Social Studies

In this unit you will travel back in time, from about 3000 BCE to 1500 CE, and around the world. You will visit two First Nation societies, the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabe of the Great Lakes, and the Thule, ancestors of Inuit, in the Arctic. You will also visit ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, ancient China, the Maya, ancient Greece, medieval Europe and the Mali Empire in West Africa.

For each society you will ask: How did people live? How were they governed, and who had power? How did the environment shape their food, homes, clothing and inventions? How did societies cooperate or come into conflict, and how did they make peace? Finally, you will compare these early societies with Canada today, discover their legacies, and carry out your own inquiry using maps, artefacts, art and oral history.

Every lesson has a hands-on activity to do at home, practice questions and a short quiz.

Curriculum expectations covered: A1.1 to A1.4, A2.1 to A2.6 and A3.1 to A3.10 (The Ontario Curriculum, Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6, 2018, revised 2023; Grade 4, Strand A: Heritage and Identity: Early Societies to 1500 CE). The unit addresses the three overall expectations: comparing key aspects of life in a few early societies, including at least one First Nation and one Inuit society, with present-day Canada (A1); using the inquiry process to investigate ways of life and relationships with the environment (A2); and demonstrating an understanding of the political and social organization, daily life and relationships with the environment and with each other of a few early societies (A3).

In this unit you will travel across Canada. You will learn Canada's political regions, its 10 provinces and 3 territories, and their capital cities, and you will use political, physical and thematic maps with directions, grids and scales. Then you will explore Canada's physical regions: the Cordillera, the Interior Plains, the Canadian Shield, the Hudson Bay Lowlands, the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Appalachian Region, the Arctic Lowlands and the Innuitian Mountains. For each region you will look at the land, climate and plants, the natural resources and jobs, and the First Nations, Métis and Inuit who live there today. You will find out how industry and the environment affect each other, what industries and citizens do to use resources sustainably, how quality of life differs across regions, and you will finish with an inquiry about balancing human needs with environmental stewardship.

This unit builds on Grade 3 (Ontario's landform regions, natural resources, grids and scale, and First Nations communities in Ontario) and Grade 2 (globes, continents, and an Inuit community today). Every lesson has a hands-on activity to do at home, practice questions and a short quiz. Map diagrams in this unit are simplified drawings, not real maps; use an atlas or a real map of Canada alongside them.

Curriculum expectations covered: B1, B2, B3 (Ontario Social Studies, Grade 4, People and Environments: Political and Physical Regions of Canada, 2018, revised 2023). B1 (Application): assess some key ways in which industrial development and the natural environment affect each other in two or more political and/or physical regions of Canada; tagged with the overall code B1, plus B1.3 (actions taken by industries and citizens to address the need for more sustainable use of land and resources). B2 (Inquiry): use the social studies inquiry process to investigate issues and challenges associated with balancing human needs and wants and activities with environmental stewardship, tagged B2.1 to B2.6 (formulate questions; gather and organize information; analyse and construct maps, including thematic maps; interpret and analyse information; evaluate evidence and draw conclusions; communicate results). B3 (Understanding Context): identify Canada's political and physical regions, and describe their main characteristics and some significant activities that take place in them; tagged with the overall code B3, plus B3.6 (opportunities and challenges related to quality of life in some of Canada's political regions).