Treaty Grade 3

Treaties Grade 3

Topic: Treaties

Grade level: Grade Three

Subject: Social Studies

Treaties are generally made for at least two reasons: to obtain or maintain peace and/or to obtain/retain land. Treaty/agreement lessons to this point have emphasized the use of agreements/treaties to help meet some of the needs and wants people have for food, shelter, etc. This lesson emphasizes the use of treaties/agreements to help ensure peace between different peoples. A good time to teach this lesson would be prior to or around November 11, Remembrance Day or if a school outing to Treaty Days is planned.

Context:

Curriculum: This lesson is designed to fit into Unit 3-Interdependence; Module 1-Human Needs and Wants of the Saskatchewan Curriculum Guide for Grade 3 Social Studies.

Common Essential Learnings: This is a lesson that emphasizes oral communication (C) and an appreciation and empathy of another person’s situation (PSVS) in order to ensure peace (PSVS).

Adaptive Dimension: This lesson is intended to accommodate a community’s need for its children to understand and appreciate the need for peace and acquire some skill in negotiating peaceful settlements of disagreements. The lesson also attempts to meet a community’s need to make its curriculum relevant to real life. There is also opportunity to invite community members to participate in the learning of the students.

Indian and Metis Content: Students will hopefully gain some basic knowledge and appreciation of the treaty process between government and First Nations.

Student At-Risk Considerations: This lesson could be quite useful for those at-risk students who have difficulty resolving conflict peacefully or for those who internalize their feelings in conflict situations especially if the lesson is extended into more formal conflict resolution session.

Objectives:

Know that conflicts may be resolved using peaceful means(PSVS, C);

Know that communities around the world and at home have features that are interdependent (CCT, N);

Identify and evaluate basic needs and wants as well as rights and responsibilities(C, PSVS, CCT;

Learn to resolve conflicts using an agreement (C, PSVS, IL);

Appreciate human needs and wants, rights and responsibilities (PSVS, C);

Value peaceful means of conflict resolution(C, PSVS);

Apply some of the principles of peaceful conflict resolution (C. PSVS).

Teaching Methods:

Webbing

Guided discussion, brainstorming, group discussion

Journal writing, art activities, reflection

Monitoring and intervention, goals

Materials Needed:

A scenario description: could be countries developing a treaty to share outer space; students making an agreement to share their classroom with another new group of students; or simulate First Nations making agreements to share land with settlers, etc.

Appropriate props, if desired

Paper upon which to write the treaty and writing materials, flip chart

Maps of areas covered by Saskatchewan treaties (notebook size and classroom display size)

Set and Introduction:

Review with students what they know about resolving disagreements: Have you ever had a disagreement with someone? Give me an example. How was the disagreement solved? Was it solved? How did you feel?

Do you remember what you may have learned about solving disagreements at school? How do we try to solve disagreements?

Do you think countries like Canada have disagreements with other countries? What would they disagree about? What can happen sometimes when countries disagree? What would be the best way to solve the disagreement? Do you think it is easy to solve disagreements peacefully?

Introduce treaties—tell them that one way countries often have of solving disagreements peacefully is making an agreement called a treaty.

Give the students some basic Saskatchewan treaty information: First Nations signed treaties with the Queen of England a long time ago. Why do you think she did that? What do you think was agreed to by the two groups? (Give examples—schools, health care, land, maintain peace, etc ) Show them a map of the treaties in Saskatchewan.

Tell them that they are going to see in the next little while what it might be like to make a treaty by making their own treaty.

Development:

Divide the students into 2 groups. (You could add simple basic costumes depending on the scenario you have chosen—outer space people coming to their country, First Nations and Europeans in period costume, or have another class come in to share their room, etc.)

Introduce the challenge: The treaty must be a written agreement to share the space and what is in the room for a certain length of time.

You, the teacher, will be the facilitator. Your challenge will be to guide the discussion regarding elements that could be in the treaty, options for sharing and to otherwise keep the discussion moving in an encouraging and fun manner.

It might be a good idea to video tape the process.

Closure:

Students present their treaty.

Completed treaty would be signed and (maybe, as suggested in Grade 2) have a signing ceremony. Students might want to compare the contents of their treaty with the contents of an actual First Nations treaty. The teacher would have to summarize the contents of a treaty prior to the comparison.

Students should share their feelings about the process and what they learned in journals, drawings, rhymes, etc.

Invite to the classroom a First Nations person with a good knowledge of treaties and an ability to talk to young children to share his/her perspective.

Perhaps close with the students doing an exercise with the treaty map of Saskatchewan—numbering and colouring or matching the names of Bands who signed the treaties with the areas on the map, etc.

Evaluation:

Checklists for understandings, skills and abilities related to objectives and observed in presentations, discussions, journals, etc.

Extensions:

This could be part of a unit theme on conflict resolution . It might also fit into the Heritage Unit, Module 1-Experiences of the past help shape a community.

Depending on the ability of the students, teachers and students might want to do a treaty survey on internet and try to find out how effective various treaties, not only First Nations treaties, have been over time.

Time Frame: 4 to 6 half-hours over 2 to 3 weeks

Bibliography

Background Information