In fourth-grade History and Social Studies, students will study history, geography, government, citizenship, economics, and culture in alignment with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).
We will use Core Knowledge History and Geography (CKHG) as the spine of our history curriculum. Core Knowledge provides students with a rich, chronological study of history and helps them build the background knowledge necessary to understand the people, places, ideas, and events they will encounter throughout their education.
Our studies will take us across centuries and continents, but we will also spend significant time learning the history of Texas and developing a strong knowledge of United States geography.
Students will learn that history is more than a collection of names and dates. We will examine people, events, primary and secondary sources, maps, timelines, and historical accounts while asking questions such as:
What happened? Why did it happen? What changed because of it? How do we know?
Students will practice placing events in chronological order, identifying cause and effect, comparing perspectives, and connecting individual events to the larger story of the past.
Fourth grade is an especially important year for learning the story of our state. Students will study the geography, Indigenous peoples, exploration, colonization, Texas Revolution, Republic of Texas, statehood, and continued development of Texas, as well as the people and events that have shaped our state.
Texas history also gives students an opportunity to see how geography, economics, culture, government, and human decisions interact. The land itself—its rivers, plains, mountains, climate, and natural resources—has helped shape the story of the people who have called Texas home.
Knowing history also requires knowing where you are.
Throughout the year, students will develop their mental map of the United States. We will work toward knowing the 50 states and their capitals, major regions, important physical features, bodies of water, and other geographic landmarks.
Rather than treating maps as an occasional activity, we will use them regularly. When we encounter a new civilization, battle, migration, trade route, explorer, or historical event, students should increasingly be able to locate it within the larger world.
Social studies also prepares students to participate thoughtfully in civic life. Students will develop age-appropriate understanding of local, state, and federal government; important civic documents and principles; citizenship; and the rights and responsibilities that accompany life in a constitutional republic.
In a classical education, history helps children recognize that they have inherited a world they did not create. We study the achievements and failures of those who came before us so that students can begin to understand their own responsibilities within that inheritance.
Resources will be added here throughout the year as our studies progress. These may include maps, timelines, Core Knowledge materials, Texas history resources, geography practice, primary sources, museum and historic-site recommendations, and materials to help students practice states and capitals.
Whenever possible, I encourage families to go see history. Visit a historic site, battlefield, museum, courthouse, monument, state park, or national park. Read the markers. Look at the landscape. Find your location on a map.
History becomes much more memorable when children discover that it happened in real places, to real people—and that they are now part of the story that comes next.