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Although young children are unaware of the future, they do develop knowledge, attitudes, skills that will direct their path in life. As teachers, we need to teach about all the jobs available, help instill confidence in our students, teach responsibility, and teach them basic skills that are necessary for any job. By providing these experiences in our classroom, we can begin to prepare children to discover their interests, gain confidence, and begin thinking about how they can serve our community. As many people say, role models often shape who you become and the values you hold.

Using a TCI approach, we can teach students about various jobs by using costumes, music, sounds, etc to convey a career.

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Young children can be introduced to the idea of a consumer and producer through play store. However, we can also tell parents to let their kids help practice these ideas through items they like and dislike at the stores. Students can also practice various jobs in the classroom or go on a field trip to learn about various jobs.

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Children can make decisions about which materials to use, what to sing, where to plant, who they want to work with, etc. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WE ALLOW CHILDREN THE OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE CHOICES IN THE CLASSROOM AND EXPERIENCE CONSEQUENCES BASED OFF THEIR CHOICES. SOME CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY AT HOME!

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This is a great video explaining what scarcity is, examples of scarcity, and how we have to make choices/decisions.

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This video teaches the concept of scarcity.  The total resources of society, including natural resources, human resources, capital goods and entrepreneurship, are limited, causing scarcity to exist.

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It is important to introduce scarcity to children so they understand that resources are limited. People all over the world have unlimited wants, but the resources needed to fulfill these wants are limited. It is important to teach students that they cannot have everything that they want. As educators, we need to teach our children what they need versus what they want.

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Key concepts:
1) Scarcity
2) Decision Making
3) Production and Consumption
4) Jobs and Careers

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Through pretend play, children practice various economic concepts. They play store, pretend to see and purchase goods, and pretend to use money to purchase services. They begin by just observing shapes and sizes at a young age to pretend play to understanding money is needed to buy things. Then, as they get older, they are able to distinguish between coins, needs/wants, jobs, production, etc. As children grow up, they will observe adults making purchases and handling money. By having these home experiences, teachers can begin to introduce various economic concepts.

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Democratic Classroom:
1) Teachers share control
2) Children make decisions
3) Discipline is firm, but not embarrassing or threatening.
4) Freedom of Speech is encouraged
5) Community is built
6) Teachers model respect

Freedom of speech can be shown through the TCI approach of lively class discussions.

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1) Working with others
2) Articulate interests and make them known
3) Negotiate and seek compromises
4) Manage conflicts
5) Voting

An example to practice these from TCI is response groups.

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We need to teach our students about the voting process, authority, rules, etc. These various things are learned through exposure. Students learn symbols of democracy, such as the flag, songs, the president, and the Pledge of Allegiance. They learn these political concepts through experiences at home and school.

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We can help our students develop ownership and pride by helping them learn who they are and how they fit into the immediate community. For example, students care for the school, decorate the halls with artwork, and participate in school events.

This can be achieved from the TCI approach about clearly defined roles. The teacher knows a students comfortability and can choose roles that slowly help them develop who they are.

Another TCI approach is allowing groups to showcase their work. This is important so students feel they contributed and are part of the school.

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We should be teaching our children: 1) Rules and laws are established by people.
2) Rules and laws are always changing.
3) People have control over their own lives.
4) Be empathetic, socially responsible, and considerate of others.

It is important the way we establish control, deal with individual children and their interactions with one another, and teach students they are all valued in a democracy.

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Archaeological digs

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Children learn to question and find out about their current and more distant past. Children can participate in investigations to answer their questions. Children use them by generating questions and identifying problems, gathering information, observing the data, analyzing, and drawing conclusions. Students should also be provided hands-on experiences for being an historian.

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In helping children learn about the past, adults can shuttle back and forth from the present to the past to understand what has gone before. Children can learn this through people, primary sources, photographs, etc.

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Children see the rich cultural heritage of their past and the continuity of life. Children can impart historical knowledge in an accurate and authentic manner. Holidays are like "mini projects" for students to learn about social studies. Students can learn meaning behind the holiday celebrations and meanings in specific countries. Other ways children can learn about continuity is through transportation or technology. They can learn about the progressions through time and the impact these have had on our world.

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Concepts of change are introduced to young children through opportunities to experience change. These opportunities can occur in the school, neighborhood, nature study, and themselves.

