Social Studies

Select a grade from the list on the right for the description.

Social Studies begins with children learning to appreciate and respect the worth and dignity of each person. Children learn strategies and language for making friends, cooperating at work and play, sharing and taking turns, and being comfortable, attentive and productive in a wide variety of situations. Children learn how to use maps, globes, and other materials to explore the physical and cultural aspects of significant and selected regions of the world and to better understand the cultural diversity of a world undergoing globalization. A study of early North American history allows children to understand their own historical and political roots and traditions.
Through the JEM program, children are able to engage in home-stay cultural exchanges with permanent partner school in such places as Hawaii, Russia, India, China, Australia, Ecuador, and France.

Kindergarten

  • Self, Family and Feelings
  • Holidays
  • Early America and Pilgrims
  • Continents
  • Environments and Cultures of JEM countries: Australia, China, Russia
  • Tropical Rainforests

Grade 1

  • Japan and China – country, people, art, language
  • Family – why we have them, similarities and differences, jobs
  • Where babies come from

Grade 2

  • Native Americans
    • Lenni Lenape
  • Early beginnings of Pennsylvania
  • Family histories – family trees
  • Holiday Traditions of major world cultures
  • Myths and Legends around the world

Grade 3

  • Map Skills- directions, map key, political and physical maps, globes
  • Continents- place, relationships with places, humans and the environment
  • Movement – human interacting with the earth, human interdependence
  • Regions – formation, change

Grade 4

  • Physical and cultural geography
  • Early navigation and explorers
  • Map skills
  • Special themes and projects

Grade 5

  • Time, earth, sun, seasons
  • Map grids, time zones
  • Early American civilizations
  • European exploration and settlements
  • Colonial America
  • Independence and New Nation
  • Westward migration
  • End of Slavery
  • Changing America

Grade 6

  • Geography: What is geography?
  • Geography of North America
  • Geography of South America
  • Cultural and historical overview of the United States and Canada

Grade 7

  • Ancient India
  • Ancient China

Grade 8

  • American History – colonial settlements through Revolutionary War; culminating in five-day trip to Colonial Williamsburg
  • United States Constitution and Bill of Rights – students write their own bills
  • Model Congress – students test their knowledge of political theory and practice by engaging in a model congress where they debate legislation and defend their own bills

Grade Level