Building Competence and Promoting Quality Social Studies by Engaging Families

For early childhood educators, social studies help young children learn what it means to be contributing, productive members of their family, as well as of their classroom, school, neighborhood, community, and the world. In PreK-grade 3 classrooms, children learn about rules--at home, in school, and in the community. While the need for social studies in the primary grades is clear, the amount of time dedicated to social studies has clearly diminished over the past two decades (National Council for Social Studies, 2009; Heafner & Groce, 2007). Educators have found innovative ways to incorporate social studies into the curriculum by integrating social studies content through literacy and other subject areas. This article presents activities to promote quality social studies learning and knowledge while building essential early literacy skills. Not only do the activities in this article extend children's learning beyond the classroom, but they also promote purposefully partnering with families to enhance children's learning and development across learning domains. Along with promoting social studies competence and active literacy learning, intentional family engagement yields strong social-emotional benefits by supporting strong, reciprocal family partnerships with the school and positive caregiver/child relationships (Halgunseth, 2009; U.S. Department of Health and Social Services & U.S. Department of Education, 2016).