the planning department: Oh Canada!

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This is the sixth in a series of “the planning department” articles. In the first three articles Brenda gave a framework and some strategies for planning literature based themes. The fourth and fifth articles highlighted some of the fiction books and resources used in the theme called Oh, Canada! All articles are available in pdf format at www. Canadian TeacherMagazine.com.

In the previous “planning department” articles I outlined one way to plan and structure a literature based theme. As an example, I used the theme that my teaching partner and I call Oh, Canada! This unit is eight weeks long. Each week we focus on one Canadian symbol, animal and geographical feature. A picture book is chosen to match the learning outcomes for each week, making a mini-theme. Although the literature that we choose forms the core of the theme there are many excellent non-fiction books that we use to enhance the learning. Of these, the atlas is our most crucial resource.

The atlas that you use obviously depends on what is available to you at your school. The main goal is to have a complete class set of an atlas that matches the reading abilities of the students you work with. In our experience, we were originally sharing a class set between several classrooms. The texts were outdated and too detailed for younger children to use successfully. When the opportunity arose I was happy to have some input into planning an atlas that well suits the needs of students from grades 2 to 4, or for older students who are working on adapted or modified programs.

If you are in the position of being able to order a new set of atlases for your class, I would like to recommend The Junior Atlas of Canada and the World from Pacific Edge Publishing. This colourful atlas provides children with simplified political and physical maps of the world, the continents, Canada and the provinces. The Junior Atlas is recommended by the Ministry of Education in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

There is a comprehensive Map Skills Workbook to accompany the Atlas. The reproducible pages focus on the key concepts for learning Map Skills as well as the geography of Canada and the World. There is also a detailed section on Canadian symbols. Pre and Post tests are provided for each section.
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The following activities will work with any atlas:

Before Reading

1. The Globe
Goal: To access the students’ prior knowledge about globes
You will need:
- a globe, two grapefruit, a chopstick or similar object, a black marker and a knife

A. Brainstorm, as a class, any information the students might have about globes.

B. Look at a globe and discuss:
- a globe is a model of the world.
- a globe is a sphere; when you look at a globe you can only see the side facing you.

C. Demonstration:
- hold up the grapefruit and explain that half of a sphere is called a hemisphere.
- imagine that the gapefruit is a globe. Push the chopstick right through to show the position of the north and south poles. Show how the globe rotates around the line represented by the chopstick. Label the poles with the marker.

D. Demonstration:
- draw a line to represent the equator on the fruit.
- cut the fruit along the equator.
- explain that these are the northern and southern hemispheres.
- repeat the procedure with the second grapefruit to show the eastern and western hemispheres.

2. Globes and Maps
Goal: To access the students’ prior knowledge about globes and maps.
You will need:
- a globe, a large wall map and a grapefruit

A. Brainstorm, as a class, any information the students might have about globes and maps.

B. Look at the globe and discuss:
- a globe is a model of the world.
- a globe and the planet Earth are both spheres.
- the different colours show land masses (continents) and water (oceans).

C. Look at the wall map and discuss:
- a map is a flat drawing of the world,
- globes and maps are used by people to learn about the world.

D. Demonstration:
- have the students locate and point to the continents and oceans on the map and the globe.

E. Venn Diagram:
- draw a Venn diagram on the chalkboard.
- record the similarities and differences between the globe and the wall map.

F. Demonstration:
- discuss how difficult it is for cartographers to make a flat drawing of the Earth.
- carefully peel the grapefruit so that the peel stays in one piece. Flatten the peel and discuss how cartographers use the same principal to make a flat map of a round world, and how they have to distort land and water masses to make a picture of the round world that fits on a rectangular piece of paper.

During Reading

1. The Atlas – text features
Goal: To have the students recognize and identify the text features of an atlas.
You will need:
- a class set of atlases

A. Establish that a book of maps is called an atlas.

B. Distribute the atlases to the class. Walk through the book with them and identify the text features and their purposes. This list can be recorded on chart paper, on the chalkboard, the students’ response journals, etc.
- The Cover: Helps the reader determine what information the atlas might give, the author(s), and the publishing company.
- Table of Contents: Helps the reader to understand the organization of the atlas.
- Headings: Help the reader to determine the information given on each page.
- Maps: Help the reader to locate things in the world.
- Titles: Tell the reader what the map is about.
- Labels: Name the lakes, rivers and cities on a map.
- Symbols: Are drawn on maps to represent different things.
- Legends: Help the reader to decode the symbols on a map.
- Photographs: Help the reader to see exactly what an item looks like.
- Captions: Help the reader to understand the pictures or photographs.
- Types of Print: Changes of colour, size and shape help the reader to focus on the important points in the text.
- Sidebars: Help the reader to focus on key pieces of information.
- Index: Lists the contents of the atlas in alphabetical order, with page numbers.

2. Word Search
Goal: To have the students focus on the vocabulary used in an atlas.
You will need:
- a piece of foolscap for each student labelled down the margin from A-Z.
- or a piece of paper divided into 26 squares labelled from A-Z.
This activity can be done independently, in pairs or small groups.

A. Have the students walk through the atlas to locate words beginning with each letter of the alphabet.

B. Have the students record the words on the lines or in the boxes for each letter.

C. Capable students could search for more than one word for each letter.

After Reading
1. The Atlas – text features
Goal: To have the students develop a deeper understanding of the text features of an atlas and to make connections between the text and themselves.
You will need:
- student response journals

A. Re-read the chart of atlas text features. Discuss any questions that the students might have.

B. Have the students complete the following sentences in their journals:
One text feature in my atlas is
It helped me understand what I was reading because

2. Word Search Follow-up
A. As a class discuss the results of this activity. Students who could not find a word for each letter may “borrow” one from other students or make one up.

Brenda Boreham has been teaching for over 25 years using an integrated approach in her classroom. She has written several teachers’ guides and presents popular workshops at District Pro D days.