Social Studies · Unit 1 · Weeks 1–6
Communities & Geography
Standards
C3: D2.Civ.6, D2.Civ.13, D2.Geo.1, D2.Geo.2, D2.Geo.4, D2.Geo.5, D2.His.1
The big idea
Your child explores what makes a community, the needs every community shares and the helpers who meet them, and compares urban, suburban and rural places. Then your child learns to read maps with a key, compass rose and scale, and describes the landforms, water, climate and natural resources of their region. The unit ends with the Native nations whose homelands include your area, as living nations today.
Standards in plain words
- D2.Civ.6.3-5 Describes how people gain from working together, and what is hard about it, in government, workplaces, volunteer groups and families.
- D2.Geo.1.3-5 Makes maps and other drawings of familiar and unfamiliar places.
- D2.Geo.2.3-5 Uses maps, photos and other images to explain how places and regions connect to their land, water and climate.
- D2.Geo.3.3-5 Uses maps of different scales to describe where cultural and natural features are.
- D2.Geo.4.3-5 Explains how culture shapes the way people change and adapt to their surroundings.
- D2.Geo.5.3-5 Explains how the people and the land of a place change over time.
- D2.Geo.8.3-5 Explains how where people settle and move relates to where natural resources are and how they are used.
- D2.Geo.10.3-5 Explains why land, water and climate differ from one world region to another.
- D2.Eco.3.3-5 Names the kinds of resources (people's skills, tools and buildings, and natural resources) used to make goods and services.
- D2.His.2.3-5 Compares life in the past with life today.
What mastery looks like
- Names the communities they belong to, from family to country, and the needs and helpers in their own community.
- Sorts photos into urban, suburban and rural using at least two clues.
- Uses a map key, the four directions and a scale to find places and real distances.
- Names landforms, bodies of water and natural resources in their region and how people use them.
- Names the Native nations whose homelands include where they live and describes how they lived then and live now.
Materials
- Photos of your neighborhood
- Paper plates or circles in 4 sizes for nesting communities
- U.S. map and a state map
- A local map or your town's website services page
- Ruler
- Salt dough or modeling clay for a relief map
- Notebook
Anchor texts
- Reading About Our World passages: 'City, Suburb and Country' (Week 2), 'Land, Water and Gifts from Nature' (Week 4) and 'The First Peoples of This Land' (Week 6)
- Video hub topics: the communities you belong to, urban features, maps and globes, common landforms, and Native peoples as the first inhabitants
- Websites of the Native nations whose homelands include your area
Watch across the unit
Watch for: Talking about Native peoples only in the past tense, as if they no longer exist.
Try: Practice the frame 'The ____ Nation is ...' and check one current fact on the nation's own website.
Watch for: Confusing suburban and rural because both have houses and grass.
Try: Ask, 'How far apart are the homes, and is there a big city nearby?'
Watch for: Measuring with a map scale from the end of the ruler instead of zero, or forgetting the unit.
Try: Mark the zero line with a dot and ask '30 what?' after every answer.
Pacing
Short week: Keep Monday's lesson and the Friday check. The map-skill days in Week 3 build on each other, so keep at least the key and scale lessons. Projects can shrink to a quick sketch with labels.
Flex week: Week 5 is the flex week. Practice map tools without help, sort community types and landforms, or enrich by building a relief map of your state with a key, compass rose and labels. End with mixed review from Weeks 1 to 4.
Week by week
| Week | Topic | Activity |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | What is a community? | Map the communities you belong to |
| Week 2 | Urban, suburban & rural | Compare three community types |
| Week 3 | Maps & globes | Use a key, directions and scale |
| Week 4 | Landforms, water & resources | Describe your region |
| Week 5 | Flex week | Choice project |
| Week 6 | Native peoples, past and present | How Native nations used local resources; Unit 1 test |