The Social Studies Knowledge & Skills domain describes children’s learning about people, places, events, and society, and how these things relate to their lives. By learning about themselves, their family, and their community, children develop self-identity and expand their understanding of places and people outside their direct experience.
The 2015 ELOF does not include Social Studies, content in this domain is written verbatim from the 2020 Preschool Social Studies Colorado Academic Standards (CAS).
Social Studies Knowledge & Skills
Indicators
Children may . . .
Examples
Children may. . .
Suggested Supports
Adults may . . .
1. History and Events: The understanding that events happened in the past and how these events relate to one’s self, family, and community.
- Differentiate between past, present, and future.
- Recognize family or personal events that happened in the past.
- Understand that how people live and what they do changes over time.
- Tell stories of past events.
- Select examples from pictures that illustrate past, present, and future.
- Describe how they have grown.
- Participate in creating a class memory book.
- Track the height of the classroom plant. Progress photos and measurements are recorded on calendar.
- Ask children to recall events from earlier in the day or from the day before.
- Provide scaffolding to assist children’s recall of prior learning and events.
- Ask children to identify their plan for center time.
- Provide opportunities for children to plan for upcoming transitions, events, and activities.
2. Geography: Apply geographic representations and perspectives to analyze human movement, spatial patterns, systems, and the connections and relationships among them.
- Identify aspects of the environment, such as roads, buildings, trees, gardens, bodies of water, and land formations.
- Develop an awareness of the school, neighborhood, and community.
- Build with blocks or draw various environments.
- Take pictures of familiar building locations to place on a map of the school. The children glue the pictures on the map while the adult labels the location.
- Identify and discuss the things they see, such as trees, fountains, streets, etc.
- Involve children in firsthand experiences in their community. For example: exploration of the school, neighborhood, and city.
- Furnish learning centers with literature, activities, and materials for play based on children’s experiences with their community. For example: visit the school office and then create a classroom office.
- Involve children in discussions about the homes they live in and the different types of homes and buildings in the community. For example: taking neighborhood walks.
- Have children interpret simple maps of the classroom, playground and neighborhood.
- Provide materials, literature, and activities that explore different types of homes and aspects of the children’s surrounding environment. For example: apartments, single-family homes, motels, modular homes, trees, rivers, mountains, and buildings.
- Display pictures of familiar community buildings and landmarks in block, writing, or other centers.
3. Economics: Understand the allocation of scarce resources in societies through analysis of individual choice, market interaction, and public policy.
- Identify choices that individuals can make.
- Explain how individuals earn money and use it to make choices among their various wants.
- Recognize coins and currency as money.
- Identify how money is used.
- Discuss why we need money.
- Sort coins by physical attributes such as color or size.
- Engage in dramatic play, playing various job roles and pretending to perform the work associated with the chosen job.
- Use pretend money while engaging in dramatic play activities.
- Pretend to have jobs and be paid for their work.
- Exchange money for goods through play.
- Identify that money is used to buy things.
- Explain that money can be saved.
- Use pretend money while engaging in dramatic play activities.
- Practice exchanging play money for goods.
- Provide opportunities for children to participate in classroom jobs.
- Create situations in which children exchange money in a play situation.
- Provide materials and opportunities for children to dramatize interactions with currency exchange.
- Read stories related to currency.
- Set up dramatic play opportunities that involve the use of pretend money. For example: bank, grocery store, or restaurant.
- Use names of coins and currency when talking about money.
4. Civics: Analyze the origins, structures, and functions of governments to evaluate the impact on citizens and the global society.
- Understand the reasons for rules in the home and classroom and for laws in the community.
- Show interest in interacting with and developing relationships with others.
- Recognize that everyone has rights and responsibilities within a group.
- Demonstrate self-regulated behaviors and fairness in resolving conflicts.
- Participate in the development of classroom rules.
- Describe classroom rules.
- Work cooperatively with other children to achieve an outcome.
- Participate in group decision-making.
- Notice the classroom rules and support others in remembering the rules.
- Allow children to develop a few simple classroom rules.
- Discuss rules with children.
- Explain the purpose of rules such as safety and respect.
- Begin to introduce games that have rules.
- Read both fiction and nonfiction books that support following rules. Create a class rules chart.
- Engage children in class meetings and decision-making.
- Give children classroom jobs and responsibilities.
- Provide activities that require cooperative play.