we assume students understand some vocabulary that seems very basic to us, and then find out we were wrong.  Having some blank word wall words available for those moments will allow you to grab that "teachable moment" and have a willing student create the word wall card for such vocabulary.  Having word wall words made by students makes the wall more meaningful and useful to them!

Click on the image here to get your FREE Canadian Government Word Wall Sampler!

Check out my line of Ontario Social Studies Curriculum word wall resources here.

 

 

Create Social Studies Projects that Engage Your Grades 4 to 6 Students!

 

At the end of a social studies units, teachers often find themselves struggling to design a "culminating task" that is engaging for students and provides teachers with an opportunity to assess overall curriculum expectations.

What makes a great culminating project or task?

A culminating task or project should:

• address the overall curriculum expectations for the unit.
• cause students to think deeply about the important issues or questions brought up during the unit.
• be engaging and hold the interest of students over time.
• be shared with students in advance, using physical models 
• have clear timelines and success criteria.

Before even beginning a unit I already know what the final tasks or projects will be, and using the "backward design" model I plan the entire unit, making sure that every lesson will contribute in some way towards that task.  

I show students what that task will look like early in the unit, and have them work on it bit by bit from lesson to lesson.  I precreate physical models of the different project options, so that students can choose the option that works best for them.  

Types of Projects

Some of my favourite culminating projects or tasks are:

1.  Brochures

2.  Project Cubes

3.  Posters

4.  Debates

5.  Report Cards

6.  Event

The image to the right show a "project cube" that I created for my Grade 4/5 class.  We were exploring Strand B of the Ontario Social Studies Curriculum, which focused on:

Grade 4:  Physical and Political Regions of Canada               

Grade 5:  The Role of Government and Responsible Citizenship

As a final task I wanted the Grade 4s to show how industry and the environment affect each other, and to describe how actions taken by citizens and industries can protect the environment while still meeting human needs.

The Grade 5s would describe and assess any government action has been taken to address an environmental issue, to show different perspectives on that issue, and to describe how Indigenous Peoples have been affected by the issue.

Students could choose to show their learning through a:

* project cube

* poster

* brochure

* scrapbook

* report

I gave physical models of each option, using the issue of invasive species in the Great Lakes.  I also shared clear criteria for each type of project.  (***For your own copy of these project criteria, click here OR on the image to the left!***)

If you are an Ontario Grade 4/5 teach who would like to check out the full unit, click here.

  

Scrapbook Page

              Report Card on Government Action (Grade 5)

Note:  A Grade 5 teacher recently contacted me to let me know that after creating a report card about how governments addressed food insecurity, her class took the "action plan" to another level by creating a huge fundraiser for a local food bank.  Students had been exploring inequities in food availability, and worked through the steps in my Grade 5 government unit to take action themselves!  Amazing!!

Reminder:  Click here or on the clipboard below to download your FREE editable social studies project criteria!

What are YOUR favourite types of culminating tasks or projects?  Let me know below!

Margie

Free Virtual Class Field Trips....for When You Can't Actually Visit in Person

 

I'm writing this blog post in Spring 2021, when my home province of Ontario is in lockdown, and schools are once again virtual.  Like many school districts across the world, planning a real field trip involving school buses and permission slips is not possible this year, so teachers are looking for alternatives.  

A virtual field trip is one that is done via technology; it allows anyone to visit a location that may be all the way across the world, from the comfort of their chair.  While many virtual field trips have a cost, there are tons of free possibilities out there!

Upper elementary or middle school teachers can check out these free tours to see if one or more of them can fit in with their curriculums or simply make an engaging way of spending time in those last few days of school.

Canada's Parliament Buildings

When I was in elementary school, another nearby school sent its Grade 8 classes to Ottawa for a week to visit Canada's capital while MY principal declared he wasn't a travel agent.  While those other classes were visiting the Parliament Buildings, I was visiting the class of Sister Marie Theresa's friend's class in Tilbury, another small town.  We visited local industries, ate lunch at the Blue Bonnet Cafe, and attended mass.  Two weeks later, their class came to Wallaceburg to visit our town.   I may still be holding a (massive) grudge about the whole episode.

So, I never did get to see those Parliament Buildings, but you and your class can, courtesy of the internet.  Make your way through:

a) the Peace Tower Observation Deck.

b) the Memorial Centre.

c) the House of Commons.

d) the Prime Minister's Office.

e) the Library of Parliament.

f)  a meeting room.

Iqaluit:  Explore the Canadian Arctic

This site is in development, but it allows your students to discover a bit about what it would be like to live in an arctic community, which can only be accessed by plane or boat!

