Hutterite Immigration Learning Sequence

 

One of the units Manitoba students study in grade 2 Social Studies, is Canadian Communities.  It is here that students learn about the first Canadians and people who immigrated to Canada.  One of the outcomes from this unit states that “students will recognize that many people came to Canada from other parts of the world to establish communities.”  For me this is the ideal opportunity to give my students their first introduction to Hutterite immigration! 

 Following are activities I’ve used to teach this outcome:

Introduction

I have several picture books on immigration which I’ve listed at the end of this post.  My favourite one however, is When Jessie Came Across the Sea by Amy Hest.  I use this as a spin-off to discuss the concept of immigration and Hutterites coming to America.

Mapping

To trace back from where their local colony originated, I use the Hutterite Members App or a Hutterite phone book.  The Members App has a “Colony Tree” feature where we traced Elm River’s origin all the way back to Alvinz, Transylvania.  I created cards where I recorded each colony’s name, country, flag and years of existence.  Some of these communities are extinct, while others continue to thrive. 

On a world map mounted on a bulletin board, the students used string to connect the cards, which are stapled above the map, to the places on the map.  Next, they complete the BLM: Hutterite Immigration, recording the country names and drew and coloured the flags.

Suitcase Project

Discussion: What would Hutterites have brought along when they came to America.  What would they not be able to bring along?  Brainstorm what students would pack in their own suitcases if they had to move to a different country.  Send home a copy of the letter explaining the project to their parents.  At home, they make a display of their chosen items and email the photo to their teacher to print.  Create a suitcase out of construction paper.  Fill in BLM: Traveling to a New Land  by listing the items they would take along.  Draw the items or glue the photo inside the “suitcase.”  Attach a name tag with students’ full name and address. Students can decorate their suitcase with travel related stickers. 

Hutterite Soup Beans

One item that someone, perhaps a gardener, had the foresight of bringing to America are Hutterite Soup Beans.  These can be purchased / ordered from the Heirloom section of seed stores / catalogs.   To tie in science, (parts of plants, needs of plants, etc.) plant them with the students and have them take care of them. 
If possible, make bean soup.  An article about beans can be found at Manitoba Co-operator website: An Heirloom Harvest Spurs memories by Linda Maendel.  To read it click here.

Story Telling

Invite Dora Maendel from Fairholme to come (or on ITV) tell the Maendel Story and/or Sonn Ankela Story

Music Connection

A song is currently being composed by Butch Wipf and Dora Maendel about Hutterite immigration.  Once it’s completed, a recording of it will be added here.

 

Books

• A Light Kindled by Tracy M Leininger (a pilgrim story of home)
• Anna’s Goats by Janice Kulyk Keefer (a story of hope and memories)
• Spoken memories by Aliki (immigration memories)
• Thank You Canada by Andrea Lynn Beck (celebrating our country’s strengths)
• Hutterites in Canada by Frances Purslow (history of Hutterite communities in Canada)
• The Whispering Cloth by Pegi Deitz Shea (a refugee story)
• Gleam and Glow by Eve Bunting (finding hope)
• When Jessie came across the sea by Amy Hest (immigration memories)
  
  
  

 

 

 

Maple Sapping Time

Maple Time

My sister Sonia has been maple sapping for five years or so.  Since she began this annual early spring project, I've wanted to include my students in the process, perhaps make some kind of hands-on lesson out of it. 

My students have seen Sonia out and about tapping trees and collecting sap, so they naturally wanted to share what they'd observed.  My nephew Jakobi has even helped Sonia, so of course he shared some long-winded stories.

Other Articles on Maple Sap

My sister Linda has posted several articles on Sonia's maple sapping on her blog which you can read here.   She also wrote an article on this topic for the Manitoba Cooperator.  The link here will take you to here blog and there you'll find the link to the Manitoba cooperator article.  Scroll down the the Crossroads section to page 29 to read it.

