The preschool learning foundations for history and social science are organized into five broad categories or strands:
Self and Society: children’s growing ability to see themselves within the context of society
Becoming a Preschool Community Member (Civics): becoming responsible and cooperative members of the preschool community
Sense of Time (History): developing understanding of past and future events and their association with the present
Sense of Place (Geography and Ecology)S: developing knowledge of the physical settings in which children live and how they compare with other locations
Marketplace (Economics): developing understanding of economic concepts, including the ideas of ownership, money exchanged for goods and services, value and cost, and bartering[1]
Refer to the Social Studies content area in the Kansas Early Learning Standards for specific indicators of how children of various ages meet the benchmarks and standards. The structure of the KELS for the area of social studies is as follows:
Community
Economics
Geography
Kansas, United States, and World History (Kansas State Department of Education, 2024)
Figure 12.3: This child explored aeronautics and space through a mobile exhibit.[2]
Supporting Self and Society
An early childhood education setting introduces young children to people with diverse backgrounds, family practices, languages, cultural experiences, special needs, and abilities. In their relationships with teachers and peers, preschoolers perceive how others are similar to them and how they are different, and gradually they learn to regard these differences with interest and respect rather than wariness or doubt. This is especially likely if early childhood educators incorporate inclusive practices into the preschool environment. The relationships that young children develop with others in the preschool provide opportunities to understand these differences in depth, in the context of the people the child knows well. One of the most valuable features of a thoughtfully designed early childhood program is helping young children perceive the diversity of human characteristics as part of the richness of living and working with others.
Young children are beginning to perceive themselves within the broader context of society in new ways. Their interest in adult social roles, occupations, and responsibilities motivates pretend play, excitement about visiting places such as a fire station or grocery store, and questions about work and its association with family roles and income. Teachers can help young children explore these interests as they try to understand the variety of adult roles.
Teachers can support children’s development of the self and society foundations with the following:
Practice a reflective approach to build awareness of self and others by examining your own attitudes and values
Maintain a healthy curiosity about the experiences of others; ask authentic questions to build understanding
Partner with families in goal setting and program design; learn individual family values and each family’s goals for their child’s care and education
Prepare an active learning environment that incorporates the full spectrum of the human experience, including diversity of cultures, ethnicities, gender, age, abilities, socioeconomic class, and family structure
Create an environment, both indoors and outdoors, that is inclusive, meaning every child can fully participate and engage in the learning environment regardless of gender, home language, or abilities
Address children’s initial comments and inquiries about diversity with honest, direct communication
Have discussions about similarities and differences
Sing songs and share stories in different languages
Plan meaningful and authentic celebrations with the support of the children and families
Read and talk about books that:
Accurately represent the lives and experiences of children
Deal with the theme of friendship and relating to others
Include images and stories of different workers
Develop meaningful, nurturing relationships with the children in your program
Prepare an early learning environment and daily routine that fosters peer interaction
Support children’s development of interaction strategies and relationship-building skills through:
Modeling
Explicit instruction during large-group times
Coaching and providing prompts
Offer sensitive guidance through challenges
Facilitate positive social problem solving
Provide children with play props for exploring occupations and work settings
Get to know the workers in your community
Convey respect for the roles of adults who work at home
Highlight the roles that elders play in family life and in society
Include the pursuit of further education among work options
Invite family members to share their work experiences, including those that may diverge from traditional gender roles
Talk about future career goals
Visit community stores, businesses, and service providers to observe workers in action[3]
Vignette
“You always get to do the money,” complains Emma. Beck announces, “No, Tommy, I’m the customer. I was here first.” Ella and Maya argue about the pieces of a plastic hamburger: “You can’t have it again. It’s the only one . . . ” These and similar interactions between children have been typical in the area ever since Ms. Berta added the ”Restaurant” prop box to it.
Now, Ms. Berta is struggling to figure out how to foster more cooperation among children playing in this dramatic play area. The restaurant theme is very popular, but children’s play is currently dominated by arguments over who gets to use which items from the restaurant prop box. Each child seems to be independently trying to hoard the most items from the box.
