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Enduring Understandings - important ideas that students should carry
with them years beyond the instruction received this year.
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Maps, globes and
other geographic tools are used to locate information about places.
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Physical and human
characteristics of places define regions.
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Human activity
changes and is affected by the physical environment.
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People migrate and
settle in different places for a variety of reasons.
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Decisions must be made regarding reasons for trading.
Essential Questions - most important “big picture” questions
students should be able to answer after completing learning activities.
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What are the
roles/jobs of people in our classroom and in the school?
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Where do people do
their jobs in the school building?
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What regions are
found in the school?
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What is a
neighborhood? What people and places can I find in my neighborhood?
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Why do people move/migrate
into and out of neighborhoods? Why do people move to different houses?
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What animals migrate and why?
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How will a trade benefit me?
District 11 curriculum is designed to prepare
and equip students to be successful in the 21st Century. Curriculum
resources and lessons included here have been aligned to the Colorado
Standards for each content area. In addition, the entire program has been
aligned with the knowledge, skills, and learner attributes the
Partnership for
21st Century Skills promotes as necessary for success in the 21st
Century. This unit addresses the colored core values below.
Standards and Benchmarks
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
tools to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial
perspective.
Geography 2: Students know the physical and human characteristics of places,
and use this knowledge to define and study regions and their patterns of
change.
Benchmark 2A: Students know the physical and human characteristics of places
Geography 4: Students understand how economic, political, cultural and
social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations,
interdependence, cooperation and conflict.
Benchmark4 A: Students know the characteristics, location, distribution, and
migration of human populations.
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.
Civics 1: Students understand the purposes of government and the basic
constitutional principles of the United States' republican form of
government.
Benchmark C1 A: Students know and understand what government is and what
purpose it serves.
Civics 2: Students know how to use structure and function of local, state,
and national government and how citizen involvement shapes public policy.
Benchmark B: Students know how power, authority, and responsibility are
distributed, shared, and limited.
Economics 3: Students understand the results of trade, exchange, and
interdependence among individuals, house holds, businesses, governments, and
societies.
Benchmark 3A: Students understand that the exchange of goods and services
creates economic interdependence and change.
Indicators
Geography
1. Use of Geographic Tools: Use tools (maps, globes, photographs, graphs,
charts, and databases) to locate information about places.
2. and 3. Physical Processes/Physical and Human Characteristics of Places
and Regions: Identify and describe human and physical characteristics of
places, and use them to define regions.
4. Patterns of Human Population: Explain why people migrate and settle in
different places
5. Human and Physical Systems: Describe ways humans change the physical
environment and how the physical environment affects human activity.
Civics
1. Purpose of Government and US Constitutional Principles: Explain how
people get, use, and misuse
power and authority.
2. Structure and Function of Government: Explain how governments are
organized at the local, state,
and national levels and the responsibilities of each.
Economics
3. Trade, Exchange, and Economic Interdependence: Identify ways goods and
services are distributed
through trade, exchange and interdependence.
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Sample Units
Lesson 1-3: Who Are You And What Do You Do?
Duration:
3 classes of 15-20 minutes
Enduring Understanding:
Maps, globes and other geographic tools are used to locate information about
places.
Essential Question:
Where
do people do their jobs in the school building?
Assessment:
On a map of selected locations in the school, match locations to pictures of
people who work in each place.
Activities
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Review jobs in the
school and people who do them. Ask where these people work in the
school? Identify place names like office, library, cafeteria, etc.
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Plan a field trip to
the office and other parts of school, then create a floor map of the
school with place names
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Discuss locations of
various school rooms and people who work in them.
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Evaluate the map and
how it could be made even better.
Differentiation
Support: On the floor
map, have the students stand on rooms that they know and tell where they
are standing and who works there
Extension: Orally give
directions on how to get to different rooms using left/right directions.
Resources:
Mapping tools—large paper, crayons, yardstick, etc.
Lessons 4-7: What Is A Region?
Duration:
4 classes of 20 -25 minutes
Enduring Understanding: Physical and human characteristics
of places define regions.
