District 11 Educational Support Services
Social Studies

Grade 5, Overview of the Year: Road to Independence
 

Overview

Fifth graders will learn about the history of the United States of America, beginning from the earliest human migrations from Asia into the Americas following the Ice Age. Students will use maps, globes and artifacts to study the early European explorers as well as the first thirteen colonies. Finally, students will learn about and understand the earliest efforts of colonists to form the United States government and economic systems that we, as citizens, know today. The units of study that direct this path for students are: U.S. Regions & Native Americans; Discovery, Exploration and Colonization; Revolutionary War; and U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

For Teachers
Quarter 1  2
Quarter 3  4 
Prior Grade
Next Grade

Quarter 1: U.S. Regions & Native Americans
Quarter 2: The Age of Discovery-European Explorers and Colonial America
Quarter 3: American Revolution
Quarter 4: Constitution and Bill of Rights

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

  • Chronology organizes people and events and helps explain historical relationships.
  • Historians use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions about the past and the present.
  • Societies are diverse and change over time.
  • Technology has changed societies throughout history.
  • Rules, laws and governments develop and change over time.
  • Beliefs of individuals and groups have powerful effects on societies.
  • Maps, globes and other geographic tools show places events occur.
  • Physical and human characteristics of places define regions.
  • People migrate and settle in different places for a variety of reasons.
  • Human activity changes and is changed by the physical environment.
  • Government involves people acquiring and using power and authority.
  • Individuals and groups make, enforce and apply rules and laws (government).
  • People and nations interact politically.
  • Citizens have rights, roles and responsibilities.
  • Decisions must be made about the use of scarce resources.
  • Resources are used to produce and distribute goods and services.
  • The exchange of goods and services leads to trade and interdependence.

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

  • What are the physical regions of the U.S. and what are characteristics that define them?
  • What sources of information do we use to find out about Native Americans?
  • When and why did the first migration to America take place?
  • What were the origins of the Native Americans, according to their sources?
  • How were Native Americans in different regions alike, and how were they different?
  • How did Native Americans use natural, human, and capital resources?
  • Why did Europeans explore the New World?
  • What new inventions helped guide explorers on their journeys?
  • When did individual Europeans explore the New World?
  • Which early explorers had the greatest impact?
  • What impact did the explorers have on the New/Old World?
  • How are maps used to show routes taken to the New World?
  • Why did people migrate and settle in these places?
  • How did the beliefs of individuals and groups influence the formation of governments and societies?
  • How were the beliefs of individuals/groups in the colonies similar/different?
  • What physical characteristics aided/challenged inhabitants of the first colonies?
  • What were the key political challenges and successes of the first English colonies?
  • How and why were early colonial governments formed?
  • How did scarcity of resources lead to trade, exchange and interdependence with Native Americans?
  • In what ways were the New England, Middle and Southern colonies most alike? Most different?
  • How did the environment affect human activities?
  • What role did slavery play in colonization and settlement in different colonies and regions?
  • How have the ways people live changed over time?
  • How can events leading up to the Revolutionary War be organized chronologically?
  • What were some of the causes and effects of the laws and taxes imposed on the colonists?
  • How did Britain and the colonies interact before, during, and after the Revolution?
  • What was the outcome of the 2nd Continental Congress?
  • What were the key factors that enabled the colonists to defeat the British?
  • Who were the key players in the founding of the United States government?
  • Under Articles of Confederation, how was power acquired and used by people and by the states?
  • How did this change under the Constitution?
  • What are the main components of the Constitution?
  • How are laws made?
  • What rights and responsibilities are associated with the Bill of Rights?