Ms. Berta shares her dilemma with Ms. Galyna, the school’s mentor teacher, who says she can come in for a quick visit during the next day’s play time. She follows her visit with some suggestions that help Ms. Berta rethink the area’s design for the following week
On Monday, the children entering the area are greeted by a large restaurant sign. A waist-high shelf unit defines the front of the area. On top of it sit two toy cash registers with ample paper bills, plastic coins, receipt pads, and pencils. A clear plastic jar labeled “Tips” sits in between. On a hook, hang clip-on badges: Cook, Cashier, Server, and Customer. There are several of each. The shelves under the front counter hold stacks of paper, drink cups, and trays. The cooking pans and utensils are clearly displayed on the area’s stove and sink shelves, as are multiples of food items and dishes in the refrigerator and cupboard. The eating table is set for customers
Ms. Berta begins play time as a restaurant customer, placing her order, asking questions of the employees, and helping the other players imagine what a cook, server, or cashier would do in a restaurant. She refers them to each other with their ideas and questions, and soon, they are having restaurant conversations with her and with each other “in character.”
Over the next two weeks, the group makes changes and additions to the restaurant. At a class meeting, the group votes to make it a pizza restaurant, and the teacher adds donated pizza rounds that children cover with drawn-on toppings. With Ms. Berta’s help, interested children work in pairs to write and post menus. Several small groups of children remain intensely interested in the theme, and their play in the restaurant area becomes more elaborate and content-rich. With active teacher support and modeling, friends are able to constructively solve conflicts that occur.[4]
Pause to Reflect
What are some of your own biases and “blind spots” about people whose racial or cultural backgrounds are very different from yours?
In what ways could you partner with the families to support attitudes of acceptance and inclusion?
Supporting Becoming A Preschool Community Member (Civics)
An early childhood program is a wonderful setting for learning how to get along with others and for understanding and respecting differences between people. It is also an important setting for learning about oneself as a responsible member of the group. In an early childhood education setting, young children are enlisted into responsible citizenship for the first time outside of the family, encouraged to think of themselves as sharing responsibility for keeping the room orderly, cooperating with teachers and peers, knowing what to do during group routines (e.g., circle time), cleaning up after group activities, participating in group decisions, supporting and complying with the rules of the learning community, and acting as citizens of the preschool.
Figure 12.4: Knowing expected behavior during a large-group time is important.[5]
Many formal and informal activities in an early childhood education setting contribute to the development of skills for preschool community membership. These include group decision making that may occur during circle time (including voicing opinions, voting on a shared decision, and accepting the judgment of the majority); resolving peer conflict and finding a fair solution; understanding the viewpoints of another with whom one disagrees; respecting differences in culture, race, or ethnicity; sharing stories about acting responsibly or helpfully and the guidance that older children can provide younger children or children with less positive experiences about being a preschool community citizen.
Teachers can support children’s development of the civics foundations with the following:
Share control of the preschool environment with children
Create community rules with children’s input and plan opportunities to continue discussing them with small- and large-group meetings
Promote a sense of connection and community by using terms such as “we” and “our” when speaking with children and adults
Incorporate class meetings into the daily routine of older preschool children
Support freedom of thought and speech in individual investigations, as well as in planned group experiences
Generate community rules and expectations to protect the rights of each individual and to create a community of trust and security
Engage children in community brainstorming and problem-solving
Make group decisions when appropriate
Acknowledge emotions related to group brainstorming and decision-making
Model the skills and behavior you want children to exhibit
Use guidance to redirect children to more appropriate actions and behavior by using positive descriptions of what you expect children to do
Help children remember and meet community-generated rules and expectations by providing both visual and auditory cues and prompts
Reinforce the positive actions of children by using descriptive language, emphasizing the positive impact of a child’s actions on others
Facilitate problem-solving
Create an inclusive environment that values and encourages the participation of children from all cultural and linguistic backgrounds as well as children with special needs
Figure 12.5: Puppets allow children to role-play social situations.[6]
Set the tone for responsible conduct by creating a high-quality learning environment and a thoughtfully scheduled daily routine
Assign tasks for community care, such as watering plants, feeding program pets, or helping to prepare snacks, to help children practice responsibility
Discuss the “whys” of fairness and respect
Teach social skills, such as patience and generosity, by using social stories and role-play experiences
Intervene and address negative interactions immediately
Prevent conflicts by limiting program transitions and minimizing waiting time
Provide children with a calm presence in conflict situations
Support children’s conflict resolution by
using descriptive language to help children make sense of conflict
prompting children with open-ended questions and statements
facilitating, rather than dictating, the solution process
Create and refer children to problem-solving kits with visual cues
Use and discuss books that have storylines around relationships, community, and conflict
Use “persona dolls” or puppets and social stories to promote skill development and perspective taking[7]
Supporting Sense of Time (History)
One of our unique human characteristics is the ability to think of ourselves in relation to past events and to anticipate the future. The ability to see oneself in time enables us to derive lessons from past experiences, understand how we are affected by historical events, and plan for the immediate future (such as preparing a meal) or the long-term (such as obtaining an education). The ability to see oneself in time is also the basis for perceiving one’s own growth and development, and the expectation of future changes in one’s life.
