Bringing Canadian Historical past to Life with the Heritage Minutes
The Canadian Heritage Minutes are a singular and interesting strategy to deliver the wealthy historical past of Canada to life in your homeschooling curriculum. These brief, impactful movies created by Historica Canada seize vital occasions, folks, and tales which have formed our nation. By integrating Heritage Minutes into your classes, you may present your youngsters with a fascinating glimpse into Canada’s previous, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation for its heritage.
I bear in mind watching the unique set of minutes throughout TV commercials as I used to be a toddler. They’d an incredible impression on my curiosity about Canadian historical past. It’s thrilling to see what new minutes are launched as a result of it continues to encourage children and adults to be taught extra concerning the historical past and impression of various folks, experiences, and locations in Canada.
What are Canadian Heritage Minutes?
The Heritage Minutes are a group of brief, dramatic narrative movies that focus sometimes on an individual or occasion all through Canadian historical past. The unique movies have been launched in 1990 and are produced even to at this time. These 60 second clips introduce subjects in a approach that may’t absolutely give the entire story and context, however permit us a snippet alternative to find sufficient to need to know extra.
The movies sort out some fairly huge overarching subjects, resembling range, politics, army historical past, arts and tradition, human rights, Indigenous historical past, innovation, enterprise, and extra.
One of many greatest options of those minutes is how accessible they’re to the general public both straight on the Historica Canada web site or by way of their YouTube playlist. On the time of this publish (June 2024) there are 100 official movies within the sequence with 4 which have been eliminated attributable to inaccuracies, misrepresentation, or different causes. In case you are curious to see the lacking ones, you may sometimes discover them on YouTube with slightly looking.
Navigating the Heritage Minutes Assortment
Each the web site and the playlist listing all of the minutes by the date of their launch, with the newest productions on the high. It is sensible for them to current it this fashion, as many individuals simply need to see what’s new. On the web site, you may also select to have the movies listed alphabetically, and with some extra superior search choices, you may filter outcomes to point out outcomes by theme or by time interval.
I created a downloadable listing of the movies of their chronological order which it can save you at no cost right here. *consists of the minutes produced as much as June 2024.
Utilizing Heritage Minutes in Homeschooling
Very similar to the Nationwide Movie Board of Canada, the Heritage Minutes supply a chance to “see” historical past in motion – though the content material could be very concise and restricted throughout the 1 minute time restrict. As a homeschool dad or mum, you should utilize these clips in quite a lot of methods:
- Introducing a brand new historical past matter or idea. With these brief movies, you may whet a scholar’s curiosity on a brand new historical past matter earlier than you dive extra deeply into it. I’ll at all times bear in mind watching the clip of Nellie McClung shouting “Good Males Don’t Need the Vote!” in her parody speech offered within the Heritage Minute – it caught out to me for some motive and result in me desirous to know extra about what this complete factor was about! It could actually work the identical to your youngsters too: An introduction earlier than getting actually into the lesson!
- Alongside your curriculum plans. Let’s say you’re studying about residential colleges and also you watch the Heritage Minute about Chanie Wenjack together with the opposite sources that you simply’ve been utilizing. You should utilize the video to check, join, and distinction what you’ve been studying already – is what you’re doing in your curriculum work matching the identical views because the video or are they completely different?
- Dialog starters. Generally one of the best studying comes from simply speaking by way of issues. These movies can result in some very attention-grabbing discussions and questions from our kids – issues that couldn’t be fully lined in 60 seconds and require extra time and data. For instance, the clip about Viola Desmond and racism within the Nineteen Forties can simply lead right into a dialogue about how we deal with folks at this time, concerning the social justice actions, about what life would have been like for folks of color in these instances and since, and many others. There are many issues we are able to speak about and youngsters are often stuffed with nice, deep questions when they’re curious!
- Exploring the Six Historic Considering Ideas: Historic significance. Major Sources. Continuity and Change. Causes and Penalties. Historic Views, and Ethics. A few of these are giant ideas and may be troublesome to completely grasp, however we are able to use these movies to get children considering as if they’re historical past detectives, by asking open-ended questions resembling “Why did Historica Canada resolve to choose this particular person or this occasion to make a video of?” or “Why do you assume this occurred?” or encouraging them to search for main sources about that particular person or expertise to allow them to look at it for themselves.
- Mixed with studying. One thing that historic fiction and the heritage minutes have in frequent is storytelling – drawing you into the motion and serving to you see what is occurring in actual time. That’s why they go nicely collectively. Select some Canadian historic fiction books to match the subject lined within the brief video and hold the storytelling going so your children get engaged and invested by discovering extra from another person’s eyes.
- Use the sources offered. Most of the movies have further hyperlinks listed beneath. Some are academic guides with classes and exercise plans, sometimes of the larger overarching theme resembling Indigenous or Ladies’s research. Others are classes created by the Canadian Encyclopedia with printables and extra movies. Others are associated articles. See what they advocate and if their sources are a superb match for your loved ones.
Canadian Heritage Minutes Printable Worksheets
Attempt these worksheets to assist make connections between what they know and what they realized. Free to obtain and use. The questions are basic sufficient that they can be utilized for any of the movies. There are two completely different ranges. One is designed for grades 4+ and the opposite for grade 8+. You should utilize whichever one will work greatest to your youngster.