Standards and Benchmarks

Standard History 1: Students understand the chronological organization of history and know how to organize events and people into major eras to identify and explain historical relationships.
Benchmark H1 A: Students know the general chronological order of events and people in history.
Standard History 2
: Students know how to use the processes and resources of historical inquiry.
Benchmark H2 A: Students know how to formulate questions and hypotheses regarding what happened in the past to obtain and analyze historical data to answer questions and test hypotheses.
Standard History 3
: Students understand that societies are diverse and change over time.
Benchmark H3 A: Students know how various societies were affected by contracts and exchanges among diverse people.
Standard History 4
: Students understand how science, technology, and economic activity have developed, changed, and affected societies throughout history.
Benchmark H4 A: Students understand the impact of scientific and technological developments of individuals and societies.
Standard History 5
: Students understand political institutions and theories that developed and changed over time.
Benchmark H5 A: Students understand how democratic ideas and institutions in the United States have developed, changed, and/or been maintained.
Standard History 6
: Students know that religious and philosophical ideas have been powerful forces throughout history.
Benchmark H6 B: Students know how societies have been affected by religions and philosophies.
Standard 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 G1 A: Students know how to use maps, globes, and other geographic tools to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.
Standard 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 G2 A: Students know the physical and human characteristics of places.
Benchmark G2 B: Students know how and why people define regions.
Standard Geography 4
: Students understand how economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, interdependence, cooperation and conflict.
Benchmark G4 B: Students know the nature and spatial distributions of cultural patterns.
Benchmark G4 E: Students know how cooperation and conflict among people influence the division and control of the earth's surface.
Standard Civics 1
: Students understand the purposes of government, and the basic constitutional principles of the United States republican form of government.
Benchmark C1 C: Students understand the principles of the United States Constitutional Government.
Standard Civics 2
: Students know how to use structure and function of local, state, and nationally government and how citizen involvement shapes public policy.
Benchmark C2 A: Students know the organization and functions of local, state, and national governments.
Benchmark C2 D: Students know how public policy is developed at the local, state, and national levels.
Standard Civics 3
: Students know the political relationship of the United States and its citizens to other nations and to world affairs.
Benchmark C3 C: Students understand the domestic and foreign policy influence the United States has on other nations and how the actions of other nations influence the politics and the society of the United States.
Standard Civics 4
: Students understand how citizens exercise the roles, rights, and responsibilities of participation in civic life at all levels.
Benchmark C4 C: Students know how citizens can exercise their rights.

Standard 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 E2 A: Students understand that different economic systems employ different means to produce, distribute, and exchange goods and services.
Standard Economics 3
: Students understand the results of trade, exchange, and interdependence among individuals, households, businesses, governments, and societies.
Benchmark E3 A: Students understand that the exchange of goods and services creates economic interdependence and change.

Elementary Social Studies D-11 Indicators, K-5

History
1.Chronological Organization: Organize events and people in history chronologically (time lines, lists, sequencing).
2.Historical Inquiry: Use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions (who, what, when, why, how) about the past and present, and to determine cause and effect relationships.
3.Diverse and Changing Societies: Describe cultural similarities, differences and interactions among various groups in both past and present.
4.Science, Technology, and Economic Activity: Identify and explain changes in technology (scientific achievements and inventions) and how they changed history.
5.Political Institutions and Theories: Describe how and why rules and laws (government) have been made and enforced.
6.Religious and Philosophical Ideas: Identify beliefs of individuals and groups and their effects on societies.

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.
6.Apply Knowledge of Geography: Describe how and why places change over time.

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.
3.Political Relationships: Describe ways that peoples and nations interact.
4.Citizenship Participation: Explain the rights, roles, and responsibilities of students as citizens in the classroom, school, community, state, and nation.
Economics
1.Scarcity and Decision-Making: Identify scarce natural, human, and capital resources and evaluate decisions about how they are used.
2.Resources and Production of Goods and Services: Explain how, why, and for whom goods and services are produced.
3.Trade, Exchange, and Economic Interdependence: Identify ways goods and services are distributed through trade, exchange and interdependence.

 

Elementary Social Studies D-11 Indicators, K-5

History
1.Chronological Organization: Organize events and people in history chronologically (time lines, lists, sequencing).
2.Historical Inquiry: Use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions (who, what, when, why, how) about the past and present, and to determine cause and effect relationships.
3.Diverse and Changing Societies: Describe cultural similarities, differences and interactions among various groups in both past and present.
4.Science, Technology, and Economic Activity: Identify and explain changes in technology (scientific achievements and inventions) and how they changed history.
5.Political Institutions and Theories: Describe how and why rules and laws (government) have been made and enforced.
6.Religious and Philosophical Ideas: Identify beliefs of individuals and groups and their effects on societies.

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.
6.Apply Knowledge of Geography: Describe how and why places change over time.

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.
3.Political Relationships: Describe ways that peoples and nations interact.
4.Citizenship Participation: Explain the rights, roles, and responsibilities of students as citizens in the classroom, school, community, state, and nation.

Economics
1.Scarcity and Decision-Making: Identify scarce natural, human, and capital resources and evaluate decisions about how they are used.
2.Resources and Production of Goods and Services: Explain how, why, and for whom goods and services are produced.
3.Trade, Exchange, and Economic Interdependence: Identify ways goods and services are distributed through trade, exchange and interdependence.

 

 

Sample Lessons

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

Parent Resources

Fifth grade students expand their knowledge outward from themselves, their home, school, community, city, and state to the United States. Consider supporting your child's learning by emphasizing the difference between city, county, state, and country on a variety of maps. The third grade studies of Native Americans in the Pikes Peak region are expanded to the Native American tribes in other regions of the United States. The North American Explorers and Colonial America are studied, along with the American Revolution leading to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. A visit to the Colonial Williamsburg site would be an interesting place to start. Discussing why our nation formed will help your students gain practical understanding of the concepts. Point out when, why, and how we sing the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance. These simple explanations will help your child understand the significance and uniqueness of our country.

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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