Kindergarten Curriculum Guide for the Social Studies.

The social studies curriculum guide for kindergarteners is based upon the idea that thinking is sequentially learned and developed. The aim of the program is to help children develop the tools of reasoning. Emphasis is on the introduction of cognitive tasks involving concept formation and requiring students to list, group, identify, and label items; interpret, infer and generalize; apply known principles and facts to unfamiliar phenomena; and to predict consequences from known conditions. Each of the cognitive tasks is explained in greater detail in relation to overt activity, covert mental operations, and eliciting of questions. Six units of varying length which involve more than several days are presented. It is recommended that the units gradually move toward greater depth and longer duration and that by the end of the year the units will involve children for several weeks. Seasonal units are presented to help the children document and generalize the concept that change is constant in the world. A unit on "Me, Myself and I" helps children to see themselves realistically. Two family units, one on "The Family" and another on the "Japanese Family", are presented to illustrate similarities and differences in families. Additional materials for each unit include general reference books, fingerplays, and poetry. (Author/SJM)