Maple Books

Each spring during maple sapping time, I dug out my books on maple sapping.  Sometimes I read one to my students but didn't do much more.  This year my planning is working out!My grade 1 & 2 students are just working on the social studies unit Canadian Communities.  One of the first topics in this unit is Aboriginal contributions and lad-de-da -- maple syrup!

We started our maple unit by reading and comparing the following books which are all set in different time periods:

• Maple Moon by Conniebrummel Crook;
• At Grandpa's Sugar Bush by Margaret Carney and  
• A Day at the Sugar Bush by Megan Faulkner.  

 

Our Maple Projects

Next, we joined Sonia in every step of the process from drilling, to collecting the sap, to hauling wood scraps from for commercial carpenter shop, to finally cooking the sap into maple syrup.  We enjoyed several tasting sessions as we worked on this project: raw sap, hotdogs cooked in sap, maple butter on toast and waffles topped with whipped cream and maple syrup.

To commemorate this special event, we created a class book entitled Maple Sapping at Elm River Colony.  This book that outlines the entire process as well is the graphed results of our favourite maple treats.   We've added it to our class library where we can now boast of four maple sapping books. 

Canadian Postcard Exchange project

                   

Social Studies Grade 1, Cluster2

Learning About My Province and Country

My class received postcards  from across Canada almost every week throughout the past school year and learned so much about our fabulous country!

 

Preparation:

I registered my class for the Canadian Postcard Exchange project in August at: Pro Teacher.  The organizer, Betty Welch, a teacher from Sylvan Lake, Alberta organizes the entire project and works hard to ensure that at least one school from each province and territory isinvolved.  She sent a schedule for when each class was to send their postcards. I prepared a bulletin board with a Canada map in the centre and an outline of a bar graph with provinces and territories as categories.  I also created a black line master for recording interesting facts about each community that sends us a postcard.  These were placed in a binder.

Introduction

     I asked students if they have ever seen/received a postcard and showed them samples of postcards.  We brainstormed for ideas to write about to tell people about facts and special things about our school and community.  Next, we decided on a picture idea and created a postcard using Microsoft Publisher.  Once our postcards were completed, we took a mini-fieldtrip to the tiny post office in Newton to mail them.

Postcard Lesson

As the postcards arrived: I read them to my class and had students relate several interesting facts from the postcard; recorded them to BLM.  I also had them note the symbol on the postage stamp.  We used Google maps (on our SMARTboard) to look up the communities they come from and graphed what province or territory the postcards are from.  Students located the community on the BB Canada map and stapled postcard to BB and drew lines from the postcard to the location on the map.  After the first few weeks of reading postcards as soon as they arrived, we designated Friday as “Postcard” reading day. 

At the end of the year, we took down the postcards.  I suggest allowing time for students to enjoy and reminisce.  We created a concrete postcard graph on our Learning Carpet and checked if the data on this graph matched that of the bar graph.  In addition, we compiled a scrapbook which includes all the postcards in the interesting facts BLMs.  This proved to be rather time-consuming, so I suggest numbering the postcards as you post them on the BB which would make the year-end scrapbook project easier.  

 

I encourage all primary classrooms to sign up for a great year of learning about Canada one postcard at a time!  Just click on the link above to register your class.

 

                      

End of the School Year

We've all seen various versions of "survival kits", which include such things as "an elastic to remind you to keep flexible... a paper clip to keep it all together..."
This year I created not a survival kit, but a "Summertime Wishes Kit" for my students.
Below are the contents for my kits:

I typed the following onto card-stock and placed it inside zip lock bags with the contents.

Summertime Wishes

Here are a few items to help you have a great summer –

Bouncy Ball: take lots of time to play games 

Bookmark: read some good books

Balloon: have fun, fun, fun!

Stickers: stick together with some good friends

Pencil & Tablet: write down a few wonderful summer memories 

Smarties: keep smart, sweet and especially safe!

              Love, Elma & Linda

My students were pleased with their little bag of goodies as they set out on their summer holidays.