The Emerald Edge Rainforest 

Visit the largest intact coastal temperate rainforest in the world, which your students may be surprised to learn stretches across Canada's west coast into Alaska in the north and back to the United States (Washington).  The rainforest is home to more than 50 Indigenous communities and a vast array of wildlife.

Soarin' - Walt Disney World

If you have a few minutes to kill, take your class to my very favourite ride at my favourite place in the world!  They will fly over the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, and the Eiffel Tower, to name a few.   While we can't visit Disney right now, we CAN go virtually soaring!

Eiffel Tower

My friend Michelle McDonald has put together a free virtual trip to the Eiffel Tower in France!  It includes informational text, questions, and a grading rubric to go along with a video.  This has been created in Google Slides, and requires no paper!

San Diego Zoo Animal Cams 

The San Diego Zoo has webcams set up 24/7 on thirteen different animals, including elephants, koalas and penguins.  Your students might enjoy popping in on some of these animals to see what life is like for them.  You might want to tie this in with the great book Should There Be Zoos? by Tony Stead, found in almost every school library!

Quebec

This is another virtual tour created in Google Slides (created by me!).  Students learn about the Quebec Winter Carnival, visit the Indigenous community of Inukjuak, and become acquainted with some unique facts about this province.
  

If you would your students to explore all thirteen provinces and territories of Canada, check the full resource by clicking here or on the image below.

4 Great Ways to End the School Year!

How do you like to end the school year in your upper elementary or middle school class?  I aim for activities that engage my students' imaginations and interests, while also reviewing academic content from the year we've spent together. 

Here are a few ideas for you to consider as that last day of school finally approaches!

Board Games

Two or three weeks before school ends, I begin a board game unit.  It takes about 11 days in all, with the end products being student-created games that review different academic subject areas.  This is one of the most successful activities I do, and students look forward to it all year!  

We start by playing and examining different board games we have in our classroom or from home, looking at:

• how instructions are formatted
• types of different game boards
• types of playing pieces (ie. dice, cards, etc.)

Students then get into groups, with each group choosing a different academic subject. Then day by day, with structured support, they create a board game that can be played by their peers and by next year's students.  

My students have so much fun with this unit that I'm not sure they realize that they are actually reviewing the full school year.  If you would like to check out the board game I created for my TPT store, click here!

Debates

Another great activity that grabs students' attention are class debates.  To help them meet with success, I:

• show online videos of student debates.
• carefully teach the formal structure of a debate.
• put students in teams of 3, with each team debating against one other team.
• demonstrate how to research and prepare for a debate.
• involve students not directly in a particular debate to become "shareholders" in the debate topic, allowing them to assess each debate team using specific criteria

If you would like a free debate schedule/organizer, click here!  I also have a full class debate unit available in my TPT store.

Book Swaps

At the end of every school year my classroom library always requires some "weeding" and reorganizing. Long ago I realized that  I could involve my students in this task, and from that initial thought I developed my annual "book swap" event.

My process for this book swap is:

1. Review characteristics of each literary genre (ie. adventure, historical fiction, etc.) and each type of non-fiction texts. As our class library was set up by students back in September by genre, they are brought back full-circle!  
2. I assign pairs or groups of students to each genre, and have them go through that genre's book bins to ensure that each book belongs there.  Students also look for books that we have more than two copies of, or that are no longer in prime shape, and set those aside for our book swap.
3. All extra copies and outdated books are put in a box.
4. I send a letter home to parents explaining that we will be having a book swap day coming up. I invite students to bring in a book or two that they no longer need or want with their parents' permission.  For each book they bring in, I give them a "book swap ticket".
5. 
   The day before our book swap day, students sort ALL the available books (books students previously weeded from our class collection + books they brought in), and create labels for each genre.
6. Book Swap Day:  students exchange their "book swap tickets" for new-to-them books.  Students who were unable to bring in books from home also have an opportunity to select books from the extras from the classroom.  

Now all students have some new reading material for the summer!

Get your FREE Book Swap Planner here!

Clear Out the Classroom Day!

In addition to extra books, which I deal with through our annual book swap, I usually find myself with tons of items that can easily be given to students.  (NOTE:  I make sure I have checked with my principal before doing this activity.)  Those items can include:

• extra freebies included in Scholastic Book orders throughout the year.
  
• posters I will no longer need.
• extra craft supplies that will not be needed in the future
• books left over from the Book Swap or from Scholastic orders
• leftover "rewards" from our classroom reward program.

