K- Social Studies?

[lincap]

We are just starting K this week.

 

I have MFW K and Progress in Math K. The Progress in Math I love so far and so does DS. MFW K I am finding a bit weak for him in that he knows a lot of the letter stuff, but needs practice handwriting and MFW K seems to be very gentle in the learning to read aspect. Science is a kind of day by day thing and I just wrote a thread about science so I am still checking out those resources.

 

BUT I don't know what to use for Social Studies at all. I am not even sure what a Ker does for SS? One website I saw said stuff like, understanding their place in community and family, geography, US government... etc.. Is there are curriculum that you use for Social Studies for your K aged one?

 

Thanks!

[coffeefreak]

Well, for K we did things like this. It was full of projects that I felt were perfect for a K student. We studied food, families, other cultures, Thanksgiving, Christmas, famous/important African-Americans, Native Americans, and American Landmarks. It has a book list for each unit that we easily found at the library. I used it with both my kids and we loved it. I just passed it on to a friend since we're done with K/1st :crying:We also did Five in a Row which more than fit the "Social Studies" bill.

 

Since you're using MFW, you might want to hop over to the MFW forums and see if there are any suggestions over there too. I didn't start using MFW until last year, so I don't know what they recommend, but that might be a good place to start. OH, and there's a social group here for MFW users that you can join. there might be suggestions there too.

 

HTH!

Dorinda

[sbgrace]

I found these complete lesson plans based on the core knowledge sequence. The social studies for K are really neat in my opinion. Often either literature, art, music, etc. will also tie in. Had I found these at the beginning of our K year I would have used them as I really like the ideas.

[skueppers]

We're studying the geography, cultures, etc. of various places around the world. I showed my Kindergartner a map of the world and asked her what part of the world she'd like to learn about first. She pointed to Antarctica, so that's where we started. Soon we'll be moving on to Australia, her next pick.

 

I just checked my local library for books on the subject, including books she could read herself and books I could read to her. I also looked at the library and on Netflix for appropriate videos -- we've been watching one during snack time. I'm not sure we'll get to a second before we tire of Antarctica.

 

I also printed out a map of Antarctica and had her mark a few features on it, like the South Pole and the Antarctic Peninsula. Obviously, this type of study has considerable tie-ins with science of the animals-and-their-habitats variety.

 

I have the books, "Children Just Like Me" and "A School Like Mine," which I plan to use when relevant. Since Antarctica has no permanent residents, we obviously haven't gotten to those resources yet!

 

Anyway, this is going well for us. I don't have a need for a strict schedule (2 weeks for this, 3 weeks for that, be sure to finish all 12 areas by the end of the year), since I don't think it matters all that much exactly what she learns for social studies this year.

[Guest momk2000]

We use the Social Studies K workbook from A Beka along with a bunch of books and videos from the library. It's basically lots of coloring pages for the student and a guideline to follow for me. :)

[Tracy]

We did geography for K last year with FIAR, along with a lot of extra books like these. It provided a great foundation for starting our first classical history rotation this year.

[Mallory]

I think this is another of those places where you have to study a little bit and decide what you really want your child to learn.

 

For many of us here, classically educating means learning history and geography. Not community helpers, or the pilgrims over and over, or making friends. Many social studies "things" are going to be covered in real life, and the rest will be in history and geography (and lots of the left overs are covered for us in Cub Scouts).

 

While we don't have to do standardized tests (well only math and reading), this method does often end up with low scores in elementary social studies. But I feel confident that in the long run going through history chronologically will end up with kids who have a much better grasp on social studies.

 

For us time is better spent elsewhere. I can only spend so much time on formal studies with my K and I would rather spend that time reading books or actually being a part of our community (we volunteer 6-8 hrs a week, he runs errands with me, we talk about the laws he needs to follow-car seats, fishing laws, crossing streets, ect.).

[Marie in Oh]

so some people have to do social studies in order to be in full compliance of their homeschool laws.

 

I don't think one should say that if you are classically educating your kids, you shouldn't do social studies.

 

We do both. I don't think my little ones need to be in on the big kids chronological history studies. We are in Modern Times and it is just to much for my 1st and 2nd graders. They are both doing CLE Social Studies and love it.

 

But, it has taken me years of home educating my kids to come to this conclusion that my littles will be just fine to wait on history until they are really ready-- from my experience that is about 3rd grade which is exactly what MFW recommends, so that is when they are jumping into the big kids' cycle.

 

So, for the OP looking for Social Studies, I'd wait til 1st grade, but something like BJU, CLE or Abeka would probably be what you are looking for.

[2_girls_mommy]

We do classical ed WTM style, which means starting history rotation in the Ancients in 1st grade. That gave us our K year as kind of a bonus year for social studies/fun studies.

 

I had a copy of our public school's "themes" for the year from a friend of mine whose child's teacher printed them up for the parents to know what they would be studying each week. (I thought that was a nice touch on the teacher's part.) I used that for ideas of some of the topics we would cover. And it ranged from farm animals to shapes, to spiders to harvest, etc. (a lot of things you could see were seasonally chosen) I used that as a jumping off point, also bringing in studies of each holiday as it came around that year and also the What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know books for ideas. We had a great time, and dd was ready for SOTW in 1st grade.

[ScoutTN]

We are dong two things:

1) God's World News - a kids' news magazine (Christian) published monthly on four age levels. It has online supplements/lessons. Loads of interesting cultural things, maps etc. I'm sure there are secular counterparts to this.

 

2) Holidays: Labor day, Columbus Day, Reformation Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, President's Day, Valentines, St. Patrick's, Easter, Memorial Day etc. Also Chinese New Year and the big Jewish holidays to help her understand some of her friends' traditions.

 

We've been doing a bit of geography - easy floor puzzles of continents, for example - to go with these other things.