Social Studies

Grade 4:

Our current unit in social studies is called Heritage and Identity: Early Societies 3000 BCE-1500CE

In this unit students will be learning about the regions, resources, provinces, territories, jobs etc. in Canada.

Curriculum Big Ideas:

  • Application: compare key aspects of life in a few early societies (3000 BCE–1500 CE), each from a different region and era and representing a different culture, and describe some key similarities and differences between these early societies and present-day Canadian society (FOCUS ON: Continuity and Change; Perspective)

  • Inquiry: use the social studies inquiry process to investigate ways of life and relationships with the environment in two of more early societies (3000 BCE–1500 CE), with an emphasis on aspects of the interrelationship between the environment and life in those societies (FOCUS ON: Interrelationships)

  • Understanding Context: demonstrate an understanding of key aspects of a few early societies (3000 BCE–1500 CE), each from a different region and era and representing a different culture, with reference to their political and social organization, daily life, and relationships with the environment and with each other (FOCUS ON: Significance)

Our Current Learning Goals:

  • compare social organization (e.g., social classes, general political structure, inherited privilege, the status of women) in two or more early societies (e.g., a slave-owning and a feudal society; a matriarchal First Nation and a society in medieval Asia)

  • compare aspects of the daily lives of different groups in an early society (e.g., the work, family life, education, food, dress, and/or housing of a slave and senator in ancient Rome, women of different castes in medieval India, a serf and lord in feudal England, a man and a woman in medieval China or Mohawk society, or a merchant and noble in Renaissance Italy), and explain how differences were related to the social organization of that society (e.g., the caste system in India; the matriarchal organization of some First Nations; classes in imperial Rome or in feudal societies in Europe or Asia; the emergence of a wealthy merchant class in Renaissance Italy)

  • describe some of the ways in which their daily life differs from the lives of young people from different backgrounds (e.g., wealthy, poor, slave, urban, rural, nomadic) in two or more early societies (e.g., with reference to family life, education, leisure time and recreation, responsibilities, work)

Important vocabulary: