EDU 105 - Social Studies for Young Children - Textbook

Connecting Social Studies to Standards

Work by Jacqueline M. DiSanto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Before we begin to connect social-studies concepts with specific standards, let us review something from the first learning module:

Social Studies is an umbrella subject that includes topics covered in each of the other content areas.  NCSS has established ten thematic strands for Social Studies and provides explanations for each strand (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2019).  They are:

• Culture

• Time, Continuance, and Change

• People, Places, and Environments

• Individual Development and Identity

• Individuals, Groups, and Institutions

• Power, Authority, and Governance

• Production, Distribution, and Consumption

• Science, Technology, and Society

• Global Connections

• Civic Ideals and Practices
   

Let’s match these themes to course you might have studied in high school or college: 
 

In kindergarten, students study “Self and Others.” The course is organized into five units of study—Individual Development and Cultural Identity; Civic Ideals and Practices; Geography, Humans, and the Environment; Time, Continuity, and Change; and Economic Systems. This is what it looks like when we match those headings with the ten thematic themes from the NCSS:

The New York State framework for kindergarten Social-Studies outlines the following practices and how they are evidence in Social Studies:

1. Gathering, Interpreting and Using Evidence

   1. Ask questions.

   2. Recognize forms of evidence used to make meaning in social studies.

   3. Identify the author or creator of a book or map.

   4. Identify opinions expressed by others.

2. Chronological Reasoning and Causation

   1. Retell an important life event in sequential order.

   2. Understand the concept of time measurements, including days and weeks.

   3. Identify causes and effects, using an example from his/her family life.

   4. Identify change over time in his/her life.

   5. Identify events of the past, present, and future in his/her life.

   6. Identify routines and common occurrences in his/her life.
       

3. Comparison and Contextualization

   1. Identify similarities and differences between home and school.

   2. Identify similarities and differences between him/her and others.

   3. Describe an event in his/her life.
       

4. Geographic Reasoning

   1. Ask geographic questions about where places are located and why they are located there, using location terms and geographic representations, such as maps, photographs, satellite images, and models.  

   2. Identify natural events or physical features, such as land, water, air, and wind.

   3. Describe how environment affects his/her activities.

   4. Identify a pattern.

   5. Identify a human activity that changed a place.
       

5. Economics and Economic Systems

   1. Identify examples of scarcity and choices made due to scarcity.

   2. Identify examples of goods and services.

   3. Identify what money is and how it is used in society.
       

6. Civic Participation

   1. Demonstrate respect for the rights of others.

   2. Participate in activities that focus on a classroom or school issue or problem.

   3. Identify the role of the individual in classroom participation.

   4. Show respect in issues involving difference and conflict.

   5. Identify situations in which social actions are required.

   6. Identify the school principal and their role within the school.

   7. Identify and follow rules in the classroom and school.

Notice that the themes from “Self and Others” are represented under more than one of the NCSS strands.  That is because Social Studies takes a constructivist approach by allowing students to scaffold their knowledge, experiences, and understanding of a subject as they encounter it under different topics and through varied activities.  This leads to the building of skills, concepts, and opinions that will lead students toward success in Social Studies as it grows in both scope and sophistication at each new grade level. Remember the outcome is a functioning, participating member of society.