Enduring Understandings - important ideas that students should carry with them years beyond the instruction received this year.

• Historians use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions about the past and present (historical inquiry).
• Societies are diverse and change over time.
• Human activity changes and is changed by the physical environment
• Decisions must be made about the use of scarce resources.

Essential Questions - most important “big picture” questions students should be able to answer after completing learning activities. 

• What are some differences and similarities between your school and your parents/grandparents’ school?  Where does this information come from?
• What types of sources can we look at to find out about a family’s history?
• How are the members of your family different from others?  How are they the same?
• What are some differences and similarities between your school and your parents/grandparents’ school?  Where does this information come from?
• How are decisions made about scarce resources?
• What are some ways our lives are like those of the people of Japan? What are some ways our lives are different?
• How does space help determine what people can do?

Standards and Benchmarks
History 2:  Students know how to use processes and resources of historical inquiry.
Benchmark  A:  Students know how to formulate questions and hypotheses regarding what happened in the past and how to obtain and analyze historical data to answer questions and test hypotheses. 
History 3:  Students understand that societies are diverse and change over time.
Benchmark B:  Students understand the history of social organization in various societies.
Geography 1:  Students know how to use and construct maps, globes, and other geographic tools to locate and derive information about people, places, and environments.
Benchmark A:  Students know how to use maps, globes and other geographic information to acquire, process and report information from spatial perspective.
Geography 5: Students understand the effects of interactions between human and physical systems and changes in meaning, use, distribution, and importance of resources.
Benchmark5 B: Students know physical systems affect human systems.
Economics 2: Students understand how different economic systems impact decisions about the use of resources and the production and distribution of goods and services.
Benchmark 2A: Students understand that different economic systems employ different means to produce, distribute, and exchange goods and services.

Social Studies Indicators

• Use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions (who, what, when, why, how) abut the past and present, and to determine cause and effect relationships.
• Describe cultural similarities, differences, and interactions among various groups in both past and present.
• Describe ways humans change the physical environment and how the physical environment affects human activity.
• Identify scarce natural, human, and capital resources and evaluate decisions about how they are used. 

District 11 Diamond Units/Lessons Overview - includes information about the purpose, goals and structure of these sample instructional units:

Lessons 1-3: My School, Your School
Duration: 3-25 minutes class sessions

Enduring Understanding: Historians use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions about the past and present (historical inquiry).
Essential Questions: What are some differences and similarities between your school and your parents/grandparents’ school?  Where does this information come from? What types of sources can we look at to find out about a family’s history?
Social Studies Indicators: Use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions (who, what, when, why, how) abut the past and present, and to determine cause and effect relationships.
Assessment:  Answer these statements:  One way our school is like those of the past is______.  One way our school is different from those of the past is _____.  One primary source from our school is _________. 

Activities

• Talk about the questions that can be used to find out about people and places in the past: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?  Develop questions to ask for the next activity.

• Introduce the concept of a “primary source” which is one from the time or place studied or an account from an eyewitness ( a person who was there).
• Talk to older family members and family friends to ask about their school experiences. Include asking about primary sources.
• Ask questions about the history of your parents and/or grandparents in school.  Use sources like stories, pictures, journals, and/or books.
• Complete activities at http://library.thinkquest.org/J002611F/

Differentiation
Support: Teacher will provide students with facts about schools of today and the past (in a center). Students will sort the facts and discuss with each other why they go in a specific category.
Extension:  Students will write a paragraph on ways to find out about people and places in the past, and illustrate.
Resources:   Social Studies Alive! Chapter 7   http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/hh/goplaces/article/0,20343,555136,00.html
http://www.primarysourcelearning.org/tps/students/elem.shtml

Lessons 4-6: Traditions
Duration: 3-25 minutes class sessions
    
Enduring Understanding: Historians use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions about the past and present (historical inquiry).
Essential Question: What types of sources can we look at to find out about a family’s history?
Essential Questions: What are some differences and similarities between your school and your parents/grandparents’ school?  Where does this information come from? What types of sources can we look at to find out about a family’s history?
Assessment:  Share a tradition other than one from your own family, and explain why it is a tradition.

Activities

• Review the concept of a primary source, and discuss what sources can be used to find out about the traditions, celebrations and stories that are shared by families. Also, what questions can be asked to find out more about these traditions, celebrations and stories.
• Bring in pictures from home (celebrations). Discuss stories and traditions that are shared by members of your family. Have students ask questions of each other to discover more.
• Make a book “My Family is Special.”  Write and draw pictures about family members and what traditions, objects, and stories they share about your family.

