Grades 5-8 Social Studies Program
The New Canaan K-8 Social Studies program, and the units at each grade, are designed to ensure all students develop the knowledge and skills related to being a well-educated and contributing school, community, and U.S. citizen as well as an informed member of the global community. Our K-8 program has been aligned with national and state standards, as well as the spiraling standards that culminate in the social studies courses offered by New Canaan High School.
Grade 8 |
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The purpose of 8th grade social studies is to help students understand, evaluate and apply themes in American history from the Revolutionary Era through today. Students begin by studying some of our country’s foundational documents. Ultimately, students are invited to make connections between the past and present to better understand the world and avoid the mistakes of the past in order to guide current and future decisions.
Grade 7 |
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Grade 6 and 7 are part of a two year course in world regional studies. Using geography as the lens, students in seventh grade focus their study on case studies in Europe, South America, Africa and Asia. Through guided inquiry, students determine how analyzing a country's geography and its geographic systems can deepen our understanding of aspects of its history, culture and place in the world. The ability to work with and generate questions as well as analyze and evaluate a variety of sources are among the key inquiry skills that students will hone over the course of seventh grade.
Grade 6 |
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Grade 6 and 7 are part of a two year course in world regional studies. Using geography as the lens, students in grade six spend their year exploring the relationship between culture and geography in several regions of the world both in the past and in the present. As they consider what makes a cultural landscape, students examine several examples of cultural hearths (both ancient and modern) around the world. Simply put, cultural hearths are places in the world where innovation occurred and diffused elsewhere.
Grade 5 |
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As a part of a year-long study of early US History through the lenses of cause and effect and organization, fifth graders continue to build upon the elementary sequence of study. Their learning focuses on the period of history including early colonization through the foundation of our government. With an inquiry approach, students use questions and work with different disciplinary concepts and practices as they develop the capacity to know, analyze, understand, explain, and argue about challenges in not only the past but the present social world.