Social Studies help children understand relationships between people and environmental factors that influence their lives.  To be effective it needs to be integrated into the classroom and take place naturally in everyday events and activities that are related to children at both home and at play.  It is through these everyday experiences that children learn to understand themselves, their family, and the community and learn to respect other cultures.

Infants: Hand/Footprints – Individual development and identity begins in infancy with the understanding of self and learning how to relate to family, relatives, peers and primary caregivers.  Activities to promote this awareness include; Handprints – footprints – having an adult trace their body – photographs – reading stories about body parts – singing songs and doing fingerplays about their own body parts.

Toddlers: Alike/Different – Numerous research studies about the early process of identity and attitude development conclude that children lean understanding of cultural and racial heritage by observing the differences and similarities about people around them and by absorbing the spoken and unspoken messages about those differences.  Focus of the following five ways people are alike and different.  We all eat; we all work; we all play; we all live in some sort of dwelling, and we all wear clothes.

Preschoolers: Role Playing – To develop an understanding of economic systems and resources encourage the children to act out and role play businesses in the community by setting them up in the classroom.  Start with a grocery store, parents can be included by having them bring in multicultural food containers.  Other role playing activities might be a restaurant with menus and checks and a post office with stamps from around the world which their parents can contribute.  All these activities can strengthen the children’s mathematical skills which fall within the cognitive domain of education.

In social studies, it is particularly important to celebrate each and every family in the classroom.  As children get older they start to learn about other family members.  Families vary in size, cultural background, and configurations.  Reflecting on their uniqueness and their diversity is an important way to help children feel welcome.

1.  Talk about different family groups.  Point out that everyone has a family, but there are many different kinds: mother-child/children; father child/children; two mothers or two fathers; mother-father-child/children; grandparents-child/children; extended families; family pets.  Have children draw pictures of their own family.

2.  Talk about what families do?  Make a mural or a collage of families working and playing together. Encourage families to share customs and language with the class.

3.  Talk about the different family routines.  How are they alike? (Brush teeth) How are they different? (They eat at different times and different kinds of food.)

4.  Make a community classroom family tree with photos of each family.

The ones, who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that do