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Elementary Social Studies Curriculum Overview
The social studies curriculum provides the opportunity for each student to acquire knowledge and develop skills necessary for social, political and economic participation in a diverse, interdependent and changing world.
Resources (kindergarten through third grade)
District-created units of study
Variety of district-selected books
Topics (kindergarten)
A Healthy Self in a Healthy World (understanding self and others in social settings)
- Emotions
- Community environment and the people who occupy it
- Similarities and differences between cultures
- Classroom environment and others within that environment
- School environment
Topics (first grade)
All About Me
Home is Where the Heart Is
- Roles and responsibilities of individual family members
- Ways families change over time
Mapping Our Way through First Grade
- Concepts of left, right, up, down, next to and in between
- The four cardinal directions - north, south, east and west
- Labeling and using a map of the school
- Constructing a simple map of the classroom
- Using maps and globes to find locations
Our Global Community
- Beginning to view self as part of an international community
- Language, holidays and literature of China, Mexico and Nigeria
Topics (second grade)
Neighborhoods
- Components of a neighborhood and reasons for location or features of communities
- Comparing and contrasting their neighborhood/community with others
- How wants and needs are responsibly met in the home, school and community
- How people define, build and name places and develop a sense of place
- How neighborhoods change over time
- Accessing information from maps, globes, charts and pictures
- Identifying cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) and using them on a globe and desk map
- Major geographical features and regions of the earth's surface
We Are Earth (environmental awareness)
- Positive and negative consequences of environmental situations
- How people have adapted to and modified their environments, and how personal choices or behavior are related to conditions of people in other places
- How the personal use of materials, energy and water impacts the environment
- How American Indians adapted their way of living to their environment
- How places can be damaged, destroyed or improved through human actions or natural processes
- How different people may respond differently to the same event
- Taking informed actions about issues by planning on how to improve the school, community or environment
On the Move - Transportation
- Community interaction in terms of transportation
- Ways in which people move themselves, their products and their ideas around the world
- How changes in transportation technology influence the rates at which people, goods and ideas move from place to place
Communications
- community interaction in terms of communication
- Interpersonal communications and social participation
- How changes in communication technology influence the rates at which people, products and ideas move from place to place
Economics
- Economic terms
- The interdependent and dynamic nature of humans and their social, economic and political communities across cultures, time and space
Neighbors Around the World
Topics (third grade)
Where Am I? Our Local Community
- How people depend on each other in communities
- Economic terms: scarcity, needs, wants, production, interdependence, goods and services, opportunity cost
- How a region changes over time (research survey, observation of community, and compare and contrast chart)
- Comparing rural and urban environments by defining and identifying natural resources
- How human alterations of physical environments have had positive and negative consequences
- Interpreting pictures and using charts, graphs and tables to display data
- Environmental issues in the local community
A Long Time Ago is a Lot Like Today - The Ojibway
- How the process to achieve harmony and balance plays a vital role in American Indian philosophy and in the daily lives of American Indians
- How human beings from different cultures have adapted to and modified their environment
- Unique features of family structures and relationships of American Indians in Minnesota
- How institutions such as family and religion help meet basic needs, today and in the past
Origins and Immigration
- A global perspective of the world as ethnically and culturally diverse
- Individual and group differences locally and nationally
- How human beings from diverse cultures have migrated, adapted to and modified their environments
- Individual rights, freedoms and responsibilities that protect human dignity
Farming
- Immigrant migration to farmland
- Comparison of farms past and present
- Crops grown on Minnesota farms
- Production of corn from farm to processing
- What makes a cheeseburger
- African Americans in agriculture
Fourth Grade
Resources
District developed units of study
Minnesota (From Sea to Shining Sea), Children's Press
Exploring Regions Near and Far, D.C. Heath
Topics
Physical Geography
- The five themes of geography: location, place, interaction, movement and regions
- Geographic terms and abbreviations used to name and describe landforms and bodies of water
- Maps, globes, almanacs, charts, pictures, graphs and tables
- Geographical locations of regions of the United States and selected regions of the world
- Climates on earth and factors that cause differences
- How people from different cultures deal with their physical environment
Geography of the United States and Canada
- Regions in the United States and Canada
- Location, place, region, movement and human/environmental interaction
- How the people of the United States use and modify their physical environment
- Geographic features, economic activities, food, clothing, crafts and rituals of two or more regions of the United States
Minnesota
- Absolute and relative location of cities and waterways within the state
- How regions are defined and regions within Minnesota
- The origins of groups represented in Minnesota
- How Minnesota's in the past and present use, modify or adapt to the physical geography
- Categorizing the state resources as natural, human or capital
- Contributing to the improvement of the community
Fifth Grade
Resources
District-developed units of study
Exploring Our World Past and Present, DC Heath
District-selected biographies
Topics
Introduction to Historical and Geographic Thought
- Describing historical events using the five W's - who, what, where, when and why
- Organizing historical events sequentially using a timeline
- Locating, organizing and presenting information
- Reconstructing an historical account of an event using primary and secondary sources
The Ancient World
- Differences between hunters/gatherers and farmers
- Characteristics of culture and examples of the components of a specific civilization
- Locating, organizing and presenting information
- Contributions of ancient civilizations to their own time and the modern world
- Describing a past event from the point of view of a local community member
- Examples of conflict, cooperation and interdependence among individuals, groups and nations
European History to the 15th Century
- Factors that contributed to the decline, restoration and enhancement of civilization during the Middle Ages and Renaissance
- How technology has changed peoples' lives in home, work, transportation and communication
- Locating, organizing and presenting information
Europe Today
- Maps, globes, charts, graphs and tables
- Geographic terms, symbols and places
- Understanding current events
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Elementary 
