Minnesota Social Studies – 3

O: Use a map and map tools (e.g., legend, alphanumeric grid lines) to locate familiar landmarks, streets and other features.

A: Identify north, south, east and west on the compass rose on a map.

Engage with the classroom emergency exit map by traveling the route, or tracing the route on paper, to the nearest emergency exit.

Pretend that you are totally lost! Write a story about how using a GPS helps you find your way back home! Be sure to use LOTS of descriptive language!

Make a l map of the classroom, showing items such as desks, doors, bookshelves, etc. Next, have your students add grid lines over the top of their map. Remind them to use letters on the bottom and numbers along the side. Ask the group to make a list of items they would like another group to find on their map using the grid lines. Groups will trade maps and find the coordinates of the items.

Pass out blank maps. Review with students what is needed on a map (scale, title, symbols, map key, compass rose). Divide the class into groups of four. Each group gets one blank map per person. Tell students that they are going to have a relay race with their maps. Each student starts his own map by writing the title. After 30 seconds students rotate to another map at their group. You can ring a bell, start music, etc. to facilitate the move. After each move they must add one needed item to the map. It may be a symbol (symbols also need to be noted in the key), the scale, compass rose, etc. Each group will go around twice adding one thing each time to the map in front of them. At the end of two rotations, check each map to make sure it has everything it needs

“Follow That Map!” by Scot Ritchie

“Map Keys” (Rookie Read-About Geography by Rebecca Aberg

“Maps and Globes” (Reading Rainbow Book) by Jack Knowlton

“Treasure Map” (MathStart 3) by Stuart J. Murphy

“If Maps Could Talk: Using Symbols and Keys” (Map Mania) by Erica L. Shores

“Standards Based Map Skills Grade 3-5” (Scholastic) by Jane Lierman

“Follow That Map! A First Book of Mapping Skills” by Scot Ritchie

“What Makes the Grand Canyon Grand?” by Spencer Christian

“Cracking Up: A Story About Erosion” by Jacqui Bailey

“The Disappearing Mountain And Other Earth Mysteries: Erosion And Weathering” by Louise Spilbury

“A River Ran Wild” by Lynne Cherry

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/

http://www.proteacher.com/redirect.php?goto=1993

http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/lessons.cgi/Social_Studies

http://www.sfsocialstudies.com/g1/u2/index.html

http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/books/applications/imaps/maps/g1_u3/index.html

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“Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time” by Dava Sovel

“My World and Globe, Revised Edition” by Ira Wolfman

“Map Keys”by Rebecca Aberg

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O:  Identify the continents to which various countries belong.

A:  No meeting

Have students make two balls of blue clay. They should then put green clay continents on both, so that the balls are copies of each other. To demonstrate the equator and the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, cut one ball across the center horizontally where the equator would be. Cut the other along the prime meridian showing the Eastern and Western hemispheres. Compare. Discuss why your state is in both the northern and western hemisphere.

Ask students to make a map of their classroom, school or play yard. Have them include both a map key and compass rose for the map.

Have your students write a paragraph explaining why their state is in both the northern and western hemispheres.

Have your students pick a country along the equator and research the animals found there.

research time zones around the world. Their job is to plan, construct and teach a lesson to the rest of the class explaining why time zones are needed and how they work. Visual aides should be included in the lesson. These can be in the form of posters, Internet sites or whatever medium your students choose.

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A:

B:  Identify an event/activity occurring before or after another given activity/event.

O:  Place a series of three personal events in chronological order.

A:  Place a sequence of events or dates on a timeline.

Discuss how events happen in order using a classroom schedule or daily routine (using terms like first, next, last).

Engage with representations of a person/character at three different ages (i.e., child, teenager, adult)

Make a time capsule to bury in a special area around the school. The capsule might have a planned opening in ten or twenty years, when your students might still live in the area and can visit the new third graders to tell them about their experience.  (Can be one individually, in pairs or small groups)

Students can describe and illustrate each event on the timeline created during ML.

