Social Studies
I CAN STATEMENTS
QUARTER 1 - Community
Unit 1: What is a Community?
In this unit, students explore characteristics of communities, the reasons people live in communities, and different kinds of communities. Students investigate common characteristics of a community including location, physical characteristics, history, government, people, and businesses. Students explore two reasons people live in a community and are introduced to the concept of government. Using a variety of resources, including photographs and illustrations from picture books, students examine different kinds of communities and explore how communities differ in size and geography. Last, students begin to create a profile of their local community by gathering information from family members and friends about what makes their community special.
Essential Questions:
1. What is a community?
2. Why do families live in communities?
3. How are communities alike and different?
2. Why do families live in communities?
3. How are communities alike and different?
QUARTER 2 - Geography & Maps
Unit 2: Where is My Community and What is it Like There?
In this unit, students use the context of their local community to explore the five major themes of geography: location, place, human/environment interaction, movement, and region. Students explore a map of the community and identify and important physical features in the community. Integrating the second grade science content expectations, students learn about major landforms and bodies of water found on the Earth. Returning to the map of the community, students identify major roads and discuss how roads help to connect places and move goods and people. Synthesizing what they have learned, students construct a simple map of their local community. Finally, the geographic theme of region is expanded as students learn their community is part of several larger regions including county, state, country, continent, and planet.
Essential Questions:
1. Where is our community located?
2. What are the some physical and human characteristics of our community?
3. How do people change the environment in the local community?
2. What are the some physical and human characteristics of our community?
3. How do people change the environment in the local community?
QUARTER 2 - Government
Unit 3: How Do Citizens Live Together in a Community?
In this unit, students explore many important civics concepts using the context of local government. Student explore diversity in communities and review why people live in communities. Students explore the reasons people form governments including the need for laws, safety, and order. In a lesson on core democratic values and how they create a foundation for government students are introduced to the values of the common good, individual rights, and patriotism. Students explore the meaning and importance of the Pledge of Allegiance. Using the example of school rules as a springboard, students next examine the reasons communities need laws. Then, they learn how local governments make, enforce, and interpret laws. Student learn about the roles and responsibilities of citizens in local government.
Essential Questions:
1. What is the purpose of government?
2. What does our local government do?
3. What are important roles and responsibilities of citizens in a community?
2. What does our local government do?
3. What are important roles and responsibilities of citizens in a community?
QUARTER 3 - Economics
Unit 4: How Do People Work Together in a Community?
In this unit, students explore several economic concepts using the context of their local community. Through simulation and literature such as Sam and the Lucky Money or a similar book, students are introduced to the concept of opportunity cost. Using the book, The Goat in the Rug, or a similar book, students explore how natural, human, and capital resources are combined to produce goods. Students examine how businesses in a community help people meet their economic wants. Students identify businesses in their local community and connect the businesses with wants and needs they help to meet. Using The Ox Cart Man or a similar book, all economic concepts addressed in the unit are reviewed and assessed.
Essential Questions:
1. How do scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost impact economic decision making?
2. How do people and businesses interact to meet economic wants?
2. How do people and businesses interact to meet economic wants?
QUARTER 4 - History
Unit 5: How Do Communities Change?
In this unit, students use historical thinking to explore their local community’s past and how communities change over time. Using the book, The Oxcart Man, or a similar literature choice from the economics unit, students identify evidence the story took place in the past. Using a graphic organizer, students compare life in the past with life today. Acting as historians, students investigate various ways we learn about history and begin to gather information about the history of their local community. Using The House on Maple Street and A River Ran Wild or similar books, students investigate and compare change over time in a fictional and a non-fictional community. Students investigate change in their own local community. Students identify historical figures in the local community and explain their contributions and significance in local history.
Essential Questions:
1. How do historian study the past?
2. How can an individual impact history?
3. How do communities change over time?
