LOWER SCHOOL HISTORY AND SOCIAL STUDIES

In the Lower School, the history and social studies curriculum combines an expanding horizons and history-based approach. At all levels, students study a period of history and spend considerable time on geography skills and use such resources as the National Geographic Essentials series. Using a modified version of Project Read® Report Form, students learn a structured, systematic and multi-sensory system for gathering information from expository text, presentations, and video. Hands-on projects are central, with highlights including field trips. Comprehension skills and integration with language skills are central to history and social studies in the Lower School. Teaching students to recognize cause and effect, to draw valid conclusions, to categorize, and to compare and contrast are critical thinking skills that are also introduced and taught. In addition, each student in the Lower School receives Time for Kids, and class time is devoted to current events, when appropriate.

Grade 2:  Introduction to Social Studies

• Geography skills, maps and globes, and a focus on local and regional areas
• History through holidays
• Basic economics using KinderEconomics
• Telling time, using calendars

Grade 3:  Massachusetts and The Early Americas

• Geography skills, maps and globes, continued focus on local and regional areas
• Iroquois and Algonquin, living in Eastern Woodlands
• Incas in the Andes
• Build model longhouses
• Field trip to Drumlin Farm

Grade 4:  North American Geography and selected units

• New England region
• Regions across the United States 
• Units on ancient Greece and on Ancient China

Grade 5:  Early United States history

• Where we are in time and space
• Origins - creation stories and scientific theories
• Human evolution
• Settling of the Americas
• The world before 1492 - civilizations of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas
• Columbus and the Age of Exploration
• European settlement and colonization of the Americas
• Forced African emigrations to the Americas
• Colonial Life in the thirteen colonies
• Revolutionary War
• Selected topics on the United States’ first years