Essential Question:
What regions are found in the school?
Assessment:
Students will orally explain what regions are in the school. Students draw
regions in their homes: eating, sleeping, playing, etc.
Activities
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Create/define specific
regions in the classroom: kitchen area, bathroom, reading area, computer
area, art area, etc. Discuss: what makes these areas regions? (it is a
special area where only one type of activity takes place)
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Identify regions of the
school (areas with common characteristics): primary and intermediate,
play and work, classrooms and administration, teacher and student.
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Use maps from the
previous lesson to identify regions shown
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Take a walk around the
school, inside and out, to identify physical and human characteristics.
See
attached worksheet for ideas. Make a chart
Differentiation
Support: Provide pictures of regions of the school, have
students identify the regions.
Extension:
Students will group the regions of the school and classify use by student or
teachers.
Resources:
Mapping tools;
attached worksheet
Lessons 8-13:
Where Do I Live?
Duration:
6 classes of 25-30 minutes
Enduring Understanding: Human Activity changes and is
affected by the physical environment.
Essential Question:
What is a neighborhood? What is my neighborhood?
Assessment:
Match pictures of building and people to jobs.
Activities
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Social Studies Alive!
Lesson 7 Activities 1
and 2
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Take a field
trip/walking tour of the neighborhood to identify people and buildings,
then discuss the following:
Is the
neighborhood a region?
How do people
change this region?
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Schedule community
speakers- fireman, policeman, banker, humane society, nurse, etc.
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Identify buildings,
outdoor places, and people located within the community.
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Social Studies Alive!
Lesson 7 Activities 3,
4, and 5
Differentiation
Support: Match buildings with the people who work in the
buildings.
Extension:
Social Studies Alive!
Lesson 7 Activity 6
Resources
Social Studies Alive!
Lesson 7
Community speakers
Lessons 14-16: Who Moves and Why?
Duration:
3 classes of 20 minutes
Enduring Understanding: People migrate and settle in
different places for a variety of reasons.
Enduring Understanding: Why do people move into and out of
neighborhoods? Why do people move to different houses?
Assessment:
Ask students which reason might be the most important one for moving and
why? For birds? For people?
Activities
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Discuss reasons for
moving into or out of a neighborhood- jobs, family, military, climate,
neighbors, etc. Make a chart of why people move. List all the reasons
for moving
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Create graph of
students who have moved from one location to another.
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Discuss migration
as moving—of people, or of animals like butterflies
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View
part of the video on bird migration at
http://idahoptv.org/dialogue4kids/archive/episodePage.cfm?versionID=154696
then discuss how birds moving might be like people moving, and how it
might be different
Differentiation
Support: Orally give a list of why people move.
Extension: Use the internet to find out about crane or
butterfly migration
Resources:
http://idahoptv.org/dialogue4kids/archive/episodePage.cfm?versionID=154696
Lessons 17-19: What would you trade and why?
Duration:
3 classes of 15-20 minutes
Enduring Understanding: Decisions must be made regarding
reasons for trading.
Essential Question:
How will a trade benefit me?
Assessment:
Is trade always a good idea? Why, or why not?
Activities
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Use the book Pig and
Crow to teach trade. See
other online lessons.
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Bring in bags with
small items for students to trade until most students are satisfied.
Then debrief. When do people trade? Why do people trade? Is there a
time when doing a trade is not a good idea? Are there things that
should never be traded? Why?
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Create a graph of the
number of trades made.
Differentiation
Support: students explain concepts to teacher or to a partner
Extension: Find a picture or story book about a trade
Resources:
websites in lesson
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Parent Resources
In simple
age-appropriate ways, let your child know about the roles and careers of
people you know. Help them become aware of your neighbors and how they move
in and out of neighborhoods. If you have moved or are planning to, give your
kindergartener confidence by talking through the process. Help your child
know they will make new friends, keep in touch with old friends, and have
new fun in the new home and neighborhood. The more children understand what
is happening in their environment, the more confident they will be.
ABCs of Elementary Years: These
ABC Tips
are designed to help you support your child’s learning in social studies
during their years in elementary school.
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