- p.1 Lesson card
- p.2 Answer key, talk moves and sources
- p.3–4 Split-grade lanes and swap cards (5/6 or 6/7 classes only)
- p.5–6 24 draft cards: cut apart and tape on the board
- p.7–8 The reading in three versions (A, B, C) and a sticky-note frame
- p.9 Printed journal page, only for students who need it (everyone else writes in their notebook)
What Makes Canada, Canada?
ReadSay this (30 sec)"In a sports draft, teams pick the players who will make their team. Today your team drafts the symbols that make Canada. You get three picks, and every pick needs a reason: one real fact."
Game: Identity Draft whole class · 7 teams · the class builds one roster
- Draw the order: pull team numbers from a cup. Snake order: Round 1 goes 1→7, Round 2 goes 7→1, Round 3 goes 1→7.
- On the clock (20 sec): the team picks one card from the board. By the end, every team has one Built, one Physical and one Social card.
- Defend it: the speaker (rotate each round) reads the team’s sticky note: “We draft ___ because it shows Canada is ___. Fact: ___.” No fact? The card stays on the board.
- Post it: the runner moves the card to the team’s spot and sticks the note under it.
- No winner: the 21 picks are the class roster. The 3 cards left on the board start the pattern check.
Cards in 3 rows (Built, Physical, Social). Team spots below.
Notes
Observation only. Look for picks backed by a fact, the right kind of feature, and “shows Canada is ___” that goes past “it’s cool.”Answers, Talk Moves & Sources
Key| # | Quick check | Look for (all three versions) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Name one built, one physical and one social feature. | Built: CN Tower, Trans-Canada Highway, inuksuk. Physical: Canadian Shield, longest coastline, Great Lakes (B, C). Social: two official languages, Charter of Rights, multiculturalism (C). Any correct one counts. |
| 2 | Why “identities,” with an S? | People and communities see Canada in different ways. There isn’t one single Canadian identity. (Version C adds: some First Nations, Inuit and Métis people see themselves first as members of their own nations.) |
| 3 | Which feature is part of your Canada? | Any feature plus a reason. Push for “because…”. A family or home-place answer is great; so is a place they’ve only read about. |
| # | Pattern check (after the draft) | Talk moves |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Which kind went first in Round 1? | Count the Round 1 picks by kind. “Why did most teams start there? What does that say about how we picture Canada?” |
| 2 | Which 3 cards did nobody draft? | “Who would have picked this one first? Someone in Nunavut? In Quebec? A Métis family?” A card nobody picked still matters to someone. |
| 3 | Whose Canada is missing? | Lesson 1 stories aren’t on this board: Chinese railway workers, Black communities, Acadians, Mennonites. “What symbol would tell their story?” This is book-chapter thinking. |
◆ Handle with care
Some First Nations, Inuit and Métis people see themselves first as citizens of their own nations, not as Canadian. That is why the curriculum says identities. Don’t ask Indigenous students to speak for their nation. Lacrosse, the inuksuk and the powwow belong to living cultures: they are not costumes or souvenirs.
Why this works
A draft forces a ranking, and a ranking needs evidence. The one-of-each-kind rule makes every team handle all three features. The 3 undrafted cards turn the result into a pattern the class can explain (Patterns & Trends), with no voting.
Reading levels and split grades
Version A (about Grade 3–4 reading), B (Grade 5–6), C (Grade 7–8): same facts, same three questions, so the whole class can talk together. The versions are labelled A, B, C, not by level. Hand them out quietly. Split classes: the swap cards and grade lanes are on pages 3–4.