Discuss how events happen in order using a classroom schedule or daily routine (using terms like first, next, last).

Engage with representations of a person/character at three different ages (i.e., child, teenager, adult).

Write a journal entry from the point of view of your community’s first settler.

Make a time capsule to bury in a special area around the school. The capsule might have a planned opening in ten or twenty years, when your students might still live in the area and can visit the new third graders to tell them about their experience.  (Can be one individually, in pairs or small groups)

“The Wright Brothers” (Kids Can Read) by Elizabeth MacLeod

“Moving People, Things and Ideas-A History of Aircraft” by Cristiana Leoni and Alessandro Baldanzi

“Heart of Gold: The Story About the Power of Generosity” by Dharma Publishing

http://www.inventored.org/k-12/

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A:

americanfolklore.net/pecosbill.html(Pecos Bill) or www.brainerd.com/pbtrail/tale.html (Paul Bunyan)

•Once students have read one of these tall tales, ask them to retell the story in one of the following ways: storyboard, song, oral retelling or written report.

Read or watch the movie of “Charlotte’s Web.” Discuss the barnyard community briefly. Divide students into groups and assign each group one of the components of a community. Ask each group to write on chart paper what this component looks like in the barnyard community in “Charlotte’s Web.” Discuss with your students how the author created the community in the book/movie. How did this make the story more interesting?

Give students the following information and ask them to create a bar graph that shows the number of people of various cultures living in the United States in 2006:

Total U.S. population: 299,398,484

White persons: 80.1% or about 240 million

Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin: 14.8% or about 44 million

Black persons: 12.8% or about 38 million

Asian persons: 4.4% or about 13 million,

American Indian or Alaska Native persons: 1% or about 2.9 million

Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander alone: 0.2% or about 0.6 million

Two or more races 1.6% or about 4.8 million

(Source: U.S. Census Bureau)

Russell

“The Simon and Schuster Book of Greek Gods and Heroes” by Alice Low

“Mommy, Why?” by Lin Fong-O’Neill

“American Tall Tales” by Mary Pope Osborne

www.brainerd.com/pbtrail/tale.html

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Ask students to write about a time they were humanitarians or saw someone else being one.

Make a timeline of Eleanor Roosevelt’s life. Use math skills to figure out dates for the timeline.

Find five pronouns in the newspaper and write down the noun each one replaces.

create a way to advertise the work of Doctors without Borders that would encourage people to give money or time to help the organization.

Students should dress in the attire of their researched person and present their report in first person to the class.  Differentiation suggestion:  below level students may read their report; above grade level should have theirs memorized; on level can have the choice.

While student is presenting, the other students are taking notes (with teacher modeling) on the important facts they hear presented.  Differentiation suggestion:  the requirement for how much information is needed for each group of students.

“Doctors without Borders (Humanitarian Organizations)” by Ann Parry

“Helen Keller: Humanitarian” by Lois P. Nicholson

“Eleanor Roosevelt (Heroes of America)” by Shannon Donnelly

“Eleanor Everywhere: The Life of Eleanor Roosevelt” by Monica Kulling

“What’s So Great About Jacques Cartier (Robbie Readers)” by Marylou Morano Kjelle

“Meet Christopher Columbus (Landmark Books)” by James T. Dekay

“Juan Ponce de Leon (Watts Library Exploration)” by Gail Sakurai

“Land Ho! Fifty Glorious Years in the Age of Exploration” by Nancy Winslow Parker

“The Secret to Freedom” by Marcia Vaughan

score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/newworld/

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O:  Ask students to find examples of people in books who show poor character. Students should justify why they believe that person shows poor character. Next, ask your students to write a short story in which a person with poor character traits changes in some way.

A:  Ask your students to justify why a person in a book, fairy tale or short story has poor character traits. They can use their imagination to construct a history of the character or do whatever is needed in their justification. Students can choose to create “artifacts” to prove their position (letters, diary, contracts, etc). They will then attempt to convince a small group or the class to change their opinion of the character based on their justification.

