Class/grade: 1
1. What is our purpose?
To inquire into the following:
 Transdisciplinary theme
Where we are in place and time
An inquiry into orientation in place and time;
personal histories; homes and journeys; the
discoveries, explorations and migrations of
humankind; and the relationships between and the
interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations,
from local and global perspectives.
 Central idea
Learning about previous generations helps us
understand the relationship between the past and the
present
Summative assessment task(s):
What are the possible ways of assessing students’
understanding of the central idea? What evidence,
including student-initiated actions, will we look
for?
(Putting you in the picture)
Students will draw and write the most important
things they have learned about their families.
Teachers will use this drawing and writing to
discuss this with them on a one-to-one basis and
assess their level of understanding of the central
idea.
(Anecdotal record)
Students will present their drawings to the class
Age group: 6-7
School: BNI
Title: Families Then and Now
Teacher: AfshanJabeen and Ayesha Aman
Date: 2nd October 2017
Proposed duration: 6 weeks
2. What do we want to learn?
What are the key concepts (form, function,
causation, change, connection, perspective,
responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized
within this inquiry?
Key Concepts: Causation, Change, Connection
Related Concepts: Time, continuity, heritage
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of
the inquiry into the central idea?
 Ways to find out about the past
 How aspects of the past still influence us
today
 Why some behaviours and practices have changed
or remain the same over time
What teacher questions/provocations will drive
these inquiries?
 How can we know about our family past?
 How have our ancestors influenced our own
way of living?
and will compare them to the information on the
graffiti board to see the differences between what
they knew about their families at the beginning of
the unit and what they know by then. They will talk
to their classmates about them. They will self-
assess and reflect on how this makes them feel at
the end of the unit. (Reflection journal)
Students will be able to recognize and show an
understanding of the fact that their family
histories have developed over time and that they
have explored and identified their personal
histories throughout this inquiry.
Students will be required to talk about how they
have:
 inquired about the past
 What sparked their curiosity about their own
family, wonderings they have had
 Become knowledgeable about life during previous
generations and what connections they have made
with their own life.
 Become more appreciative of their own family’s
heritage
3. How might we know what we have learned? This
column should be used in conjunction with “How best
might we learn?” What are the possible ways of
assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills?
What evidence will we look for?
 After listening to the visitor, students write
on a graffiti board the most distant memory
they know about their families (could also be
a memory shared by a parent or grandparent,
not necessarily only the student’s memory).
 Frontloading: The teacher builds a timeline
with the students’ help and displays it across
 How have our family traditions changed over
time?
 How significant historical events have
shaped our family history?
A visitor comes to the class with a mystery box
containing artifacts from his/her family. Once
the students have guessed the three things in
the box, the visitor explains how these things
are related to her. Then, she starts telling
them the story of her family by using a backward
timeline (starting at the present and working
backwards).
4. How best might we learn? What are the
learning experiences suggested by the teacher
and/or students to encourage the students to
engage with the inquiries and address the driving
questions?
TUNING IN
• Teachers read fiction and non-fiction books
about family histories. Students draw and write
about them and share their work with classmates.
• Students bring photos of their ancestors and
talk with the Art teacher about how their
families have changed and how they look now.
After that, they will draw their families as they
 the room to record the history of the class.
They will start the timeline in the current
day and then move backwards over time.
 The teachers will look for any evidence
regarding the students’ prior understanding of
the concept of time. Students create a family
tree to show family members and record what
they know about those family members.
What are the possible ways of assessing student
learning in the context of the lines of inquiry?
What evidence will we look for?
We want the students to understand that:

they have a family tree and they present and
explain their family timelines.
 use primary sources (such as parents and
grandparents) to find out about life in the
past
 compare and contrast the past with the present
 identify how the past has been documented
 appreciate their own heritage
 explore and share instances of change and
continuity in their personal lives and their
family.
 sequence events, routines, personal histories
in chronological order.
identify differences between families,
cultures and ideas of others.
5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related
literature, music, art, computer software, etc.,
will be available?
 Artifacts brought from home, family
are now.
• Create family trees and discuss the people
represented on it and what is known about these
family members
• Bringing in artifacts significant to their
family
• Sharing stories and folk-legends to explore how
stories/information is often passed
• Discussing diaries and letters that document
the past.
FINDING OUT
• Students take some questions home to interview
their relatives in order to find out information
about their ancestors and aspects of life in the
past, will share the results of the interview to
look for connections and comparisons between the
past and present.
• Students will build a timeline of their family
histories or write it down to sequence events and
support the narrative. Students present it to the
class.
