Teaching about the civil rights movement in the elementary grades has, in many schools, focused exclusively on the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Many students are well versed in the content of King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, and they know well that Rosa did not give up her seat on the bus. While these moments and heroes of the movement are essential in the study of this era in history, the study of more obscure and lesser known people and events is a great way to deepen our students’ understanding of the sacrifices that so many thousands of ordinary people made in the…

For a pre-kindergarten (preK) class, designing a 3-D map of a newly constructed playground offered authentic opportunities to participate, deliberate, and solve an authentic problem. Responding to the compelling question—“How do we build community spaces that are welcoming to, representative of, and sustaining for all community members?”—the class was able to reimagine the purpose of a neighborhood park with the help of scaffolded inquiry. Through active deliberation (e.g., voting what items to include in the park) and participation (e.g., surveying classmates and families about what they…

We live in a world that is becoming increasingly divided, particularly in the United States. In fact, people tend to interact almost exclusively with individuals who hold their shared world views and beliefs. Because of these trends, teaching students from a young age how to engage with others on issues that they may disagree about is of the utmost importance. Unfortunately, this type of social studies learning rarely happens in public schools, particularly in lower elementary school classrooms. To address this challenge, we formed a collaboration to develop a curricular intervention with…

Pull-out from Social Studies and the Young Learner. Includes list of children's books about elections.   

The use of trade books to foster discussion of historical events and major Supreme Court decisions in the elementary classroom can serve as a powerful method through which elementary students can begin to see themselves as active contributors to the communities and worlds in which they live. In this article and the accompanying lesson plan, the authors share ways to teach about Supreme Court decisions —specifically the decisions that have affected marriage equality—with the C3 Framework.

A troubling observation is that—outside of Black History Month in February and Women’s History Month in March, during which students are acquiring some knowledge about noteworthy women and minorities—teachers in every grade level often teach about the same figures rather than expanding their lessons to include less-conventional or less-well-known individuals. To address these gender equity gaps related to social studies instruction, the authors established “Little Leaders,” a group consisting of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten girls.

In this article, Kimi Waite and Jennifer Burgin describe a three-step interdisciplinary framework for learning partnerships between TK–2 students and scientists that covers the NCSS themes SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, SOCIETY and PEOPLE, PLACES, AND ENVIRONMENTS. The authors showcase standards-aligned learning activities and resources to help practicing educators bring the Explorer Imprint vision into their classrooms.

Pre-service teachers in a social studies methods course designed to address issues of inequity and privilege, engaged elementary students in a ten-week inquiry project. Based on this project, this article shares insights about the processes involved in enacting justice-focused pedagogy.

The authors provide the reader an opportunity to see how second-grade children can use a twelfth-century painting as historical evidence to identify transportation modes, economic activities, and cultural features of Bianjing, an ancient Chinese city. They compare Bianjing with their community using modern mapping technology. Through this approach, art, history, geography, economics, technology, and civics are integrated into an engaging inquiry lesson.