The preschool years are a period of major advances in young children’s understanding of past, present, and future events and how they are interconnected. Yet their ability to understand these interconnections is limited and fragile. Young preschoolers have a strong interest in past events but perceive them as ‟islands in time” that are not well connected to other past events. As they learn more about past events and with the help of adults, children develop a mental timeline in which these events can be placed and related to one another. This is a process that begins in the preschool years and continues throughout childhood and adolescence.
A thoughtfully designed early childhood program includes many activities that help young children develop a sense of the past and future. The activities may include conversations about a child’s memorable experiences, discussions of a group activity that occurred yesterday, stories about historical events, circle-time activities in anticipation of a field trip tomorrow, and picture boards with the daily schedule, with special events distinguished from what normally happens. Teachers help young children construct their own mental timelines in various ways.
Figure 12.6: Children can share about things meaningful to them (from the past).[9]Figure 12.7: Developmental Sequence: Sense of Time.[10]
Teachers can support children’s development of the history foundations with the following:
Use predictable routines to facilitate children’s sense of time
Incorporate time words into conversation, such as before, after, yesterday, first, next, and later
Create opportunities to talk with children about meaningful experiences and build connections between current and past events, and to anticipate future events
Extend and expand on children’s narrative descriptions with language relating to time
Share your memories of the children’s abilities over time
Ask questions to increase children’s recollections of events
Document and display children’s work at their eye level to encourage recall and reflection
Sing songs, recite poetry, and read books that involve sequencing
Promote planning as children engage in child-initiated projects
Acknowledge birthdays with sensitivity to family preferences
Provide activities that invite personal reflection
Make use of children’s stories that explore growth and individual change
Utilize familiar resources, such as parents, grandparents, family members, close friends, and community members, to share their own childhood experiences
Read children’s stories about different places and times to expand children’s perspective
Expose children to the arts
Observe changes in animals, plants, and the outdoors
Record significant events on a large calendar to create a program history
Provide children with hands-on experiences with concrete artifacts and historical objects (e.g., toys, utensils, tools)[11]
Vignettes
At outdoor play time, Mateo hurries over to a large tree limb lying at the edge of the playground. “Look what happened!” he exclaims. “Yeah,” agrees Luis, who had joined him, “the wind did it. It crashed down our big tree, too, right into the street. Some guys are coming to saw it up.” Luis pauses. “My grandma said that tree was really old.” Ms. Sofia, who followed them to the area, joined the conversation. “Your grandma told me about that when she came with you this morning. It’s a big surprise when a tree that was there just yesterday suddenly isn’t there today, especially when it had been growing there for a long time. Things like that can happen fast. What do you think will be different when you get home this afternoon?”
For today’s circle time, Ms. Robin has prepared a two-column chart with the headings: “When I was a baby, I couldn’t . . .” and “Now I can . . .” She reads the first phrase and asks the group to think of things they were not able to do as babies. As children share their ideas, including, “I couldn’t walk; I couldn’t ride a trike, I couldn’t eat apples . . .” she lists them in the first column. When they finish, she reads all the ideas aloud to the group.
Ms. Robin then points to the phrase “Now I can . . .” and again asks for children’s ideas. After they finish sharing, she reads aloud the second list. As she points to each list, she enthusiastically comments to the group, “Look how many things you couldn’t do when you were a baby! Look how many things you can do now! You’ve grown so much!”