“Riding Freedom” by Pam Munoz Ryan

“Freedom Summer” by Deborah Wiles

“Henry’s Freedom Box” by Ellen Levine

O:  Ask students to research the life of one of the Supreme Court justices and display the information learned in a poster, shadow box or written paper.

A:  Ask students to choose one Supreme Court decision and give their opinions on that decision. They must support their decision with at least three facts.

Your students will love this fun activity, and they’ll learn a little more about Uncle Sam.

Materials

1 flat wooden craft spoon

1 piece of white craft foam

scissors

googly eyes

1 cotton ball

glue

self-stick magnetic tape

permanent markers

Directions

1. Cut a hat shape from white craft foam for Uncle Sam, about 1-1 1⁄2 inches wide and 3-4 inches tall. Be sure to include the brim of the hat.

2. Use the markers to decorate the hat in red, white and blue.

3. Cut off all but 2 inches of the handle of the craft spoon.

4. Glue the hat to the spoon, so the bowl of the spoon will be Uncle Sam’s face.

5. Glue googly eyes onto the bowl of the spoon.

6. Add a nose with black permanent marker.

7. Pull a cotton ball into the shape of a beard and glue it onto Uncle Sam’s chin.

8. Attach a strip of magnetic tape to the back.

“A Picture Book of Thurgood Marshall” by David A. Adler

“Thurgood Marshall” by Helen Frost

“The Supreme Court” by Patricia Ryon Quiri

“Meet My Grandmother: She’s A Supreme Court Justice” by Lisa Tucker McElroy

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Have students write a story about a time when obedience was very important in their live

Ask your students to use magazines, fliers, the Internet and government pamphlets to make a collage of services provided by the government.

For a government center within your room, provide a number of pictures of both things that the government provides and things it does not provide. Laminate the pictures. Ask students to divide the pictures into two groups: government services/not a government service. To make it self‑checking, glue the pictures on construction paper and label the back for students to check their work.

“Government Services” by Ann- Marie Kishel

“NASA” by Salvatore Tocci

“Neale S. Godfrey’s Ultimate Kid’s Money Book” by Neale Godfrey

bensguide.gpo.gov

http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/?p=781

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“Branches of Government” (Government in Action) by John Hamilton

“How the U.S. Government Works” by Syl Sobel

http://www.trumanlibrary.org

http://pbskids.org

http://www.japan-guide.com

http://www.indianamuseum.org

http://www.indianahistory.org

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A:  Evaluate the pros and cons of investing money in the stock market as opposed to putting it in the bank. They can use trade books (like the ones listed in the Literature Selections), the Internet and personal interviews with bank managers or financial advisors to get information. Have them choose a way to present their information to the class.

Design Your Own Money

The president has asked you to design a new dollar bill. What will your dollar bill look like? Will it still be green? Look at one of our current dollar bills to help you come up with a cool design.

Materials

clay (flattened into a rectangle)

colored paper

sharp pencils

ink and an ink roller

lots of imagination

Directions

To design money, you need an engraved plate. That way all of the bills will look the same. Here’s how to make one:

1.Draw your design on a piece of paper

2.Copy your design by engraving it into a flat piece of clay with sharp pencils.

3.Use the ink and ink roller to cover the top of your clay with ink. Try not to get ink into the engraving you have done.

4.Use the clay plate as a stamp to print your bills on colored paper.

“Lemons and Lemonade: A Book About Supply and Demand” by Nancy Loewen

“A Kid’s Guide to Business” by Jeff M. Brown

“Spending Money” by Mary Firestone

“Spending and Saving” by Mary Hill

“Growing Money: A Complete Investing Guide for Kids” by Gail Karlitz

“The Kids’ Money Book” by Jamie Kyle McGilliam

“Follow the Money” by Loreen Leedy