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A child's sense of time is more intuitive and subjective. This subjectivity leads to errors. This can be taught through daily routines, reading firsthand stories, and using time words and phrases to connect their experiences.

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Key Concepts:
-Time
-Change
-Continuity
-The past
-Methods of the historian

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In this approach, students could use questioning skills or graphic organizers to help enhance their understanding. Another activity to teach these skills to lower elementary is to have students create a map of a fictious classroom. From completing this activity, students will practice their mapping skills by creating their own map of a familiar place.

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In this approach, it is important the way you organize the information. For example, if the students are learning about the continents it is important tp chunk the concepts, use graphic organizers, provide pre-reading activities about the continents, and ask several guided questions to ensure comprehension.

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Students could create "family" books about rich experiences or write metaphorical stories.

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The teacher could have the students do a simulated trip. For example, if you are learning about Egyptian lifestyle you could find a few very powerful images and have the students analyze the picture. To analyze, they could write down several key details they observed.

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I like the idea of exchanging letters with a family in another nation. Also, I think it is important to show videos or talk about other topics and connections around the globe. This is important to ensure you are reaching all your students and their various backgrounds.

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To teach regions, I would take the students to two different communities and ask how they are similar or different.

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To teach spatial interactions, I would have the students move from one place to another in various ways.

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I would teach relationships within places by having the students grow a garden or I would take them to a park to observe nature.

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Create their own maps, talk about perspective, refer to scale, or try to locate a place.

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How to Make a Map | Geography for Kids | Made by Red Cat Reading

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Teachers can help by having students create booklets or construct charts.

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This activity booklet was designed to fulfill the requirements for the Daisy What Robots Do or can be used by frontier girl leaders to earn similar badges. Great for teachers and home schooled kids as well.
This booklet has interactive exercises that teach girls what robots are and how they work. These activities include a comic read aloud story, learning a robot sing-a-long, and designing a robot.

Activities Include:

1. Learn what robots are: Learn the difference between hardware, what robots are, and software, which controls what robots do with a comic read aloud story.

2. Learn how robots work: Learn how robots work with code telling them what to do and do a robot sing-a-long.

3. Design a robot: Practice designing their own robots and reviewing the keyboard, as a stepping stone to programming.

Gain even more free ideas to learn more about robots, Do you need more ideas on this topic? click here.

ACCESS BOOKLET INSTANTLY AND PRINT AT HOME

Leader Connecting Leaders is not connected with, affiliated with, approved by, endorsed by, or otherwise sponsored by The Girl Scouts of the USA or Frontier Girls.

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What Robots Do Activity Booklet | K - 1st Grade | Leader Connecting Leaders

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This activity booklet was designed to fulfill the requirements for the Daisy What Robots Do or can be used by frontier girl leaders to earn similar badges. Great for teachers and home schooled kids as well. This booklet has interactive exercises that teach girls what robots are and how they work.

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Various forms of movement: Children grow and learn to walk.

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Children can begin geography skills at a very young age such as qualities of the earth or sky. As they get older, they can draw rough maps and understand cardinal directions.

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Processing Activity: Postcards help students represent their community or other places in the world. This is a creative way for students to demonstrate their knowledge, as they are able to create their own postcards.

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Processing Activity: Travel Brochures are a fun to learn about social studies through portraying their own community.

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Preview Activity: Songs are beneficial for helping students learn information in a new way!

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Preview Activity: Games allow students to interact with their peers and learn alongside them. It is a fun and interactive way to learn social studies.

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Preview Activity: Big books allow students a fun way to read and learn new information. All students are able to see the book and learn from the same platform.

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Learning How To Organize and Assess Content

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Learning How To Organize and Assess Content

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1.    What are the differences between the kinds of knowledge: Factual, Conceptual, Procedural, and Metacognitive?

Factual: Building Blocks of information; elements that students must know in a discipline to understand concepts or to solve problems; it is the teacher who chooses the facts to support concepts and generalizations.

Conceptual: Name given to the categories formed as a result of classifying factual data; pay attention to likeness; interrelationships among the basic elements within a larger structure that function together.

Procedural: what we know in order to perform the task; methods of inquiry and the criteria for using subject-specific skills that are explicitly taught in classrooms through definition and demonstration.

Metacognitive: ability to analyze, reflect on, and understand their own cognitive and learning processes; focuses on our own learning and thinking.