Differentiation
Support: Show magazine pictures of celebrations and have students explain to the teacher what is happening. Have a speaker with non-speaker do the same activity above.
Enrichment: Students will find pictures from magazines and newspapers related to family traditions and celebrations, and write a sentence about what is taking place and what questions they could ask to find out more about them
Resources:  Social Studies Alive! Chapter 13; http://www.americanfamilytraditions.com/traditions_customs_rituals.htm

Lessons 7-10: What is a Family?
Duration: 4-25 minute class session
  
Enduring Understanding: Societies are diverse and change over time.
Essential Question: How are the members of your family different from others?  How are they the same?
Social Studies Indicators: Use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions (who, what, when, why, how) abut the past and present, and to determine cause and effect relationships.
Describe cultural similarities, differences, and interactions among various groups in both past and present.
Assessment: Form groups of 3 or 4, and have students be able to tell one way all in the group are alike and one way they are different. Repeat!

Activities

• Discuss the word “group.” List examples and nonexamples.

• In pairs, discuss 2 ways groups are alike and 2 ways groups are different.

• Read Tea With Milk by Allen Say, from Japan kit

• Illustrate pictures to compare/contrast your family with a Japanese family.

• Make a T-chart about May’s two cultures. (From Tea With Milk )

Differentiation 
Support:  Pair students and have a pictured list of things to look for.  Example: Color of eyes, hair, height, where they live, where born, how old they are, boy or girl, etc.
Extension:  In pairs, students will make groups out of class members by the most similarities, and other students will need to guess how they are grouped.
Resources: Social Studies Alive! Chapter 8, Tea With Milk by Allen Say  Japan Kit http://bccb.lis.uiuc.edu/0699big.html

Lessons 11-13: Japanese Folktales
Duration:  3-25 minute class sessions
    
Enduring Understanding: Historians use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions about the past and present (historical inquiry).
Essential Question: What are some differences and similarities between your school and your parents/grandparents’ school?  Where does this information come from?
Social Studies Indicators: Use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions (who, what, when, why, how) abut the past and present, and to determine cause and effect relationships. Describe cultural similarities, differences, and interactions among various groups in both past and present.
Reading: Comprehension Standards
Connects information and events in text to life.
Use a range of strategies, http://www.pplsp.org, to make meaning from a variety of text;
Assessment:  Discuss: What can a story tell you about people that a teacher might not be able to tell you?

Activities

• Read Japanese Children’s Favorite Stories by Florence Sakade, from Japan kit

• Have groups of 3-4 pick out a favorite story and act it out.

• Watch Yoshi The Lantern Maker (8:28) or Favorite Japanese Folktale (1:54)

• Pick out a U.S. story and a Japanese Folktale and do a Venn diagram.

• Discuss fiction as secondary sources, written by someone who was making up details that may or may not be true.

Differentiation
Support:  Read a story or part of a story to the class and have pairs of students discuss the story. Ask the students specific questions about the story.
Extension: Students do a written book report on a favorite story in which they describe the people and how they are alike and different from people they know.
Resources:  Japanese Children’s Favorite Stories by Florence Sakade, Japan Kit

Lesson 14-16: Is Space (lots of room) Important?
Duration:  3-25 minute class sessions
    
Enduring Understandings: Human activity changes and is changed by the physical environment. Decisions must be made about the use of scarce resources.
Essential Questions: What are some ways our lives are like those of the people of Japan? What are some ways our lives are different? How does space help determine what people can do? How are decisions made about scarce resources?
Social Studies Indicators: Human and Physical Systems:  Describe ways humans change the physical environment and how the physical environment affects human activity. Scarcity and Decision-Making: Identify scarce natural, human, and capital resources and evaluate decisions about how they are used.
Assessment:  Explain how space differs in the US and Japan

Activities

• Watch Families of Japan. Ask students to watch for what “space” means to the Japanese and how it is used. Pictures at http://www.sover.net/~johnd/house.html

• Have groups of 3-4 act out what happens when there is very little space to live.

• Discuss what happens when there is lots of space to live.

• Show pictures of small houses in this country—how are they alike and different?

• http://www.sunlighthomes.com/green/small-homes.html

• http://spacemanagement4u.com/smallhouses1.html

• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/g/a/2007/04/27/carollloyd.DTL&o=4

Differentiation
Support:  Demonstrate lack of space in the classroom by having students sit very close together during the class, then discuss how this affected work and behavior.
Extension: Give students a very small personal space and ask them how they might make it better for themselves.
Resources:  Families of Japan video from the Japan trunk; pictures of small US houses from the sites above.