Page 42 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

14 Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students
TABLE 1.1 CURRICULAR AND INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACHES FOR TEACHING ABOUT THE CULTURAL UNIVERSAL OF FOOD
Curricular Approach Cultural Universals Powerful Ideas Examples:
Instructional Approaches
Narrative (Storypath) Service Learning
“The Soup Company” Service Learning Ideas:
Food is a basic human need.
How do humans in different geographic places satisfy the basic human need of food? Soups come in many different forms from many places. Begin by learning about soups eaten at home. Create the setting: the Soup Company.
Working with the community soup kitchen, investigate who comes to the soup kitchen for food and how the soup kitchen is funded, and learn how the clients secure other meals and their other basic human needs.
People around the world tend to eat food from the same basic food groups, although the foods may look quite different due to culture, geography, personal preferences, and other factors.
Why do humans in different geographic places eat different kinds of food? Why do children in our class eat different kinds of soup? Create the characters. Context Building: Learn about soup and a healthy diet.
Working with the community soup kitchen, survey the clients and learn which kinds of soup they prefer and why, and then present the analysis of the sur- vey to the leaders of the soup kitchen for consideration in future menu planning.
Locally grown food has many possible advantages, such as lower costs and sus- taining the local economic environment by providing income to the producers.
What are the advantages and disad- vantages of locally produced food? Critical Incidents: Troubles in the Soup Company.
Working with the community soup kitchen, design and create a community garden for growing produce that could be ingredients for soup.
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The Expanding Communities Framework: A Traditional Scope and Sequence
Sequence refers to the way the curriculum builds or progresses from one unit to another and from one grade level to another. Effective pedagogy involves teachers building upon students’ prior knowledge, so it is important for teachers to know what content the children have already been taught. Often a curriculum follows a spiral sequence, whereby students revisit content at progressively more sophisticated levels as they grow older. Textbook publishers and teachers traditionally have relied on the expanding communi- ties framework for organizing the elementary social studies curriculum. Figure 1.1 shows a visual of the expanding communities for kindergarten through sixth grade.
For a time, this framework and the content scope and sequence associated with it were almost universal in U.S. elementary schools, and it still is used in most of them. We suggest you check your own state’s content expectations regarding what topics are taught. The following topics are typically addressed in K–6 social studies programs:
Kindergarten: Self, home, school. Discovering myself (Who am I? How am I alike and different from others?), school (my classroom, benefits of school), working together, living at home, community helpers, children in other lands, rules, and celebrating holidays.
Grade One: Families and schools. Family membership, recreation, work, cooperation, traditions, families in other cultures, how my family is alike and different from others, family responsibilities, the family at work, our school and other schools, and national holidays.
Grade Two: Neighborhoods. Workers and services in the neighborhood, food, shelter, and clothing, transportation, communication, living in different neighborhoods, my role within the neighborhood, neighborhoods and communities in other cultures, farm and city life, and protecting our environment. Sometimes communities (if not taught in third grade).
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