2.    What is the difference between scope, focus, and sequence?

Scope: Teachers make decisions about the breadth and depth of the content that will be addressed; You can decide what to teach based on: big ideas, skills and knowledge are representative, misconceptions, and engaging

Focus: Question or set of questions.

Sequence: The order of subject matter; usually progresses from simpler to more complex.

3.    What is "chunking"? Collections of lessons that have similar goals leading to broad understandings.

4.    How do you know a student knows something? Understands something? Able to do something? KUD objectives; Know: content and skills a student must master to complete the unit. Understand: big ideas, they are broad and abstract, students should be able to construct meaning from instruction. Be able to: observable and measurable, involves cognitive, affective, and psychomotor instructional objectives; remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. Must be able to move from one form to another in order to provide quality instruction.

5.    What is the difference between formative and summative assessments?

Formative: information about how students are progressing toward states goals and are typically not evaluated for a grade; provides feedback.

Summative: provides information about student learning that is frequently translated into a grade.

6.    What are the different ways you can assess social studies? Response groups, experiential exercises, social studies skill builders, visual discovery. Allows student various forms of demonstrating their knowledge through projects and portfolios

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1.    What is the status of social studies? Since No Child Left Behind was enacted, the time allotted for social studies teaching has been drastically cut. In a conducted report, the results showed that history was the worst assessed subject and most students scored at the basic level.

2.    Why do we teach social studies? Social studies is an essential part of schooling in the elementary years, in order for students to become active participants in a democratic society. According to the article, “in a world that demands independent and cooperative problem solving to address complex social, economic, ethical, and personal concerns, core social studies content is as basic for success as reading, writing, and computing. Knowledge, skills, and attitudes are necessary for informed and thoughtful participation in society.” Teaching social studies to students allows them to understand, participate in, and make informed decisions about the world around them. Students gain various skills, such as decision making, problem solving, explanations of the past, and most importantly, it allows students to be knowledgeable citizens.

3.    How should we teach social studies? How is social studies being taught? Teaching should be meaningful by creating lessons that challenge students to make connections and expand their knowledge in various ways. It should also be integrative. Teachers should allow students to explore social studies across the curriculum. Our teaching should be value based and focused on providing a multitude of opportunities for students to engage in problem solving and decision-making situations. As teachers, it is our job to challenge our students in a variety of forms. Through projects, debates, discussions, and other various skills, students can practice their critical thinking skills. Lastly, as a future teacher, we need to provide and encourage our students to be active participants. As teachers, we should guide learning, not dictate. Teachers should build on student’s interests and foster understanding in the immediate and far away world. In order to provide our students with these things, teachers need proper preparation and professional development, instructional time, resources, and assistance. Social studies is being taught differently among the states. For example, Virginia decided to keep the Standards of Learning and incorporate part of the Common Core Standards into them. Unfortunately, some educators teach students solely through lectures, textbooks, and worksheets.

4.    What challenges do we face as social studies educators? What factors are working against us? What does any of this matter? As social studies educators, we face challenges, such as time restrictions for teaching the content due to creating more time for math and reading. We also have factors such as federal funding working against us. Also, the world is constantly changing around us; however, we are not adapting our instruction to fit our evolving society. All of these challenges matter because students are lacking basic foundational knowledge needed for future history courses, and more importantly, to be an active participant in society. Teachers need to be informed on how to create a social studies inclusive classroom that instills these important topics into our students to make them more informed citizens.

5.    What do you hope to get out of this course to address those challenges? I hope to gain a greater foundational knowledge of our history and evolving society, so I am able to appropriately teach my students. By gaining a more complete background, I hope to be able to adapt my instruction to provide my students with various learning experiences from the past, present, and future. I hope to learn ways to provide a well-rounded program with such limited time restrictions. Also, I hope to learn more about and serve a diverse group of learners, in order to expand my understanding needed to teach my future students. With federal funding working against us, I am curious how to incorporate technology into our lessons. Lastly, I hope to learn how to teach age-appropriate strategies, while creating a balance.

