In our Civics unit, students will learn to respect the rights and views of others. They will analyze the origins, structures, and functions of governments to evaluate the impact on citizens and the global society. Students will:

• Identify and apply the elements of civil discourse. 

• Identify important personal rights in a democratic society and how they relate to others’ rights.

• Give examples of the relationship between rights and responsibilities.

• Restate the view or opinion of others with their reasoning when it is different from one’s own.

• Identify the origins, structures, and functions of local government.

• Identify and explain the services local governments provide and how those services are funded.

• Identify and explain a variety of roles leaders, citizens, and others play in local government.

• Describe how local government provides opportunities for people to exercise their rights and initiate change.

This year, students will learn about Economics and how producers and consumers exchange goods and services in different ways. They will create a plan to meet a financial goal. Here are some of the important things we will focus on:

• The difference between producers and consumers and explain how they need each other.

• Describe and give examples of forms of exchange. 

• Describe how the exchange of goods and services between businesses and consumers affects all parties.

• Recognize that different currencies exist and explain the functions of money.

• Give examples of short-term spending and savings goals.

• Identify jobs that children can do to earn money to reach personal financial goals.

• Differentiate the role of income and expenses when creating a budget.

• Create a plan with specific steps to reach a short-term financial goal.

• Model strategies to achieve a personal financial goal using arithmetic operations.

In our Geography unit, we will learn to use geographic tools to develop spatial thinking. They will learn the concept of region is developed through an examination of similarities and differences in places and communities. Here are some of the important things we will learn about:

• Read and interpret information from geographic tools and formulate geographic questions.

• Locate oceans and continents, major countries, bodies of water, mountains, urban areas, the state of Colorado, and neighboring states on maps.

• Describe the natural and man-made features of a specific area on a map.

• Identify geography-based problems and examine the ways that people have tried to solve them.

• Observe and describe the physical, cultural, and human-made characteristics of a local region. 

• Identify the factors that make a region unique. 

• Give examples of places that are similar and different from a local region.

• Characterize regions using different types of features such as physical, political, cultural, urban and rural attributes.

In History, students will compare primary and secondary sources when explaining the past. We will learn that people in the past influence the development and interaction of different communities or regions. Our goals are:

• Compare primary sources with works of fiction about the same topic.

• Use a variety of primary sources such as artifacts, pictures, and documents, to help determine factual information about historical events.

• Compare information from multiple sources recounting the same event.

• Compare past and present situations and events.

• Give examples of people, events, and developments that brought important changes to a community or region.

• Describe the history, interaction, and contribution of the various peoples and cultures that have lived in or migrated to a community or region and how that migration has influenced change and development.