Social Sciences

Understand some concepts related to citizenship.

• Recognize the reasons for rules in the home and early childhood environment and for laws in the community.
• Contribute to the well-being of one’s early childhood environment, school and community.
• Participate in voting as a way of making choices.
• Develop an awareness of what it means to be a leader.
• Participate in a variety of roles in the early childhood environment.

Explore economic systems and human interdependence.

• Describe some common jobs and what is needed to perform these jobs.
• Discuss why people work.

Develop an awareness of the self and his or her uniqueness and individuality.

• Recall information about the immediate past.
• Develop a basic awareness of self as an individual.

Explore geography, the child’s environment, and where people live, work and play.

• Locate objects and places in familiar environments.

Explore people and families.

• Recognize similarities and differences in people.
• Understand that each of us belongs to a family and recognize that families vary.

• Describe roles and responsibility of people in authority.
• Explain the need for and purposes of rules in various settings, inside and outside of school.
• Explain that choices are made because of scarcity (i.e., we don’t have enough money to buy everything we want).
• Identify and explain how people and goods move from place to place.
• Compare life in the past with life today.
• Explain the significance of our national holidays and the heroism and achievements of the people associated with them.

• Explain how all people, not just official leaders, play important roles in a community.
• Identify and explain how rules function in various settings, inside and outside of the school.
• Explain how people earn pay or income in exchange for work.
• Construct and interpret maps and other representations to navigate a familiar place.
• Create a chronological sequence of events.
• Describe individuals and groups who have shaped a significant historical change.

• Explain what governments are and some of their functions (e.g. making and enforcing laws, protecting citizens, and collecting taxes).
• Describe how communities work to accomplish common tasks, establish responsibilities and fulfill roles of authority.
• Explain the role of money and making exchange easier.
• Compare the goods and services that people in the local community produce and those that are produced in other communities.
• Explain that money can be saved or spent on goods and services.
• Construct and interpret maps and other graphic representations of both familiar and unfamiliar places.
• Identify some cultural and environmental characteristics of your community and compare to other places.
• Explain how people in your community use local and distant environments to meet their daily needs.
• Summarize changes that have occurred in the local community over time.
• Compare individuals and groups who have shaped a significant historical change.
• Explain how different kinds of historical sources (such as written documents, objects, artistic works and oral accounts) can be used to study the past.

• Describe ways in which interactions among families, workplaces, voluntary organizations, and government benefit communities.
• Explain how groups of people make rules to create responsibilities and protect freedoms.
• Compare the goods and services that people in the local community produce and those that are produced in other communities.
• Describe the role of banks and other financial institutions in an economy.
• Explain that when people borrow, they receive something of value now and agree to repay the lender over time.
• Locate major landforms and bodies of water on a map or other representation.
• Compare how people modify and adapt to the environment and culture in our community to other places.
• Create and use chronological sequence of events.
• Describe how significant people, events, and developments have shaped their own community and region.
• Identify artifacts and documents as either primary or secondary sources of historical data from which historical accounts are constructed.

• Distinguish the responsibilities and powers of government officials at the local, state, and national levels.
• Explain how a democracy relies on people’s responsible participation, and draw implications for how individuals should participate.
• Identify core civic virtues (such as honesty, mutual respect, cooperation, and attentiveness to multiple perspectives) and democratic principles (such as equality, freedom, liberty, and respect for individual rights) that guide our state and nation.
• Explain how rules and laws change society and how people change rules and laws in Illinois.
• Describe how goods and services are produced using human, natural, and capital resources (e.g. tools and machines).
• Explain that income can be saved, spent on goods and services, or used to pay taxes.
• Construct and interpret maps of Illinois and the United States using various media.
• Analyze how the cultural and environmental characteristics of places in Illinois change over time.
• Describe some of the current movements of goods, people, jobs, or information to, from, or within Illinois, and explain reasons for the movements.
• Using artifacts and primary sources, investigate how individuals contributed to and the founding and development of Illinois.
• Explain probable causes and effects of events and developments in Illinois history.

• Compare the origins, functions, and structure of different systems of government.
• Discover how positive incentives (e.g. sale prices and earning money) negative incentives influence behavior in our nation’s economy and around the world.
• Investigate how the cultural and environmental characteristics of places within the United States change over time.
• Analyze the effects of specific catastrophic and environmental events as well as technological developments that have impacted our nation and compare to other places.
• Create and use a chronological sequence of related events to compare developments that happened at the same time.
• Explain probable causes and effects of events and developments in U.S. history.

• Identify roles played by citizens (examples: voters, jurors, taxpayers, military, protesters, and office holders).
• Describe the origins, purposes, and impact of constitutions, laws, treaties, and international agreements.
• Compare the means by which individuals and groups change societies, promote the common good, and protect rights.
• Explain why standards of living increase as productivity improves.
• Analyze the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in a market economy.
• Analyze the relationship between skills, education, jobs, and income.
• Use geographic representations (maps, photographs, satellite images, etc.) to explain the relationships between the locations (places and regions) and changes in their environment.
• Identify how cultural and environmental characteristics vary among regions of the world.
• Classify series of historical events and developments as examples of change and/or continuity.

• Describe the roles of political, civil and economic organizations in shaping people’s lives.
• Explain the origins, functions, and structure of government with reference to the U.S. Constitution, Illinois Constitution and other systems of government.
• Analyze the ideas and principles contained in the founding documents of the United States and other countries, and explain how they influence the social and political system.
• Explain how external benefits and costs influence choices.
• Explain barriers to trade and how those barriers influence trade among nations.
• Use mapping and graphing to represent and analyze spatial patterns of different environmental and cultural characteristics.
• Compare and contrast the cultural and environmental characteristics of different places or regions.
• Analyze connections among events and developments in broader historical contexts.
• Analyze multiple factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras.

• Evaluate the powers and responsibilities of citizens, political parties, interest groups, and the media.
• Analyze the power and limits of governments, public officials, and bureaucracies at different levels in the United States and other countries.
• Compare the means by which individuals and groups change societies, promote the common good, and protect rights.
• Evaluate alternative approaches or solutions to current economic issues in terms of benefits and costs for different groups and society as a whole.
• Explain how changes in supply and demand cause changes in prices and quantities of goods and services, labor, credit, and foreign currencies.
• Evaluate employment, unemployment, inflation, total production, income and economic growth data and how they affect different groups.
• Evaluate how cultural and economic decisions influence environments and the daily lives of people in both nearby and distant places.
• Analyze how the environmental characteristics of places and production of good influence patterns of world trade.
• Use questions generated about individuals and groups to analyze why they and the developments they shaped, are seen as historically significant.
• Analyze how people’s perspectives influenced what information is available in historical sources they created.
• Analyze how people’s perspectives influenced what information is available in historical sources they created. Use other historical sources to infer a plausible maker, date, place of origin, and intended audience for historical sources where information is not easily identified.