I tie this "clearout" in with our class reward program,  which you can read about in this blog post.  I fill our token bucket with ALL of the students' tokens, and gather it together with all the items I plan to giveaway.  We settle into a nice shady spot on the playground,  and I randomly reach in and grab a token.  That student gets to choose one item to keep, and then s/he reaches into the token bucket to choose the next token/student.  We keep going until all the items have been given away. 

What is YOUR favourite end of year activity?  I'd love to hear about it!

Margie

The Ultimate Classroom Debate Guide

Engaging students in their learning can be a challenge in any classroom, but there is one tried-and-true strategy to rev up their interest:  a classroom debate!  I was first introduced to this activity back when I was in Grade 11, as Mr. Deery, our English teacher, scheduled a class debate every Friday.  No one ever wanted to be absent on a Friday, because those classes were the best of the week!  When I became an elementary school teacher I knew that with careful planning, younger students could successfully participate in debates.

How do debates address curriculum expectations or academic standards?

I live in Ontario, Canada, where our provincial Ministry of Education provides a curriculum guide for each subject.  Teachers plan activities that address the expectations in these documents.  At a quick glance, debates can be planned that meet expectations in the following subject areas for Grade 6:

• Language Arts: 
• Oral Communication:  1.2 - Demonstrate active listening strategies
• Reading:  1.4 - Demonstrate understanding (by summarizing & explaining important ideas and citing relevant supporting details)
• Writing:  1.3  Research (gather information to support ideas)

• Social Studies:
• Strand B:  Canada's Interactions with the Global Community
• B1.2:  analyse responses of Canadian governments and NGOs to an economic, environmental, political and/or social issue of international significance.
• Science:
• Understanding Life Systems - Biodiversity
• Analyse a local issue related to biodiversity, taking different points of view into consideration.

If you teach in other areas of the country or world, you most likely have very similar standards which can be met through the use of class debates.

What are the rules of a debate?

Debates offer a specific structure that make lesson planning quite easy.  (Click here or on the image to the right to download a FREE debate schedule!)

• Students are placed in teams of 3.
• Two teams are involved in each debate:  three students each on the affirmative and negative teams.
• A debate topic is assigned or chosen for each debate.   For a unit on government, for example, the debate topic statement could be presented as "All citizens should be required to vote."  The affirmative team supports this statement, and the negative team would dispute it.
• Each team member is given a specific responsibility:
• Student 1:  Give initial statement AND summary statement.
• Student 2:  Give a rebuttal to the other teams initial statement.
• Student 3:  Gives a rebuttal to the other team's rebuttal. 
• I have all students not actively participating in a specific debate complete an evaluation form after each part of the debate.  At the end, each students vote for the team they felt presented the best argument.

What are some debate ideas?

Because I love to teach with a cross-curricular approach, I look to science, social studies and health for debate topics.  Here are some ideas to consider:

• The voting age should be lowered.
• All restaurants should eliminate the use of plastic straws and cutlery.
• Children under 14 years old should not be allowed on any social media site.
• Companies should be allowed to use animals to test their products on.
• Virtual learning is as effective as in-class learning.

There are many websites that have hundreds of great debate topics for you to consider!

What else should I consider when planning a debate unit?

• Allow students to watch some online debates by students their own age!
• Invite a high school debate team to your classroom to conduct a mini-debate and answer your students' questions.
• Allow the "audience" to become "stakeholders".  Stakeholders are individuals who have a specific reason for being interested in the topic.  If one of your topics involves the use of plastics in restaurants, for example, some of your students could watch the debate from the perspectives of restaurant owners or staff.

Where can I learn more?

I'm glad you asked!  Check out my 4-day complete debate unit for Grades 4-7, which has complete lesson plans, organizers, and assessment tools to help make your class debate a highlight of the school year!

Ontario Grade 4/5 Blended Social Studies: Strand B

Teaching a split grade always has its challenges, but it can be done less painfully than some people think!  Let's take a look at the 2018 Ontario Social Studies Curriculum Strand B foci for Grades 4 and 5!  

Strand B is the People and Environments strand.  This strand asks students to explore the "geographic, social, political, economic, and environmental issues in the context of local, regional, national and global communities" with a goal to "develop an understanding of the social and environmental responsibilities of citizens and of various levels of government."

The two separate units are:

Grade 4:  Political and Physical Regions of Canada

Grade 5:  The Role of Government and Responsible Citizenship

What are the big ideas?

