California Content Standards 3rd Grade Social Studies Activities

CA.3. Continuity and Change

3.2. Students describe the American Indian nations in their local region long ago and in the recent past.

3.2.1. Describe national identities, religious beliefs, customs, and various folklore traditions.

3.2.2. Discuss the ways in which physical geography, including climate, influenced how the local Indian nations adapted to their natural environment (e.g., how they obtained food, clothing, tools).

3.2.3. Describe the economy and systems of government, particularly those with tribal constitutions, and their relationship to federal and state governments.

3.2.4. Discuss the interaction of new settlers with the already established Indians of the region.

3.3. Students draw from historical and community resources to organize the sequence of local historical events and describe how each period of settlement left its mark on the land.

3.3.1. Research the explorers who visited here, the newcomers who settled here, and the people who continue to come to the region, including their cultural and religious traditions and contributions.

3.4. Students understand the role of rules and laws in our daily lives and the basic structure of the U.S. government.

3.4.1. Determine the reasons for rules, laws, and the U.S. Constitution; the role of citizenship in the promotion of rules and laws; and the consequences for people who violate rules and laws.

3.4.2. Discuss the importance of public virtue and the role of citizens, including how to participate in a classroom, in the community, and in civic life.

3.4.3. Know the histories of important local and national landmarks, symbols, and essential documents that create a sense of community among citizens and exemplify cherished ideals (e.g., the U.S. flag, the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty, the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Capitol).

3.4.4. Understand the three branches of government, with an emphasis on local government.

3.4.5. Describe the ways in which California, the other states, and sovereign American Indian tribes contribute to the making of our nation and participate in the federal system of government.

3.4.6. Describe the lives of American heroes who took risks to secure our freedoms (e.g., Anne Hutchinson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr.).

3.5. Students demonstrate basic economic reasoning skills and an understanding of the economy of the local region.

3.5.1. Describe the ways in which local producers have used and are using natural resources, human resources, and capital resources to produce goods and services in the past and the present.

3.5.2. Understand that some goods are made locally, some elsewhere in the United States, and some abroad.

3.5.3. Understand that individual economic choices involve trade-offs and the evaluation of benefits and costs.

CA.K-5.HSSA. Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills: The intellectual skills noted below are to be learned through, and applied to, the content standards for kindergarten through grade five. They are to be assessed only in conjunction with the content standards in kindergarten through grade five. In addition to the standards for kindergarten through grade five, students demonstrate the following intellectual, reasoning, reflection, and research skills.

K-5.CST. Chronological and Spatial Thinking

K-5.CST.1. Students place key events and people of the historical era they are studying in a chronological sequence and within a spatial context; they interpret time lines.

K-5.CST.2. Students correctly apply terms related to time, including past, present, future, decade, century, and generation.

K-5.CST.3. Students explain how the present is connected to the past, identifying both similarities and differences between the two, and how some things change over time and some things stay the same.

K-5.CST.4. Students use map and globe skills to determine the absolute locations of places and interpret information available through a map's or globe's legend, scale, and symbolic representations.

K-5.REPV. Research, Evidence, and Point of View

K-5.REPV.2. Students pose relevant questions about events they encounter in historical documents, eyewitness accounts, oral histories, letters, diaries, artifacts, photographs, maps, artworks, and architecture.

K-5.REPV.3. Students distinguish fact from fiction by comparing documentary sources on historical figures and events with fictionalized characters and events.

K-5.HI. Historical Interpretation

K-5.HI.1. Students summarize the key events of the era they are studying and explain the historical contexts of those events.

K-5.HI.2. Students identify the human and physical characteristics of the places they are studying and explain how those features form the unique character of those places.