The following links provide the Scope and Sequence information for Social Studies. By providing these links we are introducing one more way for you as a parent/guardian to become more informed and engaged in your students’ education. Scope and Sequence documents provide information on course expectations and show how teachers effectively build on learning instead of covering material that students already know. By design, Scope and Sequences are standards-based with key concepts at their core. Click on the course title to read a full description.
Social Studies - Kindergarten
List of Theme Topics/ Synopsis of Units/Course:
Social Studies Alive! Me and My World (TCI)
Students explore the relationships with their families, friends, teachers, and neighbors. They learn that people live differently in different places and that they can help care for the world.
Unit 1 Who Am I? In a series of Writing for Understanding activities, students explore what they look like, what they care about, how they feel, and things they can do. They then create “What Am I?” books and have classmates guess who is being described.
Unit 2 What is a Family? Students identify and picture the members of their families, the things they do together, and the special gifts their family members offer one another.
Unit 3 How Do I Get Along with Others? In an experiential Exercise, students learn firsthand why taking turns is important for getting along.
Unit 4: How Do I Make Friends? In a series of Social Studies Skill Builders, students learn four skills for making new friends.
Unit 5: How Do I solve Problems with Others? Students learn and practice four problem solving steps: stop and calm down, talk and listen, think of solutions, and agree on a plan to try.
Unit 6: How Can I Be a Good Helper at School? Students learn and practice ways to be helpers.
Unit 7: What Is in My Neighborhood? In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students take on specific roles to design and build a three-dimensional neighborhood.
Unit 8: Where Am I in the World? Students assemble a book of pictures that show where they live.
Unit 9: How Do People Live Around the World? Students discover that people use different languages to communicate. They take an “airplane flight” to Japan to “share a meal,” and play two cultures’ versions of a sidewalk game.
Unit 10: How Can I Help Take Care of the World: Students discover where garbage goes after it is thrown away and learn specifically what they can do to recycle, reuse, and reduce.
Social Studies - First Grade
List of Theme Topics/ Synopsis of Units/Course:
Social Studies Alive! My School and Family (TCI)
Students learn how to get along with classmates, follow school rules, and identify people who work at a school.
Unit 1: How Do We Get Along in School? IN an experiential Exercise, students discover the value of cooperating to complete a task.
Unit 2: Why Is It Important to Learn from Each Other? IN a Social Studies Skill Builder, students complete questionnaires that reveal their own interests and special talents. They practice appropriate ways to talk and listen.
Unit 3: Why Do Schools Have Rules? Students discover why rules are needed. They read about reasons for school rules and talk about the consequences of not following them.
Unit 4: Who Helps Us at School? In a Visual Discovery activity, students analyze photographs of school staff and listen to a recording of each person describing his or her job.
Unit 5: How Are We Good Helpers at School? In a Response Group activity, students explore four situations that they might encounter at school and discuss the best ways to be good helpers.
Unit 6: What Is a Map?
Students practice reading a classroom map, its key, and a compass rose.
Unit 7: What was School Like Long Ago? Students view and read about school-related artifacts from the past, discussing their use.
Unit 8: What Groups Do We Belong To? Students examine pictures and categories them into groups as school, family, or community. They read about and recognize the different types of groups to which they belong.
Unit 9: How Are Families Special? Students read about different family members, types of homes, and family activities.
Unit 10: What Do Families Need and Want? In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students decide what families would need and want on a camping trip, and then explain why selected items are needs or wants.
Unit 11: How Do Family Members Care for Each Other? Students sort family pictures into three categories of caring for each other – helping each other, sharing knowledge, and spending time together.
Unit 12: How Do Families Change? Students explore what happens when people grow older. They also learn some reasons why families change in size.
Unit 13: What Are Family Traditions? Students explore the term tradition and then experience family traditions for birthdays and holidays from two different cultures.
Unit 14: What Do Good Neighbors Do? Ina Problem Solving Groupwork activity, groups of four illustrate and assemble puzzles that show examples of actions good neighbors take.
Social Studies - Second Grade
List of Theme Topics/ Synopsis of Units/Course:
Social Studies Alive! My Community (TCI)
Students learn the basics of geography, economics, and citizenship in the context of their local community.
Unit 1: What is a community? In a problem solving group activity, students design a community that includes places to live, work, and play.
Unit 2: How are communities different? In a visual discovery activity, students learn about the features, advantages, and disadvantages of urban, rural, and suburban communities.
Unit 3: How do we use maps? In a social skills builder, students work in pairs to read and answer questions about maps.
Unit 4: What is geography? Pairs identify geographic features and locate them on a physical map.
Unit 5: How do people use our environment? Students explore how people use natural resources in various environments and discover the effects of pollution.
