Elementary Curriculum for
First Grade - Social Studies

"Families and Neighborhoods"

Knowledge

• Describe various family and neighborhood settings.
• Describe how the environment affects their lives.
• Compare and contrast families and neighborhoods in different cultures.
• Identify ways in which families and neighborhoods change over time.
• Identify family and neighborhood needs and wants.
• Explain rules and their consequences.

Skills

• Use communication skills in a variety of activities, including listening, speaking, role-playing and cooperative learning experiences.
• Use simple maps, globes, charts, graphs and technology that enhance the student’s understanding of family and neighborhood.

Democratic Values

• Choose peaceful solutions to problems.
• Apply values to fairness and respect in their dealings with themselves and others.
• Explain the need for school and neighborhood rules.

Civic Participation

• Demonstrate care for their environment.
• Participate in developing and upholding classroom rules and consequences.

Books

• What If Everybody Did That?
• That’s What A Friend Is
• Grandfather and I by Helen Buckley, 1 per teacher
• Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox, 1 per teacher
• A Country Far Away by Nigel Gray and P. Dupasquier, 1 per teacher
• Charlie the Caterpillar by Dom DeLuise, 1 per teacher
• Everett Anderson’s Nine Month Long, Lucille Clifton, 1 per teacher
• The Gingerbread Man by Heyne and Hafer, Center for Economic Education, University of Missouri, St. Louis, 1 per building
• Economics and Geography Lessons for Children’s Books (grades 1-5) by Center for Economic Education in Maryland, 1 per building

Resources

• Classroom sets contain: puzzles: farm, city, children of the world; maps, charts, graphs, transparencies; puppets: family, career group, community helpers; vinyl floor mat, mini vehicle assortment for mat.
• One puppet theatre per school to be shared by the first grade.
• L’Anse Creuse First Grade Social Studies In-service Binder dated August, 1998