This semester in my clinical placement Social Studies lessons are few and far between. On my first day at Olympia my cooperating teacher and I spent sometime going over their daily and weekly schedules. Social Studies was not a topic we covered during this time. We started to lay out the dates of my lesson plans and my cooperating teacher said that they generally have Social Studies lessons that revolve around important holidays. Since there aren’t any major holidays in the months to come I would not be involved in any of her social studies lessons. She also said that her clinical student last semester covered the topic of community helpers because she had to complete the same assignments that I am having to complete this semester. So overall I have not witnessed a Social Studies lesson so far in my clinical experience.
As I reflect on this I go back to what I have been taught in my TCH 277 social studies instruction class. I also spent a lot of time looking at the standards we have been provided with for that class. There is so much information we could be teaching a kindergarten class when it comes to social studies. Kindergarten is supposed to be about students learning about themselves and their place in the community. They could also be learning about the community they live in, their wants and needs, and other topics they would learn and grow from. The general social studies content in Illinois for kindergarten is suppose to focus on “Myself and Others.” This focus builds each year throughout the early childhood years until third grade when the standards focus on “Illinois: Part of My Country and World.” What my clinical placement is doing is just focusing on the holidays rather than supporting the individual and community growth of the students in the class.
It is unfortunate that I have not been able to witness or experience any social studies lessons so far in my clinical experiences. If I were going to add Social Studies into the curriculum as an everyday subject area I would do many of the things we have been taught in class. I would support my learners by having interactive workjobs they can use during downtime. For example In a kindergarten class I could use the wants and needs workjob I made for my TCH 277 class.
I would also implement many classroom activities that would help incorporate all social studies subject areas into the curriculum, these include, civics & government, economics, history, geography, sociology & culture, and psychology. I would make time for this by making sure all other subject areas are scheduled for the appropriate length of time for a kindergartner. I think it is important to make time for this in a kindergarten classroom so the students begin to learn their place in the physical and social world. At this point in my education I want my social studies lessons to be very interactive and student oriented. I want to set up my learning environment so we can all be on the same level. I imagine a lot of my social studies instruction would be on the rug. During this time I hope to have students doing a lot of turn and talks, think-pair-shares, and classroom discussion. I will use knowledge checks that I have learned from my classes at ISU and from my clinical placement. Some quick and easy knowledge checks include thumbs up, thumbs down, whiteboard work, hands up, elbows up, etc. If students are introduced to these ideas at a young at age , they will have a much better platform to build off of form the more complex ideas they will learn in the future.
I use the following sites for many of my social studies lesson ideas:
Scholastic
This is a direct link to my early childhood education pinterest board where I have compiled a lot of the ideas I shared in this blog:
Kelsey's Pinterest
Kelsey, when you said “my cooperating teacher said that they generally have Social Studies lessons that revolve around important holidays. Since there aren’t any major holidays in the months to come I would not be involved in any of her social studies lessons” I was shocked! It seems as if you are having an experience that Kira talked about one of our first days in 277. I did not realize what a backseat that social studies was taking in today’s schools. I think that for the purpose of kindergarten, I am surprised they are not covering community helpers, or something like in my clinical about social skills. I think for kindergarten, these are important topics, as well as topics that students would be interested in. I think that having social studies only revolve around a holiday reflects social studies as not being important, but in fact it is something that effects our lives daily. I think history, economics, civics and government, and phycology need to be focused in on in our early childhood classrooms. I think that having speakers come into the classroom or going on field trips really shows how evident social studies are in our student’s lives. I believe any trip that is taken in a school setting should bring out at least one social studies factor, whether it being how much it will cost, how much money they make, what they do for the community/state/country, and where it is on a map because students can learn so much from it!
ReplyDeleteKelsey,
ReplyDeleteIt is sad to hear and see very little Social Studies being done in our clinical settings. It seems that your CT isn’t giving her students the experience they should be getting in a Kindergarten setting with Social Studies. My CT also doesn’t implement a lot of Social Studies that I have seen. I also didn’t see any in my last clinical either. I have seen a few different lessons on Social Studies when they were in their biographies unit, but that is all I have seen. I like how you state, “What my clinical placement is doing is just focusing on the holidays rather than supporting the individual and community growth of the students in the class.” I feel building a community in your classroom is so very important from what we have learned and it is sad to hear your teacher won’t support that. I know when we have our own classrooms one day we will use what we have learned about Social Studies to support out students learning about that. Just like you said in your blog Workjobs are a great way to further students’ knowledge and reinforce new knowledge. A workshop model of social studies would be great to see before going out into our own classrooms, so I hope we do see this one day! I sometimes bring up to my CT what we have learned about social studies in our classes to give her new ideas of how to implement it. I wonder if there is a way for you and your CT to have that conversation. Have you ever thought about that? You could even show her your workjobs to see if that is something she would be interested in doing!
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jordan and Cate that it is too bad that there isn't more of a structured focus on SS in your setting outside of the holiday focus. This is what I shared with you gals a term that my colleague uses, "The Suitcase Curriculum." We'll pack up our suitcases and learn about disconnected topics! With that being said, I am wondering what you think about the other SS+ standards. Do you really feel like none of the others are being covered? I bet that there are actually quite a few covered just through their day-to-day practices in that space.
With that being said, a structured time for SS is definitely needed. What would need to change in the daily schedule to make this happen? What would give?
:)Kira