Unit 6: How are goods made and brought to us? In an experiential exercise, students make a toy using assembly-line techniques, participate in a relay race to learn how goods are transported to stores, and read about how goods are produced and distributed.
Unit 7: Who provides services in a community? In a writing for understanding activity, students create puppets representing service workers and write descriptions of their workers’ job that they present at a “job fair.”
Unit 8: How can I be a good shopper? Students make choices about what to buy and distinguish between economic needs and wants. They read about economic principles and practices that help consumers spend wisely.
Unit 9: How do communities change? Students learn bout how communities grow and change. They create a plan to make a neighborhood better.
Unit 10: How did one community change? In a visual discovery activity, students analyze images of San Francisco in 1846 and 1849 and then create act-it-outs to explore what life was like during those two time periods. Then they build a timeline by placing the events of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in sequence.
Unit 11: How can one person make a difference in a community? Students propose possible solutions to given community problems and compare their solutions with how people actually solved these problems.
Unit 12: How do leaders help their communities? Students make predictions about what leaders can do. They conduct mock demonstrations using leaders to take certain actions to fix a playground.
Unit 13: What does a good citizen do? Students create a Good Citizen book to record good citizen actions.
Unit 14: What do communities share? Students discover the economic interdependence of communities and states by exchanging product cards. They complete a map illustrating social connections among the communities.
Social Studies - Third Grade
List of Theme Topics/ Synopsis of Units/Course:
Social Studies Alive! Our Community and Beyond (TCI)
Our Community and Beyond broadens students’ awareness about the local and global communities in which they live. They learn the fundamentals of geography and explore different cultures and public service roles.
Unit 1: Where in the world is our community? IN a visual discovery activity, students act as space shuttle astronauts who are returning to Earth and learn about geographic features of the globe as they get closer to their landing site.
Unit 2: Where in the United States is our community? Students use a map and compass rose to locate their community, identify directions, and measure distances to other places.
Unit 3: What is the geography of our community? Includes ancient world history extensions: Geography and Settlement of ancient peoples. Students write and illustrate travel brochures for three communities in the U.S. based on physical features, climate, and natural resources.
Unit 4: How do people become part of our community? IN an experiential exercise, students explore the reasons why people immigrate, the challenges immigrants face in getting to the United States, and some of the benefits and drawbacks of being an immigrant.
Unit 5: What makes our community diverse? Students explore cultural diversity by looking at the contributions of different cultures in the categories f food, languages, holidays, and traditions.
Unit 6: How do people improve their communities? Includes ancient world history extension: People who have changed history. Students create human monuments honoring the contributions of four individuals whose actions make a difference in the lives of the people in their own community and around the country.
Unit 7: How are people around the world alike and different? Students read about children from communities around the world and study artifacts related to the children’s daily lives.
Unit 8: How does our economy work? Includes ancient world history extension: Communication in ancient times. Students discover what happens to prices when supply and demand change.
Unit 9: How does global trade affect our community? Students take on the roles of countries around the world and use a ball of yarn to create a trade web connecting all of the other countries to one another.
Unit 10: What are the Public Services in Our Community? Students analyze artifacts related to six public services and learn about those services.
Unit 11: Who works at City Hall? Students read letters to city hall, choose the office best suited to deal with the issue raised and write a short response.
Unit 12: How do we have a voice in our community? Students use their acting skills to bring to life images of public meetings, peaceful demonstrations, support for candidates, and voting.
Unit 13: Whose planet is it, anyway? Students discuss solutions to three cases of communities faced with specific environmental problems.
Unit 14: How can we help the global community? Students design, present, and implement a class project to help the global community.
Social Studies - Fourth Grade
List of Theme Topics/ Synopsis of Units/Course:
Social Studies Alive! Regions of Our Country (TCI)
Students examine five regions of the United States through the lens of four social sciences: economics, geography, political science, and history.
Unit 1: Discovering the social sciences. What do social scientists do? Students discuss artifacts from the perspective of each of these social science traditions: economics, geography, political science, and history.
Unit 2: Exploring regions of the United States. How do geographers study the regions of the United States? Students interpret a series of special purpose maps depicting five regions of the United States.
Unit 3: The people of the United States. How have different groups contributed to the United States? Students learn about five different ethnic groups: American Indians, Latinos, European Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans.
Unit 4: A train tour of the northeast. What are different parts of the Northeast like? Students sit on a “train” and listen to a tour guide while they view images of places in the Northeast to learn key concepts and facts about the region.
Unit 5: Population density and life in the Northeast. How do people live in the Northeast? In an experiential exercise, students use their bodies and desks to stimulate the population density of the Northeast and several comparative locales.
