Social Science and the Young Learner

Illinois Standards include the following:

Know the reason for rules-what are the rules in your house?  What are the rules in your community?  Why do we have these rules?  Make up a list of school rules.


Participate in voting-vote for what movie you will watch on Fun Friday, vote for your favorite color (or flavor ice cream, or subject, etc)  You can then turn this into a bar graph and get your math in.


Develop an awareness of leaders in your community- what makes someone a good leader?  how do community leaders obtain their jobs?  what types of things do leaders do?  Have pictures of the president, mayor, and governor.


Identify community workers and the services they provide-police officers, firefighters, garbage men/women, etc.  Print pictures off the internet for the students to identify.


Begin to understand the use of trade to obtain goods and services-read a book about Native Americans and their use of trade.  Ask your students what they would trade with you so they could have something of yours.  Let the students bring in objects from home to trade with others (make sure they get their item back at the end of the day).


Recall information about the immediate past-what day was yesterday?  what did we talk about in math yesterday?  what did we eat for lunch yesterday?  what book did we read this morning?  Start asking these questions to get them thinking about the past.


Locate, describe and explain places, regions and features on the Earth-have pictures of different landforms for students to identify.  Explain what they are made up of.



Recognize similarities and differences in people-have pictures of people in families-do they look the same?  what about them is different?  Compare two pictures of two different families-what do these people have in common?  What is different?  Why don't we all look alike?


Understand that each of us belongs to a family and recognize that families vary-sit with each student and ask "Who is in your family?  Can you draw a picture of your family?"  Hang these pictures in your classroom.