Kindergarten - History/Social Studies

• Geography
• History
• Civics
• Economics

Compelling Question:

How can we make sure that our school (or classroom) is a fun, safe learning space for all of us as community members (citizens)?

This should lead to investigative questions from the students. Here is a possible way to elicit those questions:

Think, Puzzle, Explore
 

• Look at School/Classroom Norms/Agreements from the past.
• Create a school/classroom map and think about areas where we may need norms/agreements
• Read about ways people help in their communities
• Discuss what being respectful and responsible means to your students
• Interview other staff members about their roles/ duties and responsibilities at school
• Research strategies people use when they disagree and how to resolve conflict peacefully

• Create a book that can be shared with future students to help them understand how schools are safe learning spaces
• Create a set of classroom norms/agreements that everyone will follow
• Make posters to remind others of the agreements we have made to keep our classroom a fun and safe learning space

Compelling Question:

How do we build a strong neighborhood community for ourselves and others?

This should lead to investigative questions from the students. Here is a possible way to elicit those questions:
Get some images of people in neighborhoods/schools and do a See Think Wonder

• Create self-portraits and discuss all the things that make us unique, including but not limited to, cultural identity, skin,eye and hair color, home languages, family structures, and interests/hobbies….
• Look at some neighborhood maps and discuss what is the same and what is different
• Read about different kinds of neighborhood communities and the people we may encounter in them
• Take a field trip to go on a neighborhood walk and take notes of what we see
• Investigate some community events that represent different people in our neighborhood
• Watch videos that show the people in our communities and/or different types of communities. Here are some examples: 

1. Communities for Kids - Types of Communities | Social Studies for Kids | Kids Academy
2. Sesame Street: Ben Stiller Sings About Friends & Neighbors

• Invite members of the community in to interview and find out more about they identify in their different community spaces

• Create a model of your school’s neighborhood
• Create a collage mural with drawings from the students   of the school’s neighborhood for the class bulletin board to share with the school. Students can draw themselves, the adults they see,  the buildings they see…etc.
• Have students write and perform their own version of “These Are the People in Our Neighborhood” for a buddy class(es)
• Create a neighborhood travel guide to help others find things in the neighborhood

Compelling Question:

How can we learn from the past to build a better future for ourselves?

This should lead to investigative questions from the students. Here is a possible way to elicit those questions:
Instead of sharing ideas, have them come up with questions and stop and jot as a class between mingle sessions
Mingle Pair Share | Inquiry Lesson Plan Strategy
 

• Create a personal timeline
• Read aloud about change makers from the past
• Use a calendar to note important community events, holidays and important dates (our birthdays each month) throughout the year (This could be integrated into calendar time).
• Interview an elder in their family about their family history
• Look at pictures of classrooms in the past and note how they have changed over time
• Create a T-Chart with pictures with photos from the past and present
• Watch videos about how people have made their community better in the past
• Read books about characters who spend time with and learn from the elders in their family.
• Invite members of the community in to interview and find out what things were like when they were young.
• Take a field trip(s) to look at murals throughout the city and find out more about the people in them.

**The concepts of important dates, before and after, past, present and future can also be integrated into whole class calendar time and  investigations throughout the year. 

• Create and develop a class project to benefit their community i.e, (clean up the beach, plant pollinator flowers in the schoolyard…)
• Make posters of their family histories to share with their classmates and the school at large. 
• Create a class book of elders where each student makes a picture of their elder and says what they have learned from them to share with a buddy class or put in the library for others to read.
• Use what they have learned about community action to create a timeline of their community
• Make a portrait of themselves as a change maker in the future with a caption of what they are doing to put on their class bulletin board