Unit 6: A boat and bus tour of the Southeast. What factors have shaped the culture of the southeast? Students “travel” by boat and bus while listening to a tour guide and viewing images depicting life in the Southeast. Students engage in interactive experiences and learn key concepts and facts about the region.
Unit 7: The effects of geography on life in the Southeast. How has geography helped shape daily life in the Southeast? Students look at maps and answer questions about climate, elevation, natural resources, and bodies of water in the Southeast.
Unit 8: A crop duster tour of the Midwest. Why do we call the Midwest “America’s Heartland”? Students “tour” the Midwest in a crop duster and listen to a tour guide and view images of the Midwest. Through interactive experiences, students learn key concepts and facts about the region.
Unit 9: Agricultural changes in the Midwest. How has farming changed the Midwest over time? In s visual discovery activity, Students analyze images of farm life in 1800, 1900, and today to discover how agriculture has changed in the Midwest.
Unit 10: A big rig tour of the Southwest. How have geography and history shaped life in the Southwest?
Unit 11: A case study in water use: The Colorado River. How do people depend on the Colorado River and share its water? Students act out the roles of people living near the Colorado River in four different time periods to understand how its water has been used and shared, and how it might be used in the future.
Unit 12: A van and airplane tour of the West. What are the features that have drawn people to the West?
Unit 13: Cities of the West. What attracts people to the cities of the West?
Unit 14: Researching your state’s geography. How has geography influenced life in your state?
Unit 15: Researching your state’s history. How can you learn about your state’s history?
Unit 16: Researching your state’s economy. What do you need to know to understand your state’s economy?
Unit 17: Researching your state’s government. How does your state’s government work.
Social Studies - Fifth Grade
List of Theme Topics/ Synopsis of Units/Course:
Social Studies Alive! America’s Past (TCI)
Students learn American history from the first immigrations into the Americas through the 20th century. Interactions with the personalities, places, and events that structured our nation leads students to be both keen observers of and informed participants in U.S. History.
Unit 1: Geography of the United States. What can geography teach us about the United States?
Unit 2: American Indians and their land. How did American Indians adapt to different environments in North America?
Unit 3: American Indian Cultural Regions. How and why did American Indian cultural regions differ? Students analyze historical artifacts from different groups and then compare and contrast life in the various regions.
Unit 4: How and why Europeans came to the New World. What did explorer take to and from the New World during the Age of Exploration?
Unit 5: Routes of Exploration to the New World. How did exploration of the Americas lead to settlement?
Unit 6: early English Settlements. What challenges faced the first English colonies? Students analyze images of Roanoke, Jamestown, and Plymouth to create act-it-outs that show why settlers came, the hardships they endured, and the reasons why each settlement succeeded or failed.
Unit 7: Comparing the Colonies. How were the three colonial regions alike and different?
Unit 8: Facing Slavery. What was the impact of slavery on Africans? Students analyze and respond to three dilemmas faced by Africans during enslavement: trading slaves for guns in West Africa, surviving the Middle Passage, and living as a slave in the colonies.
Unit 9: Life in Colonial Williamsburg. What were key parts of life for Southern colonists in the 1700’s?
Unit 10: Tensions grow between the colonies and Great Britain. What British actions angered the colonists in the 1700’s?
Unit 11: To declare independence of not. What were the arguments for and against colonial independence from Great Britain? In a problem solving group activity, students represent six historical figures in a panel debate between loyalists and Patriots.
Unit 12: The Declaration of Independence. What are the main ideas of the Declaration of Independence?
Unit 13: The American Revolution. How did the colonists win the American Revolution?
Unit 14: The Constitution. What are the key features of the U.S. Constitution? Students are presented with a series of situations that the government might face and determine which branch or branches of government will resolve each situation.
Unit 15: The Bill of Rights: What are the basic rights and freedoms of the American people?
Unit 16: Manifest Destiny and Settling the West. How did the expansion of the United States affect people inside and outside the country? In an experiential exercise, students act as 19th century settlers and migrate into the western territories.
Unit 17: The diverse peoples of the West. What drew new settlers to the western part of the United States in the 1800’s?
Unit 18: The Causes of the Civil War. What factors helped drive apart the North and the South in the mid 1800’s?
Unit 19: The Civil War. What factors contributed to the outcome of the Civil War? Students take a “walking tour” to visit five sites at the battlefield at Gettysburg in July 1863 and examine and take notes on written and visual information about aspects of the Civil War, such as military tactics and technology and combat conditions.
Unit 20: Industrialization and the Modern United States. How has life changed in the United States since the Civil War? Students learn of seven historical periods since the Civil War that have changed life in the United States.
Social Studies - Sixth Grade
Coming Soon!