Sources ● = Indigenous-authored or Indigenous organization · numbers match the [n] on each card
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, “CN Tower.” thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Trans-Canada Highway.” thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
- Senate of Canada (SenCA+), “The Peace Tower: Parliament Hill’s soaring sentinel.” sencanada.ca
- Confederation Bridge, “About us.” confederationbridge.com
- Norman Hallendy, “Inuksuk (Inukshuk),” The Canadian Encyclopedia. thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
- Parks Canada, “Canadarm Deployment in Space, 1981 National Historic Event.” parks.canada.ca
- Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada (with the Métis National Council), “Red River carts.” indigenouspeoplesatlasofcanada.ca
- Canada’s History, “Ski-Dog Snowmobile.” canadashistory.ca
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Canadian Shield (Plain-Language Summary).” thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
- Environment and Climate Change Canada, “Water sources: lakes.” canada.ca
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Rocky Mountains.” thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
- Niagara Parks, “Niagara Falls geology facts & figures.” niagaraparks.com
- Statistics Canada, Canada Year Book, “International perspective” (geography). statcan.gc.ca
- Natural Resources Canada, “8 facts about Canada’s boreal forest.” natural-resources.canada.ca
- Canadian Heritage, “Official symbols of Canada.” canada.ca
- Onondaga Nation, “Ddehoñtjihgwa’és – Lacrosse.” onondaganation.org
- Canadian Heritage, “History of the Official Languages Act.” canada.ca
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Canadian Multiculturalism Act.” thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Plain-Language Summary).” thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
- Anna Hoefnagels, “Powwow,” The Canadian Encyclopedia. thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
- Canadian Medical Association, “Who started Canada’s universal health care system?” cma.ca
Same Draft, Two Grades
5/6 · 6/7Run the lesson exactly as written. Mixed-grade teams. Before class, swap 2 cards on the board for your split. When a team drafts a swap card, a student from that grade gives the defence. Everyone reads the same article (any version) and writes the same notebook page, plus one grade prompt.
| Class | Swap card | Lead |
|---|---|---|
| 5/6 | Longhouse (instead of Confederation Bridge) | Gr 5 |
| 5/6 | Three Sisters (instead of Niagara Falls) | Gr 5 |
| 6/7 | Rideau Canal (instead of Canadarm) | Gr 7 |
| 6/7 | St. Lawrence River (instead of Longest Coastline) | Gr 7 |
Grade 5 lane
Gr 5 Strand A: First Nations and Europeans in New France and early Canada (before 1713)
Lens for Grade 5 defences
“Was it here before 1713? Who made or used it?”
Success criteria
- I can name a feature that was here before 1713 and the nation who made or used it.
- I can explain how it still matters today.
Grade 5 notebook prompt
Pick one feature from before 1713. Who made it? Does it still matter today? How?
Expectations
Gr 5: A3.1 · A3.2 · A1.3
Grade 7 lane
Gr 7 History B (Canada 1800–1850) · Gr 7 Geography A (physical patterns)
Lens for Grade 7 defences
“How did the land shape it? Who did the work, and who paid the cost?”
Success criteria
- I can explain how a physical feature shaped where and how people lived.
- I can name who built or used a feature between 1713 and 1850.
Grade 7 notebook prompt
Pick one physical feature. How did it shape where people lived or travelled before 1850?
Expectations
Gr 7: History Strand B · Geography Strand A
Grade 6 students in a split class follow the regular lesson. Book link: a Grade 5 or 7 student can turn their swap card into a chapter for their grade’s topic menu.
Swap Cards
5/6 · 6/7
Longhouse
A long bark home for one clan family.
“Haudenosaunee” means People of the Longhouse. Some were 60 m (200 ft) long. [S1]
Haudenosaunee
Three Sisters
Corn, beans and squash grown together.
Beans climb the corn and feed the soil. Squash leaves shade the ground. [S2]
Haudenosaunee
Rideau Canal
A canal from Ottawa to Kingston.
Built 1826–1832, mostly by Irish labourers. Many died of malaria. [S3]
Irish labourers
St. Lawrence River
The river from Lake Ontario to the sea.
About 1,197 km long. It was the main route of New France. [S4]
New France, First Nations
Sources: S1 Onondaga Nation, “Ganoñhsésgeh – Longhouse.” onondaganation.org ● · S2 Onondaga Nation, The Three Sisters (booklet). onondaganation.org ● · S3 The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Rideau Canal.” thecanadianencyclopedia.ca · S4 The Canadian Encyclopedia, “St. Lawrence River.” thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
Photos: QuartierLatin1968, CC BY-SA 3.0 · U.S. National Park Service, Public domain · Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0 · Gabriel Picard, CC BY-SA 4.0
Identity Draft Cards
1 of 2
CN Tower
A communications tower in Toronto.
At 553 m, it was the world’s tallest free-standing structure from 1976 to 2007. [1]
Toronto, Ontario
Trans-Canada Highway
One road that crosses the whole country.
It runs 7,821 km through all 10 provinces, from Victoria to St. John’s. [2]
All 10 provinces
Peace Tower
The tower of Parliament, where laws are made.
