Date Mar 17,

2016

Critical Inquiry Question:

How has our community grown and changed?

Lesson # 2

Subject Social Studies

Unit My community
then and now
Grade 2

COURSE OUTCOMES
Knowledge:

2.2.6 analyze how the community of Lethbridge emerged

2.2.7 examine how the community of Lethbridge has changed
Skill:

2.2.1 appreciate how stories of the past connect individuals and communities to the
present
Attitude:

2.S.1 develop skills of critical thinking and creative thinking:

distinguish between a fictional and a factual account about Canadian
communities
2.S.2 Develop skills of historical thinking
correctly apply terms related to time (i.e., long ago, before, after)

arrange events, facts and/or ideas in sequence

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of the lesson students will be able to:

Illustrate what the prairies look like
Name parts of a community that need to stay the same
Suggest ideas about why we name places after people
MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT

Various props (nurse hats, fake money, duck or potato, cushions)

Powerpoint of St. Michael's images
Powerpoint from last class
20 copies of the Prairies ABC page
PREPARATION AND LOGISTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Cue both powerpoints over PM recess

INCLUSION

PROCEDURE
INTRODUCTION

Lead a quick discussion about the last class:

What did we talk about? (The buffalo, the people who have always lived
here, the landscape.)
What did we do? (Imagined the sights and sounds of the prairies before
Lethbridge was a town)

BODY

Prairie Page
Discuss the worksheet. We'll be making a quick sketch of the
prairies. Quick means that student's will have 5-7 minutes to work
before we move on.
Ask students what we might draw. Pull up the images of the
prairies on ppt
NO TREES
Bushes
Grass
Buffalo
Birds
Flowers
Flat land
Mountains in the distance (small mountains)
Students may use the medium of their choice (pencil crayons,
crayons, markers)
Have the hand out people help hand out the prairies worksheet.
The story of the Marthas
Students need to tidy their desks and come to the carpet by a countdown
from 10.
The Sisters of Saint Martha came to Alberta from Nova Scotia early in
the 1900s.
Ask students: Does anybody know what things St. Martha is known for?
What were her values? What was most important to her?
St. Martha is known for valuing maturity, strength, common sense, and
concern for others.
The sisters wanted help the Lethbridge community.
Ask for 3 volunteers to be the Sisters. The sisters came all the way from
Nova Scotia (the opposite end of the classroom).
Ask students: How could the sisters help the community? What could
they do to make it better for all people?
They decided to build a hospital (give the sisters nurse hats).

TIME

2:45-2:48

TIME
2:48-3:10

There was already a hospital in this house, but the sisters made it better
so that more people could get help. They changed it from a private
hospital, where people had to pay a lot, to one where people only had to
pay a little.
Does anybody know how much it costs to go to the hospital today?
It's free. But in the past it cost money.
Ask for a volunteer to be the reverend. Give them 3 pieces of fake
money.
In 1929 Reverend Michael Murphy helped the Sisters of St. Martha buy a
small, rundown hospital.
Have the reverend give the sisters some money.
The sisters worked hard and fixed up the hospital. Then they named it
after the Reverend to thank him for his help. Their hospital had a few (27
beds).
Put 1 cushion on the ground. Have someone come be a patient on one of
the cushions.
First slide (original St. Michael's hospital)
The sisters lived across the street from the hospital in a small house with
a chapel room.
(Have someone draw a small house near the smartboard)
But soon there were too many sick people and not enough beds.
Ask students: What could the Marthas do to help more people?
They bought a bigger hospital! This hospital had 100 beds. We don't have
100 cushions, so we're going to add 1 cushion to REPRESENT that there
were more beds. Again, the reverend helped them pay for this bigger
hospital.
Have the reverend give the sisters more money.
Add 2 more pillows to the ground. Change slide.
Ask for a volunteer to be a sick patient. Give them a duck or potato.
The St. Michaels hospital helped many patients. When hard times came
on the City of Lethbridge, many people didnt have enough money to pay
for help at the hospital. So people would bring chickens or pigs or
potatoes or vegetables to pay for treatment.
Have the sick person give the Martha's their duck or potato and say
"Please help me. I am sick. Here is my duck/potato."
Then the war came.
Ask 4 students to march off to the other side of the room and back.
It wasnt fought in Lethbridge, or even in Canada. People went far, far
away to fight in Europe. Many people came back injured, so the Marthas
decided to make the hospital bigger.
Ask the soldiers to march back with an injury of their choice and sit on
one of the "beds" (cushions).

They built enough room for 83 more beds! Now the hospital could take
care of 183 people!
Add more beds (They may need to be chairs)
More and more people started moving to Lethbridge. The hospital
needed to be able to care for even more people. Luckily, the Lethbridge
College created a nursing program, so there would be more nurses too!
Have everyone scoot in closer.
Ask for 3 more volunteers to be students. Have the Marthas pass on their
hats to the "new" nurses. Change slide.
Then the City decided that it was time to build a VERY big hospital called
the Regional Hospital.
Does anybody recognize this place?
Most of the patients and nurses from St. Michaels moved there, and St.
Michaels hospital closed. But St. Michaels hospital had been very
important for a very long time. People wanted to make sure that everyone
would remember St. Michael Murphy. So what did they do? Change
slide.
They built St. Michaels Health Centre!
Does anybody recognize this place?
Its a place where the Sisters of St. Martha continue to work, caring for
the elderly. They even used some of the same parts of the old St.
Michaels hospital, like the bricks.
WORK PERIOD

TIME
min

CLOSURE

Recap:
In this story, the hospital stayed the SAME. Communities always need places
where people can get help when they're sick. They also kept the Reverend's
name, because we name places after people when we want to remember them
for a long time.
The building CHANGED. Why did it change?
More people needed help, so it had to be made bigger.
If there is still time remaining, students may work on their prairie sketches for a
few more minutes
ASSESSMENT

Formative: Check prairie pages for geography understanding.

Next class we'll review, then do a chart assignment to check for understanding.

TIME

3:10-3:15

ADDITIONAL NOTES (Informal reflection):

Some students found the time limit to be stressful. I tried to counter this by reminding them that it was
only a quick sketch, and that sketch means something that we don't need to be extra careful about. It's
the first ideas that come to our minds. There's no need to use pencil first and colour after in a quick
sketch.
The class nominated Martha to be one of the Marthas. Perhaps in the next class I'll ask Michael to be the
reverend Michael Murphy.
I realized that there's no FNMI content in this lesson. I think I'll add a part about Mike Mountain Horse,
who fought in both wars.
Ms. Dickson pointed out that the original St. Michael's hospital building recently burnt down. It made a
great addition to the lesson and I'll add a slide to represent that in the next lesson.
I could have asked more questions during closure. For example, "What stayed the same?" instead of just
telling students.