Ms. Castro's Fourth Grade

Social Studies

Components:

• McGraw Hill Social Studies Book:
•                    Regions, Adventures in Time and Place
• Educational Websites
• Teacher Resources
• Hands-on Experiments
• Computer Software & Internet Websites
• Unitedstreaming.com
• Individual and Group Projects

 Teaching Model:

Fourth grade social studies is taught using a variety of teaching methods and student activities in order to best gain and retain important knowledge.  Students will learn through reading social studies texts, highlighting important information from text, cooperative/group and individual projects, traditional research methods, interactive websites & computer software, videos, and educational games & simulations.  Students will learn the location of each of the fifty states, major mountain ranges, major rivers, and other major landforms and resources in the United States

Topics covered throughout fourth grade include:

QUARTER 1

   1. Basic geography

   2. Map skills Graphs

   3. Landforms

   4. U.S. Geography

   5. U.S. Climate

   6. Resources

   7. Canada

   8. Immigration

   9. Citizens

 10. U.S. government

QUARTER 2

U.S. Regions:

Northeast Region - Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York,

                             Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New

                             Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland

People and Heritage of the Northeast

Appalachian Mountains

Seasons

Southeast Region - West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South

                             Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia,

                              Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana,

                              and Florida

Mississippi River

People and Heritage of the Southeast

QUARTER 3

Midwest Region - Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin,

                           Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South

                           Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas

The Prairie

People and Heritage of the Midwest

Map Skills

Time Lines

Southwest Region - Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona

The Grand Canyon

People and Heritage of the Southwest

QUARTER 4

West Region - Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah,

                     Nevada, Washington, Oregon, and California

Gold Rush

People and Heritage of the West

Hawaii and Alaska

Culminating Activities on U.S.A.

Activities with each unit:

• Graphic Organizers
• Reading/highlighting important information
• Note taking – Outlines
• Reading diagrams
• Various worksheets
• Jigsaw learning - Becoming "experts" in an area and sharing knowledge  with others
• Drama and reenactments of historical events
• On-line videos through unitedstreaming.com
• Quizzes (Multiple choice, Fill-ins, Matching, Short Answer, Essays)
• Possible reasearch project