My Grade 5 class knew very little about Canada's geography when we started the year. We did a carousel activity the opening week where they made lists of the provinces/territories, cities in Canada, bodies of water, and so on. There were more wrong answers than right.
Another teacher and myself came up with a Canada map puzzle project. Students were given pieces of the country that they needed to assemble. This lead to a lot of discussion among the students about where things should go. I liked hearing the students say the actual names of the provinces/territories, as well as directional words like east and west. After the puzzle was assembled, they simply coloured the provinces and territories. We did a few side activities on the provinces/territories and their capitals before they returned to their maps to label.
There are six geographical regions that we need to cover, so we started on the east coast with the Atlantic/Appalachian region. Students recorded what they think they know about the region's climate, vegetation, natural resources, bodies of water, animals, and landforms on little pieces of paper attached to toothpicks. I was pleasantly surprised with their comments. Most responses were bang on with the region, so maybe they were paying attention when I showed them a Canada film the first week of school. After learning about the region, we'll return to the map and add new learning with different coloured paper and taller toothpicks, so they stand out a bit more.
I'm excited to see the final product.
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