Lewis and Clark with Sacagawea

Hey all!
Spring Break was so nice, but just left me ready for more! 31 more days of this school year, can't believe it has gone so fast.  It's amazing how much the students grow in a school year.
Well to wrap up the school year we are doing a lot of review.  While going through my resources I thought I would share a Social Studies Unit that I made that focused on Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea.  These historical figures can be so difficult to teach to first graders, but I have found that the reading comprehension worksheets really have helped.  Our standards are supposed to cover vocabulary as well, so the matching sheet in this unit is a great and easy assessment.
Enjoy, click here to grab your copy!

Benjamin Franklin Unit

Our Social Studies Curriculum covers many different American  Heroes.  Benjamin Franklin is one of these people we study.  It is difficult to explain some of these people and what their accomplishments were to such young children.  You try to make it interesting for them but sometimes finding the resources is difficult.  I made this packet to help my students understand this great man and what he did for our country.  It contains a lot of hands-on activities, assessments, and writing prompts.

Click here to snag your copy!

Our Earth and Our Country

Our First Social Studies Unit is "Our Earth and Our Country", or Global Position.  It is hard to fit Social Studies in at the start of the year, but with so much curriculum to cover, we have to hit the ground running.

I find myself using a lot of maps to teach this unit.  We have desk maps and a wall map in our classroom.  We are also fortunate enough to have interactive white boards in our rooms, so those come in handy a lot during this unit.  Hopefully you caught Third Grade Gridiron's post on using Brainpop and Pete's Power Point Station to teach this concept, it was super helpful!

I always find myself searching for first grade appropriate assessments for this unit, and have trouble finding ones that I like, so I made some!  This Global Position Unit has a vocabulary matching game, as well as some assessments.  It is also one of my personal goals to challenge my students more this year, so I included some Depth of Knowledge journal prompts.  Hope this helps you all out there!

Snag your copy here!

Columbus who????

At my school in Kindergarten we cover all the American Holidays. Each year when I am teaching this I am always wanting reinforcement activities. It seems like a month after we have talked and talked about Christopher Columbus they have forgotten. And truthfully I realize why.....we talk about a holiday and then move on. I needed a way to spiral the holidays so they would not be forgotten. So I created this holiday packet with games, assessments, and activities to reinforce the holidays throughout the year. Each holiday has it's own fact card, name of the month it is observed, as well as words and pictures associated with the holiday.  The goal is that after discussing a couple holidays students can sort the cards and month according to the holiday. This pocket chart activity could stay in rotation as you discuss more holidays. To check it out click on the picture below!

Social Studies!

I REALLY love teaching Social Studies in my first grade classroom, but often feel that I am pressed for time or resources.  It was my  goal this summer to make lots of activities that were fun for the kids, yet easy to grade.  So far I have completed one unit.  Not the progress that I was hoping for, but it's a start!

I am really proud of this unit as it covers all the American Folktale Heroes that are a part of our Social Studies curriculum.  It teaches Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, Davy Crockett, John Henry, and Annie Oakley.  There are fact cards on each character, at least two activities, and an assessment.

This is my first post on TPT so I am very excited!!!!

Click here to snag this Social Studies Unit for your own!