Social Studies Skill Builders: First Semester

Ensure your students have opportunities to work on their social studies skills. Add a page a day to their morning work packets, create a weekly social studies packet, or have them participate in a social studies center's activity. There are 90-pages of work. Enough for the second semester.

The resource was built around Pennsylvania 3rd grade social studies standards and would work best for 3rd and 4th graders but the resource is marked Not Grade Specific because there are many ways to use this. Older students can certainly use this resource if they need reviews or perhaps never had social studies instructions.

Is it independent work?

It can be depending on your student's background knowledge. The first-semester bundle can absolutely be independent work. This bundle, the second semester, is more rigorous and requires students to search for answers on the internet. Depending on your students, the second-semester bundle is more likely teacher-led.

Is it compatible with TpT Easel?

No. The free sample is TpT Easel compatible but the full resources are not because they are packed in a zip file due to the answer key.

What is actually in it?

The First Nine Weeks:

• Economics: needs and wants, resources and scarcity, renewable and non-renewable resources, human resources, goods versus services, competition, international currency, supply and demand, and capital resources.
• History: basic graphic organizer skills with no history content, timeline, chronology, and American history periodization. The timeline, chronology, and periodization work are repeats from my history skill builders resources.
• Government: three branches of government, three levels of government, roles of each branch, and US documents.
• Geography: differences between maps and globes, locating lines on the map, cardinal directions on a map, places versus environment, human versus physical geography, and human interaction.
• Vocabulary: please see the preview for the full list of vocabulary words

The Second Nine Weeks:

• Economics: needs, price, supply and demand, scarcity and surplus, renewable and non-renewable resources, human and capital resources, goods vs. services, and competition
• History: The first three pages work on history skills with graphic organizers: past, present and future, cause and effect, event and result. The other pages focus on fact vs. opinion, historical point of view, primary vs. secondary, and a timeline. The primary vs. secondary page is a repeat from my history skill builder’s resource.
• Government: Students' understanding of government is different from state to state. These pages are most likely going to be guided instruction. If you use these pages to review your government lessons, they can be independent pages. Students learn about types of governments, characteristics of democracy, liberty and freedom, justice, amendment summary work, local government, federal holidays, and national symbols.
• Geography: Students will work on hemispheres, describing uses of historic geographic tools, place vs. environment, human vs. physical geography, human interaction with environment, and their own state.
• Vocabulary: please see the preview for the full list of vocabulary words

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What included:

• First nine weeks
• First nine weeks answers
• Second nine weeks
• Second nine weeks answers

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As mentioned above, I have a set of history skill builders as well. Check them out too!