Built after a 1916 fire. It holds the Books of Remembrance for Canadians killed in war. [3]
Ottawa
Confederation Bridge
The bridge from P.E.I. to New Brunswick.
At 12.9 km, it is the world’s longest bridge over ice-covered water (1997). [4]
P.E.I. and New Brunswick
Inuksuk
A stone figure built by Inuit.
The word means “to act in the capacity of a human.” Inuksuit point the way and mark hunting places. [5]
Inuit
Canadarm
A robot arm built in Canada for space.
First used in space in 1981. It caught, launched and fixed satellites. [6]
Canadian engineers
Red River Cart
A two-wheeled Métis cart.
Made entirely of wood, even the nails. Its wheels came off so the box could float across rivers. [7]
Métis
Snowmobile
A machine for travelling over snow.
Joseph-Armand Bombardier of Quebec sold the first Ski-Doo in 1959. [8]
Valcourt, Quebec
Canadian Shield
Ancient rock under lakes and forests.
It covers about half of Canada. It took about 3 billion years to form. [9]
Northern Ontario, Quebec, the North
Great Lakes
Five giant lakes. Four of them touch Ontario.
Their basin holds 18% of the world’s fresh surface water. [10]
Ontario
Rocky Mountains
Mountains in Alberta and B.C.
Mount Robson is the highest peak (3,954 m). Banff (1885) is Canada’s oldest national park. [11]
Alberta and B.C.
Niagara Falls
Giant waterfalls on the Niagara River.
The Horseshoe Falls drop 57 m. In summer, about 2,832 tonnes of water go over every second. [12]
Niagara, Ontario
Photos (Wikimedia Commons): Toronto skyline and CN Tower: Wladyslaw, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Trans-Canada Highway sign, Winnipeg: Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Centre Block and Peace Tower: Saffron Blaze, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Confederation Bridge: Quintin Soloviev, CC BY 4.0 · Inuksuit, Foxe Peninsula, Nunavut: Ansgar Walk, CC BY-SA 2.5 · Canadarm on mission STS-116: NASA, Public domain · Red River cart: KrttiDesigns, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ski-Doo Olympique, 1969: YanikB, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Canadian Shield rock: John Newcomb, CC BY 3.0 · Gargantua Harbour, Lake Superior: D. Gordon E. Robertson, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Mount Robson: The Cosmonaut, CC BY-SA 2.5 CA · Horseshoe Falls: Helen Filatova, CC BY 2.0. [n] = source number on the teacher key (p.2).
Identity Draft Cards
2 of 2
Longest Coastline
Canada touches three oceans.
Canada’s coastline is 243,042 km: the longest in the world. [13]
Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic
Boreal Forest
The huge northern forest.
Canada has 28% of the world’s boreal zone. 7 in 10 Indigenous communities are in forest regions. [14]
Across the North
Maple Tree
The tree on our flag.
Indigenous peoples first made maple syrup and sugar. Official national tree since 1996. [15]
Eastern Canada
Beaver
Canada’s official animal symbol.
The fur trade almost wiped beavers out. Official symbol since 1975. [15]
Across Canada
Hockey
Canada’s national winter sport.
A 1994 law named hockey the national winter sport. [15]
Across Canada
Lacrosse
Canada’s national summer sport.
The Haudenosaunee call it the Medicine Game: a game given by the Creator. [16, 15]
Haudenosaunee
Two Official Languages
English and French.
The 1969 Official Languages Act made both official in Parliament and the federal government. [17]
Across Canada
Multiculturalism
Many cultures, one country.
Canada was the first country in the world to pass a national multiculturalism law (1988). [18]
Across Canada
Charter of Rights
The rights every person in Canada has.
Part of the Constitution since 1982. Protects freedom of religion and expression, and equality. [19]
Across Canada
Maple Leaf Flag
Red and white with one maple leaf.
First raised on Parliament Hill on February 15, 1965. [15]
Across Canada
Powwow
A celebration of Indigenous music and dance.
Opens with the Grand Entry, often led by Indigenous veterans carrying eagle staffs. [20]
First Nations
Public Health Care
Doctors and hospitals for everyone.
