Day 5 & 6: Giant Canada Map

Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4

Day 5 saw seven back-to-back classes from K-6 at Oyen Public School.

The principal, Mr. Duchscherer, started the morning off by bringing in the Kindergarten crop! This was a first to have a whole class of kinders. We played follow the leader, practiced the directions of a compass, dipped our toes in lakes, and hopped on islands. And there was still time left…so we sorted the very versatile stack of animal pictures into two categories: “lives in the Arctic” and “lives in Oyen”. Mission accomplished.

The grade 1-4 classes all had some version of the basic geography and map awareness activities as we explored all areas of the map. Outlining parts of Canada with the plastic chains is always a hit – and the grade 1 class ended up making a border around all of Canada. Grades 1-3 also did various activities with the animal cards.

And being either brave or foolish, I took another go at the “Amazing Race” giant map trivia game with the grade fives and grade six class. (Not so successful on Day 2 or Day 3). I was careful to directly discuss key concepts such as degrees on a compass, compass directions, the legend, the locations of the provinces, and a brief discussion about electoral districts, all while endeavouring to have more time to solve the clues in the Amazing Race. And this time, success! The grade five classes had several groups get several answers before it was time to go. The grade six class had a group answer ALL of the items correctly and the teacher, Mrs. S. was very disappointed that the class had to leave before she could work out all of the clues. The biggest difference was longer time to work on the clues, and a better review of province locations.

Day 6 might have been a first for a giant Canada floor map. We went to a Hutterite colony and set up the map in the school basement which serves as the gymnasium. As I suspected, despite the teacher’s assurance, the basement space was not enough to spread out the whole map. Fortunately, it was long enough, but only about half wide enough, so we worked with the middle of the map. This school has twelve students from K-9. The wide mix of ages meant a range of activities where we focused on map basics; these students had some of the best knowledge of the provinces of Canada. Because of the small number, we didn’t have time to do the “map terms matching” activity, so this was the perfect opportunity to turn the activity into a game of Memory. Each side had a wide age range of students, and we ended in a perfect tie! The set of Geo-terms cards has definitely been the most useful lesson item that I created.

After a 2 hour drive north to Jenner School, we only had time for 25-minute sessions with the three different age groupings in this triple graded K-9 school (with 29 students). Once again, students were awed and amazed by the huge size of the map. Upon the principal’s request, we practiced provinces and territories along with the geo features. In addition, the K-3 crowd sorted animals, the 4-6 crowd briefly learned about electoral districts, and the 7-9 group, with only 15 minutes, focused on electoral districts.

Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4