KINDERGARTEN CONTENT STANDARDS

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KINDERGARTEN CONTENT STANDARDS

Oakland Unified School District
Kindergarten History – Social Science Standards

KINDERGARTEN CONTENT STANDARDS
TOPICS FROM THE CALIFORNIA STATE HISTORY~SOCIAL SCIENCE
FRAMEWORK
What students should know:
Learning and Working, Now and LongAgo
LEARNING TO WORK TOGETHER
• Work to develop attributes of good citizenship and character and learn to work with others in a school setting.
WORKING TOGETHER
• Demonstrate an understanding of the geography and economics of the school and its surroundings.

REACHING OUT TO TIMES PAST
• Demonstrate an awareness of the past, explaining some of the ways in which the "here and now" is different from the "long ago."
Kindergarten Skills Based on Standardized Tests
~ Understand now and long ago through clues in pictures such as clothes or technology in pictures

FIRST GRADE CONTENT STANDARDS - HISTORICAL THINKING
PRIMARY GRADES, KINDERGARTEN - 3RD GRADE
What students should be able to do:
Chronological/Spatial Thinking
• Students understand the terms past, present, future, "a long time ago."
• Students place elements of a simple story in chronological sequence and discuss which happened first, second, third, etc.
• Students understand that some things change over time and some things remain the same.
• Students identify places on maps of classrooms, simple buildings, and neighborhoods.
Evidence
• Students become familiar with artifact~ photographs, maps, music and stories from other times and other peoples.
• Students speculate about or determine the uses of an artifact. They identify parts of the artifact and how they might contribute to its usefulness.
• Students identify the main subject of a photograph. They also identify details in a photograph and explain how they contribute information to the picture (e.g. "What do you notice here? What does that tell us about...?").
• Students understand that primary sources like artifacts tell us about the person or people who created them.
Diversity/Multiple Perspectives
• Students examine lives of a variety of different people from different times and places. Using visual clues, they identify differences between their own circumstances and those of people in other times and places.
• Given a situation or a story today, students imaginatively place themselves in the position of others.
Oakland Unified School District
Kindergarten History – Social Science Standards
3
Historical Interpretation
• Students understand that stories may be about real people, places, or fictional characters.
• Students understand that it is possible to tell different stories about the same events and places.
• Students tell a simple narrative of an event.
Historical/Geographic Significance
• Students select important events and places in their own lives They identify important events and places for their own families They explain why the events and places are important
Oakland Unified School District
Kindergarten History – Social Science Standards

HISTORICALTHINKING: SAMPLE ASSIGNMENTS - KINDERGARTEN
Chronological and Spatial Thinking
• Use sorting circles to sort pictures into long ago and now
• Name artifacts used in the past and present and make a picture graph of the artifacts.
• Take mini-tours of the school, noting locations of places like the principal's office, the auditorium, etc.
• Use blocks and other materials to create a three dimensional representation of the
school, both as a directed activity and a self-directed activity. Label and dictate the purpose of various sections of the school.
• Walk around the neighborhood and see who lives close to school.
Examining Evidence
• Interview selected students and staff about their work in the school. Draw a picture of what was learned in the interview
• Sort and categorize artifacts that are from home, school, and other occupations.
Briefly explain the categories.
• Examine school photos of school personnel and draw portraits of them.
• Look at two artifacts (a wooden doll and a plastic doll) and describe differences.
Speculate on which one is older.
• Talk with a parent or older adult about games they played as five-year olds.
Discuss similarities and differences to today.
Oakland Unified School District
Kindergarten History – Social Science Standards

Diversity/Multiple Perspectives
• Participate in dramatic play, acting out the various roles of school personnel and students.
• Listen to stories and chant poems about children in school and how characters learn. Discuss how they are the same as the characters and how they are different.
• Participate in Tribes activities that build understanding of each other and inclusion.
• After reading What Do You See?, discuss how the animals see the world.