The 1984 Canada Health Act set national standards for public health care. [21]
Across Canada
Photos (Wikimedia Commons): Gros Morne coast, Newfoundland: Michel Rathwell, CC BY 2.0 · Miles Canyon, Yukon: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Red maple leaves, Algonquin Park: Vincent Pham, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Beaver: Cliff (Flickr), CC BY 2.0 · Hockey stick and puck: Santeri Viinamäki, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Lacrosse stick: Henning Schlottmann, CC BY-SA 4.0 · STOP–ARRÊT sign, Calgary: WCL20 (Lycée Louis Pasteur), CC BY-SA 4.0 · Kensington Market, Toronto: Chicken4War, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Canadian Heritage, Open Government Licence – Canada · Maple Leaf flag, Vancouver: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Powwow dancers: Peter K Burian, CC BY 4.0 · Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario: Dmitri Lytov, CC BY-SA 3.0. [n] = source number on the teacher key (p.2).
Read: What Makes Canada, Canada?
ReadWhat Makes Canada, Canada? Version A
Identity is what makes a group feel like “us.” Canada’s identity comes from three kinds of features.
Built features are made by people. The CN Tower in Toronto is built. So is the Trans-Canada Highway. An inuksuk is built too: it is a stone figure made by Inuit to show the way.
Physical features come from nature. The Canadian Shield is very old rock. It covers about half of Canada. Canada also has the longest coastline in the world.
Social features are about how people live together. Canada has two official languages: English and French. The Charter of Rights protects everyone’s rights.
Not everyone sees Canada the same way. A kid in Nunavut and a kid in Toronto might pick different symbols. That is why we say Canadian identities, with an S.
- Name one built, one physical and one social feature from the reading.
- Why does the reading say identities, with an S?
- Which feature is part of your Canada? Why?
What Makes Canada, Canada? Version B
Every country has an identity: the things that make its people feel they belong together. Canada’s identity is built from three kinds of features.
Built features are things people made. The CN Tower in Toronto was the world’s tallest free-standing structure for over 30 years. The Trans-Canada Highway joins all 10 provinces. Long before either, Inuit built the inuksuk, a stone figure that points travellers the right way.
Physical features come from the land. The Canadian Shield, rock about 3 billion years in the making, covers about half of the country. The Great Lakes basin holds 18% of the world’s fresh surface water, and Canada has the longest coastline on Earth.
Social features are about how people live together. In 1969, English and French became Canada’s official languages. Since 1982, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has protected freedoms like religion and expression.
A Cree family in northern Ontario, a newcomer in Mississauga and a fisher in Newfoundland might each picture Canada differently. That is why we talk about Canadian identities.
- Name one built, one physical and one social feature from the reading.
- Why does the reading say identities, with an S?
- Which feature is part of your Canada? Why?
Facts: Canadian Shield [9] · Great Lakes [10] · coastline [13] · CN Tower [1] · highway [2] · inuksuk [5] · languages [17] · Charter [19] · multiculturalism [18]
Read: What Makes Canada, Canada?
ReadWhat Makes Canada, Canada? Version C
A national identity is a shared sense of who “we” are. In Canada, that sense is shaped by three kinds of features, and by who is doing the looking.
Built features are human-made. Some are feats of engineering, like the CN Tower (553 m) or the 7,821 km Trans-Canada Highway. Others are far older: Inuit built inuksuit, stone figures whose name means “to act in the capacity of a human,” to guide travellers and mark hunting places.
Physical features are the land and water. The Canadian Shield covers about half of Canada; the Great Lakes basin holds 18% of the world’s fresh surface water; the coastline, 243,042 km long, is the world’s longest. Geography shaped where people could live, travel and trade.
Social features are the ideas and laws that shape how people live together: two official languages (1969), the world’s first national multiculturalism law (1988), and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982).
Identity is not the same for everyone. Some First Nations, Inuit and Métis people see themselves first as citizens of their own nations. Newcomers bring traditions that add to the picture. That is why the curriculum speaks of Canadian identities, plural.
- Name one built, one physical and one social feature from the reading.
- Why does the reading say identities, with an S?
- Which feature is part of your Canada? Why?
Draft sticky-note frame copy onto each sticky note, or cut these out
My Canada in 3
JournalName: ______________________ Date: ______________
1. My Canada in 3: one built, one physical, one social feature that matter to me.
2. Pick one. Why does it matter to someone who isn’t you?
Example Lacrosse matters to the Haudenosaunee because it is the Medicine Game, a gift from the Creator.