Grade 3 · secular
This is a full year of social studies that answers one question from a bunch of angles: how do people organize their lives together, and why does it look different from place to place? Your child starts with groups they already belong to — family, class, town — then learns to read maps and globes, compares communities around the world and across time, meets local and national government, and learns basic economics like trade and scarcity. It ends with them picking a real problem in their own town and writing an actual proposal to fix it, using everything from the year. There's no test-and-forget structure here — later units keep reusing words and skills from earlier ones, so gaps show up fast and get noticed.
The whole year, in plain English. Tap any unit to see every skill inside, nothing is hidden.
This is where the whole year's vocabulary starts: community, need, want, role, interdependence (that's just a big word for 'we depend on each other'). Your child tests groups they already know — family, class, town — against the question 'who depends on whom, for what?' to decide if it really counts as a community.
Student states the definition of 'community' as a group of people who depend on each other.
Student sorts given examples of groups of people into 'community' and 'not a community' based on whether members depend on each other.
Student distinguishes a need from a want in examples drawn from home, school, and town life.
Student explains why a community depends on people filling different roles, using a named community that was NOT the community modeled in Day 6 instruction.
Student compares two different communities (e.g., family and town) to identify one need each meets that the other does not.
Student infers whether a hypothetical group of one family alone, with no outside contact, could be a full community.
Student identifies which of three named groups students belong to (family, class, town) meets a given need.
Student organizes evidence about three communities (need met, role, and reason for interdependence) into a short written and drawn response.
Your child learns that maps and globes are choices someone made, not exact copies of a place. Over about 3.5 weeks they build a full toolkit — directions, symbols, scale, landforms, continents, oceans, and why a globe and a flat map don't quite agree — that every later unit depends on to find and compare places.
Student names the four cardinal directions and points to each on a compass rose.
Student uses a compass rose to state the cardinal direction from one labeled point on a map to another.
Student identifies intermediate directions (NE, NW, SE, SW) as halfway points between two cardinal directions.
Student matches a map symbol to its meaning using a provided map key.
Student explains why two accurate maps of the same place can show different information.
Student uses a map's scale tool to estimate the real distance between two points.
Student classifies landforms and bodies of water by matching a picture to its correct name.
Student compares a globe and a flat map of the same area and infers why their shapes differ.
Student locates and names all seven continents and four of the five oceans on an unlabeled world map.
Student draws an original map of an unfamiliar space with a title, key, at least four symbols, and a compass rose.
Your child compares how communities in different parts of the world meet the same basic needs — shelter, food, getting around — differently, because of land, climate, and resources. They study at least three real communities (desert, coastal or river, cold or mountain) and build a comparison chart, using the map skills from Unit 2 to actually locate them.
Sort images of settlements into urban, suburban, or rural using density of buildings and land use as evidence.
Explain how a community's climate and landform affect one daily-life choice, such as house material or clothing.
Locate three studied world communities on a map using latitude clues, continent names, and legend symbols from Unit 2.
Compare how two studied communities meet the same need, identifying at least one shared purpose and one different method.
Infer why a community likely uses a resource for shelter based on climate and landform clues in a new, unstudied region.
Classify a written statement about another community as respectful description or as an unfair judgment.
Organize evidence about two communities into a comparison chart with need, method, and reason columns.
Produce a short written piece comparing how two studied communities meet one need, using map evidence and specific details, and extend that same comparison logic to one need/community pairing not charted together in class.
Your child studies one local or regional community at two points in time — old photos, old objects, and modern comparisons. They learn to tell a primary source (from that time) from a secondary source (told about later), then build a then/now chart comparing homes, work, and transport.
Sort a set of source materials into primary (from that time) and secondary (told about later) using date and authorship clues.
Explain why a source made during the time period counts as primary even if it looks similar to a later secondary source.
Compare homes, work, and transport in one studied community at two time periods using a then/now chart.
Identify at least one tradition that has continued and one thing that has changed in the same studied community.
Support a then/now claim about a category (homes, work, or transport) with one specific piece of source evidence.
Predict what a future community member might wrongly conclude from a single object left behind today.
Recall the definitions of primary source, secondary source, then/now, change, continuity, and tradition.
Locate the studied community on a map using cardinal directions and a legend before comparing it across time.
Your child learns why communities need rules, the difference between a rule and a law, and who actually makes each — a mayor and council for local rules, the president at the national level. They also learn the difference between a citizen's right (allowed to) and responsibility (expected to).