Nico looks through the familiar homemade, photo-illustrated book titled Teacher Jen’s Broken Ankle that is displayed on the reading area book rack. “My papa fell and broke his arm when he was a little boy,” he tells Ms. Jen. She asks him how it happened, and he tells her the story his papa has told him. Ms. Jen wonders with Nico whether his papa had to wear a cast on his arm while it was healing. Nico says he thinks so because he remembers Papa being supposed to keep his arm dry for a long time. He then asked Ms. Jen to show him the ankle cast she had worn while her leg was healing. She keeps the two halves of her bright pink cast in the “Hospital” prop box that teachers use in the dramatic play area when children’s play signals interest in medical themes.[12]
Pause to Reflect
How might you want to partner with families to make the preschool environment reflective of their diverse family stories?
Supporting Sense of Place (Geography and Ecology)
Each person has a sense of the places to which they belong: home, workplace, school, and other locations that are familiar and meaningful. Young children experience this sense of place strongly because familiar locations are associated with important people who constitute the child’s environment of relationships. Locations are important because of the people they are associated with: home with family members, preschool with teachers and peers. Preschoolers also experience a sense of place because of the sensory experiences associated with each location: the familiar smells, sounds, and sometimes temperatures and tastes combine with familiar scenes to create a sense of belonging for young children.
Developing a sense of place also derives from how young children interact with aspects of that physical location. Preschool children relate to their environments as they work with materials; rearrange tables, chairs, and other furniture; create maps to familiar locations; travel regularly from one setting to another; and work in other ways with their environments. Young children also interact with their environments as they learn to care for them. Young children’s natural interest in living things engages their interest in caring for plants and animals, concern for the effects of pollution and litter on the natural environment, and later, taking an active role in putting away trash and recycling used items.
These interests present many opportunities to the early childhood educator. Young children can be engaged in activities that encourage their understanding of the environments in which they live, whether they involve creating drawings and maps of familiar locations, talking about how to care for the natural world, discussing the different environments in which people live worldwide, or taking a trip to a marshland or a farm.
Figure 12.9: Stages of Spatial/Geographical Awareness.[14]
Teachers can support children’s development of geography and ecology foundations with the following:
Supply open-ended materials in the indoor and outdoor early learning environment to promote exploration of spatial relationships
Set aside time for outdoor explorations each day
Provide children with sensory experiences, especially those with sand and water
Describe your own actions as you travel between locations
Play games about how to get from here to there
Engage children in conversation about how they travel to and from preschool each day
Take walks through familiar locations and neighboring areas
Talk about the here and now, as well as encouraging later reflection
Locate and explore local landmarks
Promote children’s understanding of weather and its impact on their day-to-day experiences
Comment on weather patterns and invite children to share their observations
Read aloud books and engage children in storytelling related to
navigating familiar locations and daily routines
investigating the Earth and its attributes
Integrate living things into the indoor learning environment
Observe life in its natural setting
Compare and contrast living and nonliving things
Model respect and care for the natural world
Use descriptive language to talk about the Earth and its features
Teach young children easy ways to conserve the Earth’s resources
Grow a garden in the program’s outdoor space
Eat fresh produce at snack time and obtain food directly from a local gardener, farmers' market, or food vendor when possible
Engage children in conversations about maps, provide map-making materials, incorporate maps into dramatic play, use maps when planning outings, and make a map of the classroom/building and outdoor space
Supply the learning environment with a variety of blocks and other open-ended materials to support the symbolic representation of the world that the children see and experience each day
Play board games that use trails and pathways
View locations from different physical perspectives
Michael sits down with his peers and Mr. Sean at the snack table. “There was a huge dump truck going down my street today,” he tells everyone. Mr. Sean asks him what was in the truck. “Rocks and big sidewalk pieces,” replies Michael. “I know that,” adds Rio. “It’s by my house. Papa says they’re digging up the street for water pipes.” Several other children nod and agree that they know where that is and they have gone by it, too. Mr. Sean tells the children that the construction site they are talking about is just around the corner and down one block from their preschool. “Would you like to take a walk together to watch them work?” he asks. “It sounds like a big and exciting construction project is happening in our neighborhood.”
“I like this place,” shares Maya as she looks around the small reading area. “What do you like about it?” asks Ms. Nicole. “I like the green. It’s like un bosque.” Yes, agrees Ms. Nicole. The green plants do make it seem like a forest.”
