First Grade Social Studies
Course Description
In first grade, students explore their place in the world around them building on their work in kindergarten and expanding perspective beyond themselves. Through comparison of family, school, and community, students will explore multiple perspectives from the past and today. The study of how students fit into society requires that students consider questions such as the essential questions listed below.
Grade Level: First Grade
Related Priority Standards (State &/or National): Missouri Learning Standards for Social Studies (K-5)
KSD Priority Standards for 1st Grade Social Studies
- Examine the rights, roles, and responsibilities of citizens and people in government (1.GS.2.D, 1.PC.1)
- Identify why cities make laws, how individual rights are protected, how disputes are resolved, and how citizens can take an active role in their communities (1.PC.1.D, 1.GS.2.C, 1.RI.6.B)
- Read, construct, and use maps that contain symbols, legends, titles, keys, and cardinal directions, with assistance (1.EG.5)
- Identify and describe human characteristics, cultural characteristics, and physical characteristics of your community (1.RI.6.A, 1.EG.5.C)
- Compare and contrast your community from the past to the present, examining cultural, social, and economic changes over time (1.H.3.B, 1.RI.6.C)
- Identify and describe human characteristics, cultural characteristics, and physical characteristics of your community (1.RI.6.A, 1.EG.5.C)
- Describe examples of scarcity & surplus, goods & services, and consumers & producers within the community, examining how they interact with each other (1.E.4.A)
Essential Questions
- What is a community and how do members work together to make changes?
- How are children and families from around the world similar and different?
- How are cultures around the world similar and different?
- Why are maps made? What information do maps tell us?
- How does where you live influence how you live?
- In what ways do people and things change over time?
- How has your community changed over time?
- How do we learn from the past?
- Why are symbols powerful?
- Why do you have to make choices about what we buy and what we do?
- How do we get the things we need or want in our family, school, community?
- How are the concepts of scarcity and surplus different across my school, community, country, and/or the world?
Course-Level Scope & Sequence (Units &/or Skills)
Unit 1: Rights and Responsibilities of Community Members
In this unit, students will explore what governments do and how citizens interact with the government. Students will:
- Identify and explain why cities make laws
- Discuss how individual rights are protected
- Give examples of being an active and informed citizen in your classroom or community
- Describe how authoritative decisions are made, enforced and interpreted within schools and local communities
- Describe the roles and responsibilities of people in government such as judge, mayor, police, city council member in a community
- Locate a place by pointing it out on a map and describing its relative location
- Propose peaceful resolutions of disputes in the classroom and on the playground
Unit 2: “Let’s Go on a Journey”
In this unit, students will explore what governments do and how citizens interact with the government. Students will:
- With assistance, read, construct and use maps, which have a title and key
- Describe cultural characteristics of your school and community (language, celebrations, customs, holidays, art, food, dress, traditions)
- Describe the human characteristics of your community (population density and composition, architecture, economic and recreation activities, transportation and communication networks)
Unit 3: From Past to Present
In this unit, students will explore what governments do and how citizens interact with the government. Students will:
- Compare and contrast our community in the past and present (e.g., schools, land usage, communication)
- Recount stories about locations, people and cultural events in your community. (Kirkwood, St. Louis)
- Recognize and explain the significance of symbols in your local community, school, state, and nation
Unit 4: The Economics & Characteristics of Communities
In this unit, students will explore what governments do and how citizens interact with the government. Students will:
- Describe examples of scarcity within your school and community
- Describe examples of goods and services within your school and community
- Identify physical characteristics of your community
- Describe human characteristics of your community
Course Resources & Materials: A variety of resources are used to support instruction of this curriculum, including primary source documents, maps, atlases, articles, trade books, and videos from Brainpop Jr., Flocabulary, and other online resources. Additional picture books to support the first grade curriculum are listed below.
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Date Last Revised/Approved: 2019