Students distinguish a rule from a law by identifying who made it and how many people it applies to, given a written example.
Students identify the mayor and town council as the people who make local rules, given a description of a town decision.
Students explain why the president's role differs from the mayor's role by comparing the size of community each governs.
Students classify a set of new rule examples as local or national government responsibility, using scope as evidence.
Students distinguish a citizen's right from a citizen's responsibility, using the test question of 'allowed to' versus 'expected to.'
Students infer one likely reason a specific real local rule exists, based on a problem it probably solves.
Students explain why two different communities might have different rules for the same problem, citing a difference in the community's situation.
Students evaluate whether a specific rule can be fair even if a person disagrees with it, by checking whether the rule's stated purpose is addressed.
Given a real local rule never discussed in class, students construct a short response naming its likely government maker, one reason, and one related citizen responsibility.
Your child learns that no community makes everything it needs on its own. They sort goods from services, learn producer and consumer, meet scarcity as the reason trade exists, and trace one good from producer to consumer on a flowchart.
Match a picture card of a good or a service to its correct word label.
Sort pictures and words into goods and services.
Label a person in a scenario as producer or consumer.
Explain why a community cannot produce everything it needs, using a specific region's resources.
Compare two communities' resources to infer why they would trade with each other.
Sequence the steps a good takes from producer to consumer into a flowchart.
Identify what a person gives up when choosing one option over another (opportunity cost) in a new, unfamiliar scenario.
Judge whether it is fair for one community to have more resources than another, citing a reason.
Write 2-3 sentences explaining why a community trades for a good instead of making it locally, and state what the other community gets from the trade.
This takes the trade ideas from Unit 6 global. Your child traces an everyday object — a banana, a phone, a t-shirt — back to where it actually came from, measures the real distance on a map, and looks at how a problem somewhere else (a drought, a factory closing) can reach a community that had nothing to do with causing it.
Student names three ways a distant community's products reach their home community (ship, truck, plane).
Student labels an imported item as an import and a locally made item as an export, using the community's point of view.
Student locates the country of origin of a tagged object on a world map using latitude/longitude-free grid or continent key.
Student explains why a community trades for a good instead of producing it locally, citing climate, resource, or skill limits.
Student compares two objects' supply chains to identify which traveled farther and which used more transport steps.
Student infers how a problem in a distant community (drought, factory closure) could change something available in their own community, including cases where the link is not obvious.
Student evaluates whether a community should help fix a problem it did not cause but that affects a distant community, using evidence to support a position.
Student constructs a map-and-text trace of one everyday object's journey from origin community to home, using at least two forms of evidence.
The year's final project. Your child picks a real local need, proposes a rule-change to address it, maps exactly where it applies, and justifies it with a cost and a benefit — pulling together civics language from Unit 5 and cost/benefit thinking from Unit 6, applied for the first time to something they chose themselves.
State the citizen right and the matching responsibility in a given local scenario.
Sort community actions into rule-scale (classroom, home) or law-scale (city, state) categories.
Pick out a specific, real community need from a mix of specific and vague examples, using the modeled specific-versus-vague pattern.
List a cost and a benefit, naming at least one person besides the student, for a proposed action.
Explain how a stated rule-change addresses the identified community need.
Produce a labeled map showing the exact location of a proposed community action.
Compose a 4-5 sentence proposal connecting a need, a rule-change, a map, and a cost/benefit into one justification.
Present the proposal orally, responding to one classmate question with a relevant answer.
Retrieve one vocabulary term or fact from each of Units 1-7 during cumulative review.
From the parent guide
This is a full year of social studies that answers one question from a bunch of angles: how do people organize their lives together, and why does it look different from place to place? Your child starts with groups they already belong to — family, class, town — then learns to read maps and globes, compares communities around the world and across time, meets local and national government, and learns basic economics like trade and scarcity. It ends with them picking a real problem in their own town and writing an actual proposal to fix it, using everything from the year. There's no test-and-forget structure here — later units keep reusing words and skills from earlier ones, so gaps show up fast and get noticed.
Unit 1 · what to expect
This is where the whole year's vocabulary starts: community, need, want, role, interdependence (that's just a big word for 'we depend on each other'). Your child tests groups they already know — family, class, town — against the question 'who depends on whom, for what?' to decide if it really counts as a community.
The full guide covers all 8 units: where kids get stuck, what to say, and how to tell it's working. Included with the course.
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