Kindergarten

Driving Concept 1: Working Together

Driving Concept 2: Working Together to Show Why History Matters

Driving Concept 3: Who am I?

Driving Concept 4: Where I Live

Driving Concept 5: Meeting Community Needs  

In this driving concept, students will learn to act as members of a classroom community by expanding their understanding of the concepts of shared codes of conduct, respect, fairness, justice, and collective action for solving problems. Teachers should utilize read-aloud texts, images, artifacts, and materials that represent diverse student experiences and support the development of early literacy skills.

In this driving concept, students will develop historical thinking skills to learn about the past and the present. They will use artifacts and information gathered from a variety of sources to ask questions, generate simple conclusions, and begin to differentiate between fact and opinion. They will also develop more sophisticated understandings of chronological thinking by sequencing events in their lives and those of their family members and classmates.

In this driving concept, students will learn about the unique identities of individuals in their classroom and community and learn about the importance of demonstrating respect for all individuals. Teachers should utilize read-aloud texts, images, artifacts, and materials that represent diverse student experiences and support the development of early literacy skills.

In this driving concept, students will develop geographical skills to place themselves in the physical world and within their communities. They will be introduced to maps, globes and other spatial representations of physical space and begin to make observations, generate questions, and draw conclusions about the physical world around them. Students will begin to understand the complex interaction of humans and the natural environment.

In this driving concept, students will develop economic language to describe their classrooms, communities, and the larger world. Teachers should utilize a variety of fiction and non-fiction read-aloud texts, images, artifacts, and materials that introduce students to community jobs, services, and the exchange of goods and help students to develop early literacy skills.

Describe the roles and responsibilities of being a part of a family, classroom, and local community.

Identify different kinds of families and caregivers within a community (e.g., single-parent, blended, grandparent-headed, conditionally separated, foster, LGBTQ+, multiracial, etc.) and explain the importance of demonstrating respect for all people.

Identify social and cultural factors that shape individual identities, including family, ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, interests, and abilities, and explain that a person’s sense of identity can change over time.

Identify individuals (historical or present-day) whose actions made the community more just or fair and explain how their actions helped their community.

Explain why classrooms and schools have rules and describe the consequences of not following them.

Identify examples of a rule that may not be fair for all and explain how it could be changed to make it more fair.

Identify which skills lead to respectful and productive conversations.

Use civil discourse (listening, turn taking and consensus-building) and voting procedures to take collaborative action in the classroom or school community.

Identify artifacts in the lives of students and their community and use sequential language (first, next, then, after) to put artifacts in chronological order.

Identify why artifacts are historically important and describe how artifacts help us learn about the past.

Compare different kinds of artifacts to determine what they can and cannot tell us about the past and/or present.

Evaluate the utility of an artifact in responding to a question about the past or present.

Evaluate sources of information, and identify how the creator’s job, training, and/or experiences effect the reliability of information.  

Identify and describe the historic achievements and contributions of individuals with different abilities. 

Explain important contributions individuals with different gender, racial, religious, and ethnic identities and ability statuses have made to the community.

Compare how historical people in our families and communities and from different countries lived, learned, worked, and relaxed.

Explain that while individuals may be different, everyone should have the same human rights.

Explain the relationship between a map and a globe and explain how they help us to understand our place in the world and community. 

Explain the concept of relative location using directional words (e.g., on, off, close, far , beside, inside, outside, next to, close to, above, below, apart, right, left, straight, behind, in front of, closer, farther).

Identify geographic characteristics of the local community (e.g., weather and climate, population, landforms, vegetation, culture, industry, goods and services, and ecology), and explain how these characteristics shape our interactions with our environment and communities.

Explain why people live where they do, including why people live in different parts of Washington, DC, and identify the benefits and challenges of living in different places.

Compare the different jobs individuals around the world perform and the ways in which specific goods and services are produced, both inside and outside of the home.

Identify and explain the difference between what we want versus what we need to survive on a daily basis.

Explain why people try to save money and/or resources.

Identify a scarce resource in our community, world, or classroom (e.g., food, land, water, energy), and evaluate how to allocate it to promote fairness.

Identify products that we use in our daily lives, where they come from, and how they connect us to local and global communities.