THEGATINEAUVALLEY

A DAY IN THELIFE

Lesson Tit le: M ar y's D ay-Q uest ions f or M ar y

Grade Level: Cycle 2 and 3
Subject : Language Arts
Time: Two 50-minute sessions

LESSON OVERVIEW
These lessons are designed to accompany the Fairbairn Films- Hometown History videos. The
videos were produced and created by Gatineau Valley youth as a way to highlight local history,
culture and geography. These lessons focus on the daily life of a 10 year old girl who could have
lived in the Gatineau Hills around 1900. They can be used either as a progression or individually.

Su m m ar y: Students will generate meaningful questions for Mary, attempt to deduce

potential answers, and role play an exchange.
Essen t ial Qu est ion s: How are children who lived 100 years ago the same and how are
they different from the children of today? How can we attempt to put ourselves in the
shoes of the people of the past in order to understand these similarities and
differences?

OBJECTIVES CURRICULUM LINKS

St udent s will be able t o...
Write interrogatory
sentences using a capital letter
and a question mark.
Use improvisation to
create a role-playing scene
Activate prior knowledge
of history to generate and
deduce ideas.
Cr oss cu r r icu lar com pet en cy: To construct his/her
identity
Dr am a: To organize the elements he/she has chosen
c-Organizes the content of his/her improvisations
Lan gu age Ar t s:
- Speaking -The student produces own stories,
as well as dramatizations of others?stories,
through Role-play involving character from
own stories, from literature and from
nonfiction
- Applies end punctuation rules: period,
question mark, exclamation point
LEARNING PLAN
Preparat ion: Prepare sentence strips, cue Mary's Day video slide show.
Hook: Have students watch the short slideshow "Mary's Day"
1. Have students close their eyes and imagine what it might have felt like to be a 10 year
old girl like Mary who lived 100 years ago. Tell them to try and paint a picture in their
head of what her life might look like.
Questions such as:
- How do you think she felt about her chores?
- Do you think that she ever complained to her mother about helping?
- How would life be different for you if you didn?t have electricity or running water
in your home? (W ill add more questions based on narrative)
2. Ask students to turn to a partner and discuss what it was they thought about when
they closed their eyes.
3. Ask students to close their eyes again and imagine that Mary were to come into their
class today. Ask them to think about what questions they would have for Mary if they
could talk to her.
4. Ask them to write their sentences on strips of paper. (Remind them that a sentence is
an interrogatory sentence that starts with a capital letter and ends with a question
mark.) Students should be able to generate at least 2 thoughtful questions each.
5. In groups of 2 or 3, have students swap questions with each other to see if they are
able to generate or deduce potential answers given what they already know about
Mary?s life. Students should use improvisation to create a role-playing scene. (Explain
that an improvisation is a creation that is composed or created without prior
preparation.) Students can take turns role playing being Mary.
5. Inform students that there are some questions that they will be able to have
answered. Project the page ?Questions for Mary?on the Smart Board. Ask students if
any of their questions overlap.
6.Allow students to click and listen to the ?Questions for Mary?tabs on the Smart board.
6. Discuss how some of their questions and answers were the same and how they were
different from Mary?s answers.
7. Explain that the answers provided can?t actually be from someone who was 10 years
old over a century ago for obvious reasons, but that they are based on actual facts and
oral history and have been provided by a historian who has extensively studied the
history of this time period in the Gatineau Valley.