• Pair interview: Guest speaker – listening to
and responding to a personal history.
SORTING OUT
• Students will compare different family
structures (Venn diagram) by collecting
information about and exploring their own
families.
GOING FURTHER
•Students may choose to bring information about
the traditions and rituals of their families.
They may prepare a drawing or a brief text to
present to the class.
Students will understand the concept of time
through recreating
MAKING CONCLUSIONS
• See think wonder – old photos depicting ways of
 photographs, maps and flags of countries that
their ancestors came from.
 People: Parents and other adults in the school
community.
 Fiction and non-fiction books about family
histories and cultures.
life in the past versus ways of life in the
present (for, example a clay pot and a water
dispenser, and ways of communication). What do
you think has changed? Why (wondering why it
changed)? Students will be shown pictures (as a
provocation) about the lifestyle then versus now
to see what is the same and/or different.
TAKING ACTION
Making action plan for their future
What opportunities will occur for
transdisciplinary skills development and for the
development of the attributes of the learner
profile?
Communication skills – present timelines and
other pieces of work to their classmates
Thinking skills – how do we find out about the
past?
Research skills – how to develop questions,
record data and present results of presentations
and interviews.
Communicators: Explain their findings to others.
Inquirers: Ask questions and find information
about their families and past.
Knowledgeable: Students will learn about
different cultures of the world to acquirethe in-
depth knowledge of how past rituals and beliefs
affects their life's and customs.
Open-minded and principled: Listen to a range of
histories and traditions and develop respect for
other people and other customs.
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from
the learning?
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries
and student questions and highlight any that
were incorporated into the teaching and
learning.
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries
and student questions and highlight any that
were incorporated into the teaching and
learning.
Why are old things important in a family?
Where does my family come from?
How were things a long time ago?
Why did my family come to Pakistan?
Why are families different?
Where were my grandparents born?
What did my grandfather do when he was a child?
Students showed great interest in knowing and
finding out about their family histories. They
enjoyed the activities in which they could have
long conversations with their family.
At this point teachers should go back to box 2
“What do we want to learn?” and highlight the
teacher questions/provocations that were most
effective in driving the inquiries.
What student-initiated actions arose from the
learning?
Record student-initiated actions taken by
individuals or groups showing their ability to
reflect, to choose and to act.
9. Teacher notes
Subject specific content
1. Literacy
 Vocabulary – history, generations, family,
past, present, future, behavior, lifestyle,
maps, location, ancestors
 Books – The Keeping quilt by Patricia
Polacco
2. Social studies/Geography – Location – the
students will find out the seven
continents, the cardinal points and the
neighboring countries of Pakistan. They
will also identify the 7 continents and
that Pakistan is in Asia
3. Mathematics–Students will learn about the
non-standard and standard units of
measurement (length, heightand weight).
They will learn mapping skills with the
help of a globe and atlas, the concept of
time, timeline, number line and skip
counting.
Stand alone: Odd and even numbers, Addition
(single and double digit).
Most of the learning experiences and assessment
strategies were directly connected to language
in its three interactive aspects: Learning
language, learning through language and learning
about language.
• Students carried out oral presentations
after they interviewed their grandparents.
• They listened and talked to each other
during pair interviews and when
Students reflected on the importance of
respecting their own and others’ family
histories and traditions.
Many students reflected that their grandparents
had gone through a hard time leaving their
houses etcetera behind in India and resettling
in Pakistan during partition.
A lot of students also showed an understanding
that sometimes you don't have both parents
living with you due to one parent not being
alive or other reasons and that grandparents
assume the role of primary caregivers. They
understood that families are diverse.
At this point teachers should go back to box 2
“What do we want to learn?” and highlight the
teacher questions/provocations that were most
effective in driving the inquiries.
What student-initiated actions arose from the
learning?
Record student-initiated actions taken by
individuals or groups showing their ability to
reflect, to choose and to act.
interviewing their grandparents.
• They wrote about their families.
• They listened to stories.
• They learned new vocabulary.
• Connections to mathematics were made when
exploring the concept of time and
developing timelines and working backwards.
• The concept of great-grandparents was not
fully developed. Some students showed
confusion at the beginning but understood
the concept of genealogy after making a
family tree.
• Students were confused about the concept of
'past, present and future' but understood
it after they made a backward timeline of;
events in school and their family
• Most of the student work, including
reflections, was done through oral
activities. This was because the students
were at the beginning of the learning-to-
write process. However, at the end of the
unit, all of them were able to write some
sentences with their final reflections.