Social Studies Topics: March

March social studies is a blast. We get to tap into some geography, history, sociology, and economics in the most interesting ways! Let’s start with economics. We decided to teach students about the fact that before money existed, people had to barter and trade! We read an eBook that explained the concepts and then we created a bartering simulation in class. In my kindergarten class, I displayed a painting of a rainbow. We split the students into teams and told them that the objective was to recreate this painting. We then told them that each team would only get one item necessary for this to get done. One team had paint, another team had paper, another team had water, and so on. They didn’t realize it, but we created a surplus of some items and a deficit of another! As you can imagine, they hurried off excitedly to barter and trade with each other. They quickly realized they had a problem when some items were traded too quickly or if they had products to unload but no one needed them!

After discussing the concept of being a little more mindful and conservative of resources, we tried the experiment again. That time, many more groups were successful!

In March, we spring forward for Daylight Saving Time. We got some geography in by learning about time zones and how Daylight Saving affects how we live! Students were amazed to discover that some children are eating lunch while other children in a different time zone might just be waking up for school!

March is a great time to recognize Irish American Heritage Month. We learn about the Irish American immigrants that came to the United States years ago. Students are always shocked to learn about how the Irish were discriminated against. We talk about that and also why Irish discrimination faded away and isn’t a systematic issue today. We also learn about some cool inventions, events, and notable people!