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In the wordless picture book Home by Jeannie Baker, we watch baby Tracy grow as her family and neighbors work together to gradually turn a cold unfriendly city street into a beautiful friendly place to call home. In this lesson designed for ages 4-8, students explore change over time in the book Home and later in themselves by interviewing their parents and constructing a timeline book of their lives.

"All the stuff that happened before you were born is your own kind of Show Way." This Newberry Award winning book can be used for many different types of activities. In this lesson, Show Way is used to teach map symbols.

Even though young children ask many questions, the request for a question usually receives a story in response. The purpose of this action research was to determine if the implementation of questioning activities throughout the curriculum would make kindergartners aware of questions and enhance the questioning skills of these young learners.

In Follow That Map! A First Look at Mapping Skills, a group of five diverse children search for their pets and take an exciting trip through the neighborhood, city and country, around the world and into space in an attempt to locate their missing dog and cat. This book presents key mapping concepts and serves as an introduction to maps. The lesson challenges students to explore different types of maps and early map concepts as they create their own book of maps. This lesson is recommended for grades one through three and should be completed in a week.

Every family has its own structure and unique characteristics. The family in this book has diversity and many of the nontraditional family groupings prevalent in society today. Created for kindergartners, this lesson celebrates individual likenesses and differences of families and students. It encourages both student and parent participation.

Gene Barretta’s books Neo Leo: The ageless ideas of Leonardo da Vinci, Now & Ben: The modern inventions of Benjamin Franklin, and timeless Thomas: How Thomas Edison changed our lives give us a glimpse into the famous inventors’ lives and introduce us to their incredible inventions. Neo Leo immerses readers in Leonardo da Vinci’s world as an artist, inventor, engineer, and scientist. Leonardo da Vinci wrote and drew detailed pictures of innumerable inventions, but never had the chance to build many of them. Now & Ben chronicles the life of Benjamin Franklin who used his common sense and innovative thinking to design inventions that changed society and our culture. Timeless Thomas provides readers with the opportunity to examine Thomas Edison’s inventions and how they have changed over time. The following lessons were designed to introduce the young child to the world of inventors and challenge them to invent.

Durga Bernhard’s While You are Sleeping takes students on a cultural journey through nine different countries: United States of America, Nigeria, Japan, Mexico, India, Thailand, Haiti, England, and Brazil all at the same moment in time. The book was written especially for young children. The colorful illustrations and simple text make it easy to comprehend. In this lesson, students will gain an understanding of time zones and learn to navigate between them. Students will research other cultures, and compare and contrast their own schedule to that of a student in another time zone and culture.

Although there is a lack of research on instruction that aims at facilitating students’ use of questioning with peers, many early childhood social studies textbooks and resources, include activities and lessons recommending students conduct interviews with an explicit assumption that young students are capable of formulating and using questions in the context of an interview. In these instances, no suggestions or ideas are given to teachers regarding instruction that will encourage and facilitate students’ questioning. The purpose of this study was to determine if the levels of social studies interview questions second graders formulate and use can be increased with questioning instruction in terms of quality, which is defined as depth of response, and in terms of quantity. This study generated research hypotheses that could be investigated in future research on instruction aimed at increasing young children’s questioning abilities as demonstrated in social studies.

Everybody Works in many ways, indoors, outdoors, at home, at an office, by traveling from place to place, to earn income, or as a hobby. This book is a photographic essay looking at the many ways in which people work and sometimes use animals in work. The learning cycle lesson helps young children construct a deeper understanding of work as varied and an important part of each person’s life.

Kindergarteners’ (n=41) concept of peace, a foundational social studies concept, was investigated via pre- and post-assessments that first, asked them to physically demonstrate how they looked or felt when they were at peace, second, asked them to draw a scene showing peace, and third, to caption the drawing. In pre-assessments all but three children demonstrated aggression and drew aggressive stances accompanied by captions indicating aggression. After opportunities to read about, discuss, and explore the concept of peace over five weeks, post-assessment occurred. In the post-assessments none of the data indicated aggression. Categories coded showed peace described as enjoyable activities, pro-social behaviors, and quietness/calmness/privacy. The study suggests hypotheses for further research investigating the concept of peace among very young children and possible factors influencing their concept and implications for social studies curriculum.