This blog post is one in a series that breaks down one unit from each grade level of Inquiry Journeys, inquirED's core elementary social studies curriculum. For a trial account containing all lessons for the unit, click below.
2nd Grade Social Studies Curriculum Unit
Meeting Needs and Want
Inquiry Question: How can we help our community work together to meet its needs and wants?
Communities are created to meet our common needs, giving us a sense of belonging, trust, care, and safety. During this unit, 2nd-grade social studies students work together to design their own community model, discovering how community members work together to shape the world around them.
Unit Launch
These two social studies lessons are designed to hook students into the unit, introduce the Inquiry Question, and prompt students to generate their initial Investigation Questions.
Lesson 1: Hook Activity: Creating a Community Model
2nd-grade social studies students begin to create their “Community Model Unit-Long Display,” which they will work on over the course of the unit as they build understanding. They generate ideas of needs and wants of community members, considering where and how in this fictional community those needs and wants can be met. This lesson sparks curiosity and serves as an informal pre-assessment for the content and concepts of the unit.
As part of this lesson, students view a "Different Kinds of Communities " slide presentation
Lesson 2: Generating Investigation Questions
2nd-grade social studies students are introduced to a modified version of the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) to generate Investigation Questions that will guide their exploration of community needs and wants.
These question words posters can help 2nd graders understand the question words
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