This text offers a teacher and student-friendly collection of lessons and activities that help educators use picture books to engage younger students in meaningful social studies activities and bring this critical subject back in elementary schools. In order for today's children to succeed as adults, they need a solid foundation of life skills inculcated at a young age. Social studies is key to building this critical knowledge, yet less attention is being paid to social studies in elementary schools as this subject becomes more essential. The authors of this text have a solution: use picture books as dual-purpose texts that fulfill more than just language arts needs, and take the time dedicated to those lessons to simultaneously teach social studies. Each chapter of this text is organized around one of the National Council for the Social Studies' Ten Thematic Strands, covering diverse and engaging topics ranging from community and individuality to science and technology. This book serves as a vital resource for classroom teachers, methods professors, staff developers, and curriculum writers who prioritize keeping social studies a part of the elementary school curriculum.

This book provides teachers, librarians, and education methods professors with strategies, lesson plans, and activities that enable them to use literature as a springboard to social studies thematic instruction. With the amount of time and resources allocated to teaching social studies being significantly reduced, social studies lessons need to be incorporated into other subjects. Notable Books, Notable Lessons: Putting Social Studies Back in the K–8 Curriculum offers the tools to teach students social studies concepts that are increasingly relevant and essential in today's diverse, globalized world—lessons that are vital in order to prepare students to think critically and participate in our multicultural democracy. Providing information that elementary and middle school teachers and librarians, district-level curriculum directors and principals, staff developers, and social studies and literacy methods professors will find extremely useful, this book uses the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)/Children's Book Council (CBC)'s current and past lists of Notable Books at the elementary and middle school levels to offer easy-to-follow lesson plans that integrate social studies instruction with reading and language arts. The lesson plans pose compelling questions to facilitate discussion and critical thinking and suggest engaging activities that are connected to the social studies concepts. The book also includes sample student handouts for the selected pieces of literature.

REA’s TExES Social Studies 7-12 (232) Test Prep with Online Practice Tests Gets You Certified and in the Classroom! Teacher candidates seeking certification to become social studies teachers in Texas public schools must take the TExES Social Studies 7-12 (232) test. Written by Dr. Dean Ferguson, a nationally recognized test-development expert based at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, our prep provides extensive coverage of the exam’s seven domains and 26 competencies. In addition to a thorough review, this test prep features a diagnostic test and 2 full-length practice tests (1 in the book and 1 online at the REA Study Center) that deal with every type of question, subject area, and skill tested on the exam. Our online tests offer timed testing conditions, automatic scoring, and diagnostic feedback on every question to help teacher candidates zero in on the topics that give them trouble now, so they can succeed on test day. REA’s test prep package includes: - Comprehensive review of all content categories tested on the TExES Social Studies 7-12 exam - Online diagnostic that pinpoints strengths and weaknesses to help focus study - 2 full-length practice tests based on actual exam questions - Practice test answers explained in detail - Proven study tips, strategies, and confidence-boosting advice - Online practice tests feature timed testing, automatic scoring, and topic-level feedback REA's TExES Social Studies 7-12 (232) is a must-have for anyone who wants to become a social studies teacher in Texas.

The National Curriculum Standards were developed by a Task Force of National Council for the Social Studies, and approved by the NCSS Board of Directors in March 2010. These national standards are a revision of the national standards published by NCSS in 1994 under the title Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies.

Plan and deliver a curriculum to help your students connect with the humanity of others! In the wake of 2020, we need today’s young learners to be prepared to develop solutions to a host of entrenched and complex issues, including systemic racism, massive environmental problems, deep political divisions, and future pandemics that will severely test the effectiveness and equity of our health policies. What better place to start that preparation than with a social studies curriculum that enables elementary students to envision and build a better world? In this engaging guide two experienced social studies educators unpack the oppressions that so often characterize the elementary curriculum—normalization, idealization, heroification, and dramatization—and show how common pitfalls can be replaced with creative solutions. Whether you’re a classroom teacher, methods student, or curriculum coordinator, this is a book that can transform your understanding of the social studies disciplines and their power to disrupt the narratives that maintain current inequities.

Teaching Social Studies: A Methods Book for Methods Teachers, features tasks designed to take preservice teachers deep into schools in general and into social studies education in particular. Organized around Joseph Schwab's commonplaces of education and recognizing the role of inquiry as a preferred pedagogy in social studies, the book offers a series of short chapters that highlight learners and learning, subject matter, teachers and teaching, and school context. The 42 chapters describe tasks that the authors assign to their methods students as either in?class or as outside?of?class assignments. The components of each chapter are: > Summary of the task > Description of the exercise (i.e., what students are to do, the necessary resources, the timeframe for completion, grading criteria) > Description of how students respond to the activity > Description of how the task fits into the overall course > List of readings and references > Appendix that supplements the task description

A comprehensive history of our world, from the dawn of human history to the present day.

The popular Social Studies Connects series links history, geography, civics and economics to kids’ daily lives. Featuring stories with diverse characters who face situations young readers can relate to, these books support reading and social studies skills including researching, inferring, comparing, and communication. An activity to stimulate curiosity about the world is included in each book! With no special powers, no secret identity, and no cape, can someone be a real hero? Ethan thinks so and sets out to prove it! (Social Studies Topic: History & Culture/Heroes)

Designed for use in elementary and secondary social studies education courses, this book supports the teaching of social studies methods in a range of educational settings. By highlighting long-standing content and principles of social studies education in a concise and direct way, this volume offers the building blocks of a comprehensive course, for use as springboards to the effective presentation of professors' desired course emphases. With sections on foundations, subject areas, and best practices, this text explains the intersection between the "modelling" role of social studies teachers as democratic citizens, social studies fields of study, and strategies implemented in the classroom to encourage students' critical thinking and values formation.