By looking at the Strand B "big ideas" for each grade, we can find commonalities to create blended big ideas.  Check out this chart:

By focusing on these big ideas, teachers can help  students:

• explore environmental issues that affect Canadian regions and provinces.
• look at how governments, groups, and citizens respond to these issues

Taking this approach allowed me to create a unit where both grades looked at:

• a variety of environmental issues in Canada's regions, provinces and territories.
• how humans actions (by individuals, industries and governments) affect the environment.
• how the environment affects humans, organizations and governments. 
• different perspectives on the issue.
• how Indigenous groups have been affected by these issues.
• future governmental actions that may address these issues in a positive manner.

Each student examines an environmental issue from one province or territory (I provide three issues per territory). and as a culminating activity creates a poster, scrapbook, report, brochure or cube detailing what they have learned.  Students include images and recommendations for the future.  

By using the big ideas in the curriculum in this way, it becomes easy to see how alike the two grade level expectations are, and to create a plan that allows both grades to look at the same issues with slightly different foci:

Grade 4:  What ARE the issues, and how have the environment and humans interacted with each other?

Grade 5:  How have levels of government affected these issues either positively or negatively, and what can be done in the future?

If this sounds like a direction you can see you and your students embracing, check out my Strand B unit.  (Good news:  I created both printable and digital versions, which can be purchased separately or as a bundle!) 

This printable version has complete lesson plans and examples of completed student work!

The digital version contains the same student texts and tasks in full colour with movable pieces and interactive texts, perfect for distance learning or meeting IEP accommodations.

The best of both worlds is the bundle, which makes it possible to have some students working with printable materials while others cover the same texts and tasks in digital form:

Teaching Canadian Government in Elementary School

 

Looking for some new ideas to teach Canadian government in your Grade 4-6 social studies class?  Believe it or not, it can be engaging for both you and your students!  

Check out these 3 ideas for bringing Canadian government alive in your classroom!

Newspaper Article Sort 

Find newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, and any other current print resources that have information relevant to any level of government.  (If it's an election year, you will have more than enough material delivered by the candidates and their campaign teams right to your door!)  Check with your local newspaper, and see if they would be willing to donate (or sell at a steep discount) copies of their papers for your government unit.

After spending some time teaching about the 3 levels of government and their responsibilities, explain that all forms of media spend much of their time investigating and reporting upon issues that are important to all Canadians, all people in a province or territory, and/or citizens of a municipality.  Create a chart with three columns:  Federal/Provincial (or Territorial)/Municipal.

Distribute the print resources you have to students, and ask them to cut out and sort any articles in which a level of government might be involved. Once completed, take one level and discuss the various issues students found that might be handled by that government. Repeat with the other two levels of government. If you wanted to take the learning further, you could proceed with the next strategy, which is.....Community Mapping.

Community Mapping

The Ontario Social Studies Curriculum for Grade 5, Strand B states that students "will develop plans of action to address significant social and environmental issues".  The easiest way to approach this is by having your students IDENTIFY social and environmental issues within their immediate community, whether that be the school catchment area, the small town they live in, or the rural area that surrounds the school.

Here is a short summary of what I have done in my own class:

1. Community Features: Class makes a chart of buildings, features and services that people might expect when moving to a new community.
2. Community Walk:Class takes a walk through the community, looking for the buildings services, and features from their chart, as well as identifying issues in the community.
3. Community Mapping:  Students return to class.  Each student or pair of students creates a "bird-eye" view map of the community.  
4. Community Issues:  Students discuss and chart the community features they noticed, using their maps as a reference tool.  They then create a 2nd "Issues" chart, noting where the community could benefit from some improvements.
5. Choosing Community Action Focus:  Have students form groups.  Each group chooses ONE "issue" from the community for which they will create an action plan to address. For example, in the "Issues" chart below, one group might decide to take on the lack of a municipal pool, and create their plan to approach the municipal country to address the lack of a splash pad or pool.
6. Community Action Plan:  Students make a plan for doing further research, contacting local officials, planning a publicity session.....the options are endless!

Chat Stations

If you're looking for a quick introduction to Canadian government, try introducing some "chat stations" into your classroom.  Collect anywhere between 6 and 12 government-related issues or images, and post each in different spot in your classroom, along with a prompt or question for students to consider as they rotate in small groups from station to station.  (You may want each group to record their thoughts on a clipboard as they rotate through the stations.)  After everyone has had a chance to visit each station, bring them back together to discuss each station.  

I hope at least one of these ideas inspires you to try something new with your class this year!  If you're looking for more ideas and activities to support you in teaching Canadian government, consider these resources from my Coach's Corner TPT store: