Project 1: Chez Nous
(Customs and Traditions at my place and Yours)

  General Information

  Project Overview

The class group will decide the customers and traditions on which they wish to focus. They will compile information on their customs and traditions and devise a list of questions which will collect information on how students celebrate the same occasion in another French Immersion class within the province, a Francophone class outside the province and a class in another French country. For example, they may wish to focus on St. Patrick;s Day, April Fool's Day, etc.

The information will be sent to cooperating classes once the teacher has confirmed an agreement to participate from the other teachers.

After receiving information students will spend time comparing their celebration of these occasions to those of others.

  Curriculum Connections

This project relates to the Social Studies program as well as the Language Arts program.

The mission statement of our school includes a commitment to providing students with the skills and attitudes necessary to become a responsible citizen within a global community. Learning about customs and traditions of others within the province, within the country and in another part of the world is a good beginning to developing an understanding of their fellow world citizens.

The language learning that would take place is particularly connected to the writing process in which writing, rewriting and editing would take place before a finished product would set be sent.

Intended Learning Outcomes:

Social Studies:

• understand that the nature of culture is dynamic
• recognize what culture is
• examine how cultures are expressed locally

Language Arts:

• write for different purposes and audiences
• write a draft
• organize ideas, revise, edit for appropriate use of conventions (e.g., spelling, capital letters)
• create a final draft and share work

Technology Education:

• use communications technologies to build new knowledge from existing information
• use communications tools to access, evaluate and select appropriate information, and to create, modify and disseminate information

Activities:

• collect information related to the customs and traditions surrounding the event to be studies
• using a group effort, write a draft description of these customs and traditions
• rewrite and edit the draft copy until the piece is ready to share with an audience
• send the information to the participating class
• read responses from the corresponding class
• compile the information collected on the event being studies and when the final copy is ready to share it with the participating classes

  Resource Connections

Access to the Internet is essential to carry out this project. Currently there is one computer linked to STEM~Net for teachers and neither to the Internet.

Communication via the Internet will be especially rewarding for these students. It will be exciting for them to be in touch with students elsewhere who speak and write in French. Collaborating with other French speaking individuals in the local environment is limited to the school French Immersion student body.

We have a 16 unit computer room which will be able to be used to access the Internet.

Students will be able to send messages to and receive responses from cooperating classes.

Other resources:

• encyclopedias
• books about customs and traditions

  Evaluation

The success of this project will be determined by the success of students to communicate to others and receive information from others on the topic, customs and traditions. At the end of the project students should have enough to compile information that will allow them to compare at least one or more customs or traditions across the participating groups. The process by which this will be accomplished will relate to the previously stated Internet Learning Outcomes.

Teacher observation of the process and the children's final work product will be a measure of success. Recognition by the children that people may celebrate the same event differently depending on their culture will help them better understand that there are differences in how people live.

As familiarity with the Internet grows the project will be refined and shared with others in future years.