This is the castle for the princess and her friends,” explains Grace to Tanya as she describes her unit block structure. “Here’s the bedroom over here, and the tower over there.”
Ms. Julia, sitting in the block area to observe children’s play, responds, “It looks like a very long way from the bedroom to the tower. Do the princess and her friends ever get lost in the castle?” “Well . . . sometimes they do,” replies Grace. “I wonder if we could draw something to help them find their way,” suggests Ms. Julia. “Like a map!” exclaims Tanya to Grace.
Ms. Julia offers to bring the clipboards, equipped with paper and pencils, from the art area. She takes one and begins describing her drawing plan. “First I’m going to draw a square for the bedroom in this corner . . . ” The girls begin by imitating her technique and soon are exchanging ideas with each other as they draw their versions of the castle. When they are finished, Ms. Julia asks questions about the parts of their castle maps and offers to label them. When the maps are finished, labeled, and signed, Ms. Julia asks the girls’ permission to display them on the block area wall.[17]
Pause to Reflect
What are some ways you would be comfortable bringing caring for the natural world into your own classroom? What might be some things to try beyond that?
Supporting Marketplace (Economics)
Young children’s interest in adult roles and occupations extends to the economy. Preschoolers know that adults have jobs and observe that money is used to purchase items and services, but the connections between work, money, and purchasing are unclear to them. However, this does not stop them from enacting these processes in their pretend play and showing great interest in the economic transactions they observe (such as a trip to the bank with a parent).
Moreover, young children are also active consumers, seeking to persuade their families to purchase toys or access activities they desire, sometimes hearing adult concerns about cost or affordability in response. They also learn about economic differences among people and families, such as when a parent is unemployed or when families live in poverty. All of these activities convince them that the economy, while abstract to them, is important.
A carefully designed early childhood education setting provides many opportunities for young children to explore these ideas through play, conversation, and the creation of economic items to buy, sell, or exchange.
Figure 12.11: A cash register is an excellent prompt for exploration of economics.[18]
Teachers can support children’s development of the economic foundations with the following:
Introduce economic concepts (e.g., production, exchange, consumption) through children’s books
Provide open-ended materials to support children’s spontaneous investigations of business and the economy
Offer dramatic play experiences that allow children to explore economic concepts
Explore alongside children, expanding on their initiative
Draw attention to trends of consumption in the preschool setting
Discuss wants and needs with children and allow children to help make economic decisions
Explore all forms of exchange
Visit local businesses
Create an opportunity for children to make and sell their own products; discuss how the money made will be spent[19]
Vignettes
Ms. Jen settles into the reading chair to begin large group story time. She holds a tall empty jar, a small cloth bag, and a book.
“Today I brought something with me to help me tell a story,” she begins. Then she holds up the small drawstring bag and shakes it. “Money!” the children call out. “Yes, it is money. My little bag is full of coins: nickels, dimes, and quarters,” she says, pulling out one of each. “This book is all about a family who collects coins and saves them in a jar that looks a lot like this one. It’s called A Chair for My Mother, and Vera B. Williams is the author. She wrote the words. She is also the illustrator, which means she painted the pictures.”
As Ms. Jen reads the book, she stops frequently to discuss what is happening in the story with the children. “The mother in this story works as a server in a restaurant. That’s how she earns money to buy the things her family needs.” After reading the page describing the “tips” Mother brings home and puts into the jar, Ms. Jen asks the group if anyone they know gets tips at work. After explaining the idea, she pours the coins from her small bag into the tall jar she has brought as a story prop.
When she reads the pages about the family’s moving day, when all their relatives and neighbors brought things they needed to replace the ones lost in the fire, Ms. Jen talks about how people don’t always buy everything they need. Sometimes people receive gifts and things that others share with them.
As each economic concept is introduced in the book, Ms. Jen pauses to draw attention to it while maintaining the story's flow. At the end, she holds up the jar of coins and asks the group how long they think it took for Josephine’s family to collect enough coins to buy the chair. She responds to their comments, listening as they share their related ideas. She tells them the book will be in the reading area tomorrow so they can enjoy it again.[20]
Pause to Reflect
What resources could a preschool teacher use in your neighborhood to introduce children to the community’s economic life?
