"A Love Letter to Canada" Part Three

This is Part Three of a four part series about the use of The Amazing Race Canada in a Grade 4 classroom. In Part One, I discuss the genesis of the project and the changes I made in the first few years I screened it with students at a school with a high English Second Language (ESL) population. Part Two catalogues the transition of the program for use with multiple classrooms using Google Tools & Flipgrid to communicate their experiences with each other.

In this post, I'll detail some of the activities we tried. As I am not the classroom teacher, I can only suggest activities and I can not always be present for them. The teachers I worked with were wonderfully receptive, so most of the things I suggest here were tried by all the classes.

Viewing Parties

Obviously, this unit requires that the students view 10 episodes of a 1 hour television program. That might raise eyebrows for some administrators or parents. In reality, each episode is 44 minutes long (without commercials) and many intentional breaks are taken throughout the screening. I suggest that teachers treat it like a Read Aloud. In order to facilitate this, students are encouraged to sit in their own version of Amazing Race partnerships. Intentionally planned discussion breaks can be taken to clarify a wide range of events that occur in the program that relate to several curriculum strands. A few examples include...

• Would you or your partner complete this Roadblock challenge? Why?
• Which of the two Detour choices would you and your partner choose to complete? Why?
• How did the girl's team react when Tim & Tim were given a penalty at the Pit Stop? (*they laughed and said "suckers")  What does that tell you about them?
• How is this different from the way The Cowboys behaved when the Twins were eliminated by the same penalty? (*they were empathetic and supportive)  What does that tell you about them? 
• How would you behave in a similar situation?
• Is "hiding the maps" at the airport store cheating?  or clever game play? Why?
• Which team showed excellent collaboration?...problem solving?...determination? etc.
• What brand names have you heard highlighted on the show (Chevy, Interac, Air Canada) - why do you think the host (Jon) keeps mentioning these brands?

Mapping Skills

Part of the Grade 4 curriculum reinforces concepts about maps and mapping already introduced in the primary grades. Specifically, the Grade 4 curriculum states that students will... 

"demonstrate an understanding of cardinal and intermediate directions (i.e., NW, SW, NE, and SE), and use these directions as well as number and letter grids to locate selected political and physical regions of Canada on a variety of print and digital/interactive maps." 

To accomplish this purpose, teachers were encouraged to introduce students to atlases as well as other maps (wall, printable, online).  I direct teachers to a worksheet site called Worksheet Works. If you recall, this entire experiment began with me trying to escape the world of meaningless busy-work on ineffective worksheets. Here's the thing: It is how you choose to use this tool - not the tool itself that is more important. Here is a Teacher Led activity that will help scaffold student understanding of maps.

1. Print this map of British Columbia (the first Province visited on The Race) and enlarge it so that the partners can see it more easily. It requires that students match numbered arrows to a word bank of names... Vancouver, Victoria, Pacific Ocean, Alaska, Skeena River, etc.
2. Show students how different maps (particularly Google Maps) can be advantaged to determine objects and locations on the map. Focus on big objects first (Yukon Territory, Pacific Ocean, Washington State) before zooming in on smaller objects. 
3. Throughout, highlight the differences between Political/Human Locations (Cities, States, Provinces) and Physical Locations (Rivers, Sounds, Mountains). This Google Slide is how I introduced it.
4. Demonstrate the backdoor approach - instead of searching to see what an arrow points to, open another tab and search for the location (EX: Hecate Sound or Queen Charlotte Sound are easier found this way).
5. Google My Maps can be revisited later to mark all the destinations visited on the trip, as well as a "crow flies" travel plan - this is perfect for practicing rounding large numbers in math. "Why would we round the distance from Niagara Falls to the Butterfly Conservatory to the closest 10, while rounding the distance from Toronto to Kelowna to the closest 100?"

Our Own Amazing Race Day

Students are provided with a second chance to build these mapping skills with a group challenge using the province of Alberta during our version of An Amazing Race Activity.

• Multiple copies of the map are enlarged on to ledger paper and cut into three strips.
• The strips are put into envelopes
• The envelopes are labeled and hidden in the school yard at locations that can be described in a riddle written in the form of a simple poem. (Literacy)
• In teams of 4, students are sent out in the yard with their riddle poem. The find each of the three envelopes, return, assemble the map and then identify the locations. (Physical Movement)
• There is a 5 minute penalty for each mistake and a 10 minute penalty for yelling or running inside the school (outside is fair game). 
• A running clock is displayed on the board and students are allowed access to the classroom map and at least two Chromebooks. (Time Measurement, Technology, Social Studies & more)
• The team with the best time is declared the winner and...this is a non-elimination leg of the race.

Needless to say, enthusiasm and engagement is high. I was present for all four variations of this race with the four participating classes (mainly because it ensures better supervision for student safety). Throughout, the teacher and I circulated the groups and did some anecdotal evaluation of the students' understanding of mapping - but invested more time into notes about their learning skills and global competency skills.

• Did they communicate well as a team?
• Did they collaborate well - dividing up the tasks to maximize their speed & efficiency?
• Did they problem solve well when they got stuck?
• Did they show perseverance when challenged?
• Did they look for ways to stay engaged throughout the task, or did they get distracted?

My Observations

• Engagement was very high when groups were searching for clues on the yard.
• Every class had at least one group who completed the map perfectly - often in the best time.
• The groups that were most successful did the same things - persisted, communicated, divided the workload, remained engaged in the task.
• The groups that struggled and did not complete the challenge - communicated less often & less effectively, argued over tasks and had members disengage from the task (sometimes in boredom, sometimes angrily).

The Debrief

• Students were asked to reflect on the things that went well and the things that challenged them.
• Without identifying students & being mindful of self-esteem, teacher observations were shared.
• "I noticed that Chloe showed great perseverance when she was stuck ..." Can you share what you did Chloe?
• "I noticed that Richard's group divided up the task & kept communicating with each other."
• "I saw Adele's group use the big map of Canada at the back of the classroom first - how was that helpful to your group?"
• The correct answers to the map were taken up - again, highlighting effective strategies. 
• Students were asked to think about things they might do differently if the activity was repeated with another map in a few weeks. 

Initially, I planned this to be a 2 part series. It looks like we are going to make it 4. Tune in next time when I cover the other curriculum expectations and the launch of a Multi-Media Tech Set to allow students to do some project based learning around the Grade 4 Social Studies Curriculum.
Part Four Here