SHCPS believes big ideas should shape research, projects, discussions, and other aspects of student investigation in the social sciences. Deep understanding, the product of varied instructional presentations and full student engagement, results in learning that endures beyond the Friday quiz and the quarterly exam.  The goal of the social science curriculum is to awaken in the minds and imaginations of children an understanding of and appreciation for the subject of history and its related disciplines. To accomplish this goal, we have designed a learning environment that involves children as active learners. Instruction is UbD-based and features meaningful projects and activities that apply key process skills to investigations of important content. Students work individually and in cooperative-learning groups on projects that are often cross-curricular. A multicultural perspective and respect for diversity pervade the curriculum, particularly through the use of popular literature, primary source documents, and relevant reflections of art, language, culture and varied historical views.  Students have the opportunity to learn and exhibit their competencies in a variety of ways.  The spiraled curriculum is founded on the belief that all students can learn if a teacher shows them how to think and discover knowledge for themselves. In addition, students are guided through progressively more difficult concepts through a process of step-by-step discovery.

 

In Early Learning and Primary Academy, students encounter a wide variety of interesting people, places, cultures, and ideas through the themes, “My Family, My Community, and My World.”They have made a difference, and by exploring their own family histories, they learn to use maps and globes to identify places and to understand the impact of place on how people live. They are introduced to the institutions and symbols of American political processes and culture. Additionally, they grasp basic economic concepts in the context of learning about how people lived in the past, how they live in the present, and how they are likely to live in the future.

 

The Elementary Academy social science curriculum takes advantage of history’s narrative attributes and is structured around the topics of the Vikings to the westward movement, US civics, economy and government and US and world geography. The balanced breadth and depth of the curriculum strengthens students’ cultural understanding, develops their analytic thinking skills, leads to an appreciation for the excitement of history, and helps them understand the concept of place that is central to the study of geography.

 

The Junior Academy curriculum is based on the Massachusetts State Framework focusing on the five themes of geography: region, location, movement, place and human environmental interaction.  These themes are embedded across all topics explored in the Junior Academy social science classes.  After a series of robust world geography units in sixth grade, seventh graders explore topics ranging from early man to early civilizations and cultures of Sumar, Mesopotamia, Israel, Egypt, Asia, Greece, and Rome. Finally, in eighth grade, students delve into an in-depth exploration American History from the Revolutionary War period through the Civil War and Reconstruction.