The General Store

Today we combined two subjects! 
After reading The Hockey Sweater on Monday, the boys and girls learned about how the mother in the story preferred to buy her family's clothes from the Eaton's catalogue and not the General Store.  

Of course, one of the most popular and useful buildings in the pioneer village was indeed the General Store.  So we jumped a little ahead in our Social Studies unit today to learn all about this multi-functional building in the community.  

Instead of writing in their Learning Journal, the boys and girls began a paragraph about the General Store using the steps they've learned as part of our Creative Writing unit.  

We began with an idea web, where students had to write 5-7 ideas and then from there, choose their top 3-4 and begin their paragraphs. The paragraph also had to include a "plus" (see the photo below).  

We'll pick up where we left off in Social Studies a week or so ago. If I remember correctly, we were just about to learn about the Beaver War.  I just couldn't resist this opportunity to tell the boys and girls all about the General Store and have them exercise their paragraph writing skills.