Social Studies

We started our year in social studies by asking: “What is social studies?” The students had many wise thoughts about all of the different things that make up this broad discipline. From there, we’ve been working on maps skills. We introduced the Student Atlas, and our students familiarized themselves with the different parts of a map, including the compass rose, cardinal and intermediate directions, inset maps, and maps that show different types of information about a region. They followed the directions on their own maps of the United States, on which they labeled specific geographic features and regions. Over the past few days, we’ve discussed parallels and meridians, and used their corresponding lines of latitude and longitude to locate very specific places on a map. Ask your child to show you the “Latitudes have attitudes” and the “Loooooongitude” hand motions that will help them remember the difference! These map skills will be important throughout the year.  

Ask your student about the activity we did with the orange on Friday afternoon!