Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks 3rd Grade Social Studies Activities

Standards for History and Social Science Practice – Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12

1 Demonstrate civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions.

Civic knowledge includes the core knowledge in the Content Standards relating to civics and government, economics, geography, and history.

Civic intellectual skills encompass knowing how to identify, assess, interpret, describe, analyze and explain matters of concern in civic life.

Civic participatory skills encompass knowing how to make and support arguments, use the political process to communicate with elected officials and representatives of government, and plan strategically for civic change.

Civic dispositions encompass values, virtues, and behaviors, such as respect for others, commitment to equality, capacity for listening, and capacity for communicating in ways accessible to others.

4 Analyze the purpose and point of view of each source; distinguish opinion from fact. Students need to be exposed to readings that represent a variety of points of view in order to become discerning and critical readers. They need to be able to identify the purpose of a document and the point of view of its author. As students search primary sources for answers to questions such as What really happened in Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775?, they begin to understand that eyewitness accounts of the same event can differ. This Standard corresponds to Reading Standard 6 for Literacy in History and Social Science.

Literacy Standards for History and Social Science

Grades 3-5 Reading Standards for Literacy in the Content Areas: History/Social Science

Key Ideas and Details

1 Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences (See grades 3-5 Writing Standard 8 for more on paraphrasing.)

2 Determine the main ideas of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize a text.

3 Explain events, ideas, and concepts in a civics, geography, economics, or history text, based on specific information in the text.

Craft and Structure

4 Determine the meaning of general academic vocabulary and words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.

5 Describe the overall structure of how a text presents information (e.g., chronological, compare/contrast, problem/solution, cause effect), including how written texts incorporate features such as headings.

6 Compare and contrast a firsthand and secondhand account of the same event.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

7 Interpret information presented in charts, graphs, timelines, and illustrations and explain what that information contributes to the overall text.

9 Integrate information from two texts in order to write or speak about a history/social science topic.

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

10 Independently and proficiently read and comprehend history/social studies texts exhibiting complexity appropriate for the grades 3-5.

Grade 3 – Massachusetts, Home to Many Different People

Topic 1. Massachusetts cities and towns today and in history – Supporting Question: How can people get involved in government?

3 Explain why classrooms, schools, towns, and cities have governments, what governments do, how local governments are organized in Massachusetts, and how people participate in and contribute to their communities:

b. city and town governments provide a way for people to participate in making decisions about providing services, spending funds, protecting rights, and providing community safety

c. Massachusetts communities have either a city or a town form of government (e.g., cities are governed by elected mayors and city council members; towns are governed by an elected group of people, in many towns called a “select board,” appointed town manager, and elected town meeting members or an open town meeting in which all citizens can participate; public schools are governed by elected or appointed school committees or boards of trustees)

e. people can volunteer (give their time and knowledge) to the community and neighborhood by activities such as monitoring river water quality; growing and distributing produce from a school or community garden; running errands or shoveling snow for neighbors; welcoming newcomers and helping them learn English, helping new neighbors register to vote

Topic 3. European explorers’ first contacts with Native Peoples in the Northeast – Supporting Question: How did European explorers describe the Northeast and its Native Peoples?

8 Trace on a map the voyages of European explorers of the Northeast coast of North America (e.g., Giovanni Caboto [John Cabot], Bartholomew Gosnold, Giovanni de Verrazano, John Smith, Samuel de Champlain).

Topic 4. The Pilgrims, the Plymouth Colony, and Native Communities – Supporting Question: What were the challenges for women and men in the early years in Plymouth?

10 Explain who the Pilgrim men and women were and why they left Europe to seek a place where they would have the right to practice their religion; describe their journey, the government of their early years in the Plymouth Colony, and analyze their relationships with the Wampanoag and Abenaki/Wabanaki people:

b. challenges for Pilgrim men, women, and children in their new home (e.g., building shelter and starting farming, becoming accustomed to a new environment, maintaining their faith and keeping a community together through self-government)

Topic 5. The Puritans, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Native Peoples, and Africans – Supporting Question: How did the interactions of Native Peoples, Europeans, and enslaved and free Africans shape the development of Massachusetts?

11 Compare and contrast the roles and leadership decisions of early English leaders of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Pilgrims of the Plymouth colony (e.g., John Winthrop, Miles Standish, William Brewster, Edward Winslow, William Bradford, John Alden, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker) and the roles and decisions of the leaders of Native Peoples (e.g., Massasoit, Metacom, also known as King Philip).

15 Explain the importance of maritime commerce and the practice of bartering – exchanging goods or services without payment in money – in the development of the economy of colonial Massachusetts, using materials from historical societies and history museums as reference materials:

a. the fishing and shipbuilding industries

Topic 6. Massachusetts in the 18th century through the American Revolution – Supporting Questions: Why is Massachusetts important to the nation’s history? How did different views about the fairness of taxes and government lead to the American Revolution?

18 Analyze how the colonists’ sense of justice denied led to declaring independence, and what the words of the Declaration of Independence say about what its writers believed.

19 Explain how, after the Revolution, the leaders of the new United States had to write a plan for how to govern the nation, and that this plan is called the Constitution. Explain that the rights of citizens are spelled out in the Constitution’s first ten Amendments, known as the Bill of Rights; explain that full citizenship rights were restricted to white male property owners over the age of 21 in the new Republic.

20 Explain that states as well as nations have plans of government; recognize that the Constitution of Massachusetts (1780) is the oldest functioning constitution in the world, that its primary author was John Adams, and that, in addition to outlining government, it gives basic rights to citizens of the Commonwealth.