Interpretation
• Several students tell a story about what happened at recess. The teacher leads a discussion on whydifferent students hear different accounts.
• Students retell a story that the teacher has read in class.
Determining Historical/ Geographical Significance
• Draw and write in a reflective log about something they have discovered about the school. "I used to J but now I "
• Tell a story about one important event in their life, explaining why it was important.
• Bring a picture or "treasure" from home and explain why it is important.

KINDERGARTEN-LEARNING AND WORKING NOW AND LONG AGO
In kindergarten children first begin to under stand that school is a place for learning and working. Most children arrive for their first school experience eager to work and learn.
Most will be working in groups for the first time. They must learn to share, to take turns, to respect the rights of others, and to take care of themselves and their own possessions.
These are learnings that are necessary for good civic behavior in the classroom and in the larger society. Children can also discover how other people have learned and worked together by hearing stories of times past.

Learning to Work Together
To help children learn their way as learners, workers, and classroom participants is the purpose of this first study. In the daily life of the kindergarten, children are invited to work centers and activities, encouraged to participate, and given guidance in acquiring the complex skills involved in working with others. They must learn to share the attention of the teacher with others and learn to consider the rights Such learnings will be deepened and enriched if teachers use classroom problems that inevitably arise as opportunities for critical thinking and problem solving; for example, problems in sharing scarce resources or space with others or in planning ahead and bringing one's activity to a conclusion to be on time for the next. Children need help in analyzing problems such as these; considering why the problem arose; considering other alternatives they might have tried in coping with the problem; developing awareness of how alternative behaviors might bring different results in the ways that others in the group respond to them; and learning to appreciate behaviors and values that are consistent with the democratic ethic. Children must have opportunities to discuss these more desirable behaviors, try them out, and examine how they lead to more harmonious and socially satisfying relationships with others.
To further support these learnings, teachers should introduce stories, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes that incorporate conflict and raise value issues that are both interesting and understandable for young children. A few examples of such stories are "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Goldilocks and the Three Bears " , selections from Aesop's Fables, and Virginia Hamilton's The People Could Fly. In discussing these stories, children should identify the behavior of characters in the story, observe the effect of this behavior on others, examine why characters behaved as they did, and consider whether other choices could have changed the results. These discussions are intended to help children think through the consequences of behavior and to help them acquire those values of deliberation and individual responsibility that are consistent with the democratic ethic.

Oakland Unified School District
Kindergarten History – Social Science Standards

Working Together: Exploring, Creating, and Communicating
A second major goal of this kindergarten curriculum is to help children build their sense of self and self-worth through extending their understanding of the immediate world and
deepening their appreciation of their own ability to explore, create, solve problems, communicate, and assume individual and group responsibilities in classroom activities.
Children should have opportunities, under the teacher's guidance, to explore the school and its environs, a new world for these children, as well as the landscape in the neighborhood, including its topography, streets, transportation systems, structures, and
human activities. Children should have opportunities to use large building blocks, wood, tools, and miniature vehicles as well as a variety of materials from a classroom box filled with imaginative and improvisational objects, clothing, workers' hats, and the like, in order to construct real and imagined neighborhood structures. Activities in these centers carried on through group play become important beginnings of map work for young children. Children should be encouraged to build neighborhoods and landscapes and to incorporate such structures as fire stations, airports, houses, banks, hospitals, supermarkets, harbors, and transportation lines. Picture files, stories, and books should be used to deepen children's information about the places they are creating and the work that is carried on in them. In all of these activities, children should understand the importance of literacy as a means of acquiring valuable information and knowledge.
Reaching Out to Times Past
A third goal of this kindergarten curriculum is to help children take their first vicarious steps into times past. Well-selected stories can help children develop a beginning sense of historical empathy. They should consider how it might have been to live in other times and places and how their lives would have been different. They should notice different ways people lived in earlier days; for example, getting water from a well, growing their food, making their clothing, and having fun in ways that are different from those of today. They can compare themselves with children in such stories as Daniel's Duck by Clyde R. Bulla, Thy Friend, Obadiah and The Adventures of Obadiah by Brinton Turkle, Becky and the Bear by Dorothy Van Woerkom, and selected chapters from Little House in the Big Woods by Laura I. Wilder.