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Hi, my name is Abigail Wiles, but I preferred to be called Abby. I was born on July 2, 2000 in Fredericksburg, Virginia and have lived here my entire life. I fell in love with this beautiful area, which attracted me to stay in the area for college. Typically, I tend to be quiet; however, when I am doing something I love, such as coaching, teaching, or hanging out with friends, I am very outgoing. My family and friends describe me as hard-working, driven, dependable, trustworthy, and kind. I dislike many of the situations seen in high school and in society today. I dislike when people look down on their peers, due to various reasons, such as prejudice, hate, or ignorance. Also, after becoming a science major, I have learned how detrimental human activity is to our environment; therefore, I dislike the attitude and lack of regard many people have for our environment. I love children and their unbridled joy they bring to this world. All of these qualities and values are what make me unique.

I am the youngest of three children. My mom began her career in science, specifically studying biology. When my siblings and I were born, she switched her job to work for an insurance company, as it offered better hours. Although I do not know much about my dad’s work, as it is confidential, I do know that he is head of his government department. One set of my grandparents live in South Boston and my other grandma lives in Spotsylvania. I have two older sisters, one who is 27 and the other who is 23. My oldest sister is a first-grade teacher at a title one school in Spotsylvania. My other sister was a neuro-ICU nurse, but recently, switched to a NICU nurse at the UVA hospital. I also have an 18-month year old nephew, who is such a ball of energy and is constantly trying to make people laugh and smile. My family is part German, so we eat a lot of German food. Although we do not see our extended family often, I am able to spend a lot of time with and participate in simple traditions with my immediate family. Each year my family rents a house at the beach, and of course the pets come along too. Recently, due to quarantine, my family has cookouts and game nights three to four times a week. My favorite part of family time is the time I spend with my baby nephew. My family is a huge fan of the outdoors and spends any free time we have outside together. We enjoy various outdoor activities, such as hiking, running, and walks. My sisters and I have participated in several color and mud fun runs. Also, since we have been quarantined, my family has been invested in going on 13-mile bike rides several times a week. Any time we can spend time outdoors together as a family we will. Family is a huge part of my life, but it is not complete without our pets. I have two Australian Shepherd dogs, one is four years old and is named Mazie and the other is one, named Piper. I also have a 12-year-old cat named Jezebel who we adopted from the SPCA. The name Jezebel means a person who causes trouble and she definitely lives up to her name. My last pet is a pink and blue betta fish named Swim Shady.

I love the atmosphere, community feel, and values instilled in our school. I do not have any dislikes with our school, other than us not being able to attend classes and see our friends on campus due to Covid-19. I am an Interdisciplinary Science Studies major, due to my love for science. I am in the education program, as I love the environment our professors provide us with and the platform they create for us to learn. All of our professors in the education program are so caring and inspire me to become an amazing teacher. My sister and the experiences I have encountered with children have inspired me to become an educator. In my sister’s classroom and various curricular activities, I have had the opportunity to work with a variety of students from different backgrounds. I was able to see the lives of each student and the strong connection and attachment they formed with their teacher, coach, friend, etc. I was inspired to be a teacher to develop strong connections with all of my students, be a role model, watch them grow, and help shape who they become. I hope to become an outlet and support system for all my students, but especially those who come from poor home lives or may not have a parent figure. The only activity I am involved with on campus is playing for the UMW volleyball team. As a freshman, I hoped to join more clubs and activities on campus; however, playing a college sport has been extremely time consuming. My goals for class this semester is to gain more knowledge about our past and our evolving society. I hope to gain strategies and learn various ways to teach my students in a fun and interactive way.

When I am not at school, I spend my free time playing volleyball, hanging out with my friends, spending time with my family, and working out. I have several different groups of friends: childhood friends, college friends, and teammates. Growing up, I watched my older sisters play volleyball and soccer. When I was ten, I was offered to join practices and team activities. After this experience, I fell in love with volleyball and wanted to play on my own travel team. I am very involved with the children in our community. I coach five to six volleyball camps each summer, as well as assisting middle and high school coaches. This past semester, I coached two travel volleyball teams and a middle school team. Also, I spend a lot of time volunteering in my sister’s classroom. When I have any free time, I love spending time with and forming bonds each year with her first graders.

After attending one of my practicums, I fell in love with a school in Stafford County. After I graduate, I hope to stay in the area and teach Kindergarten at this school. After gaining more experience in the classroom, I hope to teach college students and inspire them to become teachers as well. Throughout the program at UMW, I have had several teachers who taught elementary school during the day and were adjunct professors at night. Their first-hand experience has encouraged me to teach college students how to become inspirational teachers that will leave their mark in their future classrooms.