Stage 1Human Society and Its Environment.

Unit: Families Past and Present

Foundation Statement
Students recount important family and community traditions and practices. They sequence events in the past and changes in their lives, in their communities and in other communities.
Students explore the composition of a number of groups, including Aboriginal peoples, in their community and recognise that groups have specific identifying features, customs, practices, symbols, religion, language and traditions. They acquire information about their local community by direct and indirect experience and communicate with others using various forms of electronic media.
Students make comparisons between natural, heritage and built features of the local area and examine the human interaction with these features. They investigate the relationship between people and environments including the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the land. Students use the language of location in relative terms and construct and use pictorial maps and models of familiar areas.
Students identify roles, responsibilities and rules within the family, school and community and explore their interaction. They describe how people and technologies link to produce goods and services to satisfy needs and wants.
Overview: This unit provides opportunities for students to explore, through stories told, the reasons why certain people, events and days are important to themselves and their families. The unit focuses on continuity and change in different families, looking at the value of what is retained and why changes are made.

Outcomes and Indicators

CCS1.1
Communicates the significance of past and present people, days and events in their life, in the lives of family and community members and in other communities.
Identifies and talks about the lives of people in their family and community.
Identifies the origins of significant days and events celebrated by their family and community.
Retells the original stories associated with traditions of their family and community.
Explains why a personal, family or community event is significant. / CCS1.2
Identifies changes and continuities in their own life and in the local community.
Communicates the value of the contribution of past generations to community life.
Describes and sequences stages and events in their life and in the lives of family members, and reflects on the significance of these stages and events.
CUS1.3
Identifies customs, practices, symbols, languages and traditions of their family and of other families.
Gives information about their own family background, including languages spoken at home, religions, traditions, practices, customs, celebrations and stories
Explains ways in which family members learn from each other about customs and traditions, eg recounts, songs, dances
Identifies characteristics that make another family different from or similar to their own.
Resources:
The Board’s website ( lists current available resources such as some selected background information sheets, websites, texts and other material to support this unit. Classroom visits by people of an older generation from either students’ families or within the community. Tape recorder, microphone, tapes, video, digital camera (to collect oral histories). A visit to a local museum.
Artefacts from the past that have been kept in students’ families. A safe place for artefacts to be displayed, eg a cabinet. / Links to other KLA’s:
English: The structure and grammatical features of the text types students create and interpret (see above).
Creative and Practical Arts: Role-playing events in the lives of people, both past and present. Representing the stories people tell through music, dance, drama and visual arts.

Learning Experiences

Weeks 1-2 / Learning Sequence 1: Oral Histories – What Is an Oral History?
Have students brainstorm what they know about history. List their responses. Point out that we all have our own family history. Recount a family event that you remember from your past. Have students contribute to a class book with episodes relating to a similar family event, eg the arrival of a sibling/cousin, a family holiday.
After jointly constructing a recount of a past class/school event, have students independently construct recounts of another shared event. Emphasise the importance of chronological sequencing in recounts. Record students’ oral presentations of their recounts.
Explain to students that they are giving oral recounts of past events. Point out that this is called oral history in historical research, and that it is a useful way of gaining information about the past. An oral history is a recount rather than an interview. The person giving the oral history generally gives the information that they wish to share. It is important for students to understand that the person giving information about an event may have a distinctive interpretation of what happened.
Read texts about family events.
Have students develop categories for the different kinds of events that they have experienced, eg births, deaths, accidents, holidays, a new pet, moving house.
Invite some parents or grandparents to talk to the class about significant events in their lives. Ask if their oral histories can be taped for later reference. /
Date
Weeks 3-4 / Learning Sequence 2: Using Oral Histories – What Do Oral Histories Tell Us About the Past?
Categorise the stories told by the parents/grandparents (eg about accidents, about holidays, about moving house/country) and compare these with the events that students have experienced.
Jointly construct timelines sequencing the major events that each person spoke about. Compare and discuss similarities and differences between the timelines. Were there any common events/experiences? Did these relate to events that were happening in Australia or the world at the time?
Jointly listen to the tape recording of one of the oral histories. Ask students to list aspects of life that the person mentioned in their talk, eg work, home, food, activities, technology, local businesses.
Using the categories, jointly construct a retrieval chart to record aspects of past and present life. On the retrieval chart, record the visitors’ recollections of the past and include present-day information about similar aspects. Information from other oral histories may be added to the chart.
Referring to the chart, ask students to write about how lifestyles have changed. Ask them to consider how lifestyles may change in the future. I
Ask students to consider which aspects of the oral histories they can remember well. Why did these aspects stand out? Were they funny, sad, dramatic, interesting? Were they well told? Did they deal with a familiar event? /
Date
Weeks 5-6 / Learning Sequence 3: Artifacts – How Do Artifacts Provide Information?
Explain that an artifact is any object made by humans for their use. By examining artifacts, students are able to gain an insight into the technology and lifestyles of people from particular cultural groups or other times. Ask students to bring in artifacts that people in their family have kept from past times. Discuss the value of these items and the care that must be taken in displaying them at school.
Organise a visit to a museum to see artifacts on display. During the visit, draw attention to the types of items and how they are presented.
On returning to school, discuss ways in which the artifacts that students have brought in might be arranged and displayed, eg according to age, according to different aspects of lifestyle/purpose. Discuss the information that students will need to know about the artifacts to organise the display.
Jointly devise a list of questions for students to use to interview the person who knows about the artifact. Construct an interview sheet that students can use to acquire the information.
Have students ask why the artifact has been kept. Ask students to remember this piece of information when reporting back to the class.
Use information on the interview sheets to write museum place cards for the artifacts and to determine the organisation of the class display. I
Have students present their data to the class. After the presentations, discuss how each artifact indicates what has been valued (this may not be the artifact itself, but who owned it, or when it was obtained/used).
Discuss the things from our time that may be artifacts in the future. /
Date
Weeks
7-8 / Learning Sequence 4: Valued Stories – What Stories Are Told in Families?
Discuss any folk stories or traditional tales that are told in students’ families. List some of the stories. Are some stories unique to particular families in the community (include both written and spoken texts)? Ask students about the purpose of the stories and the intended audience.
Some stories have been passed down from generation to generation. Ask students why these stories are still told, eg because they entertain, because they teach a lesson.
Provide opportunities for students to hear/learn about narratives or recounts that are valued in the local community.
Have students, in their own words, retell familiar narratives. Explain that this is how stories have been passed on, and may produce different versions of stories. Explore examples of traditional stories that have been told/retold in different ways by different cultural groups/individuals.
Use a retrieval chart to categorise these stories. Record the purpose of each story, eg to entertain, to teach us how to behave, to share cultural/spiritual knowledge.
Have students compare characters, settings and events in the stories.
Have students reflect on oral histories, recounts and narratives that they have heard over the course of the unit. Develop class generalisations about similarities and differences in the texts. / Date
Assessment:
Evaluation