Dr. Michael Kester-Haynes

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Grade 4 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 10 (Grade 4 Social Studies): Life Before Settlement

Students explore Indigenous nations of their region—mapping homelands, connecting environment to food and housing, and recognizing living cultures that show both continuity and change.

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Grade 4 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 9 (Grade 4 Social Studies): State Geography Project

Students create a State Geography Map Book using multiple sources, clear maps, and evidence-based explanations to show regions, features, resources, and stewardship ideas.

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Grade 4 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 8 (Grade 4 Social Studies): Caring for Our Environment

Students investigate real examples of conservation, protection, and restoration in our state and create their own evidence-based stewardship proposal, learning how to analyze human–environment interaction and communicate informed actions clearly.

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Grade 4 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 7 (Grade 4 Social Studies): Resources and Regions

Students explore how landforms and climate shape natural resources and regional industries, identifying natural, human, and capital resources while weighing benefits, costs, and environmental trade-offs.

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Grade 4 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 6 (Grade 4 Social Studies): Map Skills and Direction

Students apply cardinal/intermediate directions and use map scales to estimate distance and plan simple routes, integrating titles, legends, compass roses, grids, and multiple sources to answer geographic questions with accuracy and clarity.

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Grade 4 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 5 (Grade 4 Social Studies): Natural and Human-Made Features

Students compare natural and human-made features—like mountains, rivers, dams, bridges, and highways—and explain their purposes, impacts, and stewardship needs through hands-on mapping and human–environment interaction activities.

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Grade 4 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 4 (Grade 4 Social Studies): Weather and Climate Across Regions

Students investigate how weather and climate differ across regions and how people adapt, modify, and conserve resources in response to temperature, precipitation, and seasonal patterns.

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Grade 4 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 3 (Grade 4 Social Studies): Landforms and Waterways

Students explore major landforms and waterways in their state and region, examining how these features shape settlement, jobs, and travel while learning how people adapt to, modify, and care for their environment through hands-on mapping and stewardship activities.

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Grade 4 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 2 (Grade 4 Social Studies): Mapping Our State

Students learn to read and create detailed state maps using titles, legends, scales, grid coordinates, and directions, gathering information from multiple sources to locate cities, rivers, and borders accurately.

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Grade 4 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 1 (Grade 4 Social Studies): Our State and Its Regions

Students explore their state’s physical and cultural regions and compare urban, suburban, and rural communities using maps, questions, and local examples to understand how geography shapes ways of life.

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3-5 Lesson Plans

Lesson Plan (Grades 3-5): Podcast Interviews with Characters: Bringing Literature to Life

A creative grades 3–5 podcast interview unit where students analyze characters, craft open-ended questions, script evidence-based responses, and produce a three-minute “radio interview” to build literacy and speaking skills.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 36 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Cumulative Synthesis & Exhibition

Culminating 5th grade History Fair where students synthesize timelines, maps, documents, and civic/economic ideas into an interactive exhibit showing U.S. development and citizenship.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 35 (Grade 5 Social Studies): The United States in the World

Students map how the U.S. connects to other nations through trade, movement, and ideas, explain global interdependence, model how taxes or boycotts affect demand, and identify which levels of government support these worldwide connections.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 34 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Civic Action and Service

Students design a local civic action or service project that reflects democratic ideals, citizen responsibilities, and rights with limits, using civil discourse to choose an issue and create clear products that communicate their plan to an authentic audience.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 33 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Human-Environment Interaction in the New Nation

Students explore how canals, railroads, and land use reshaped the environment and economy of the new nation, analyzing resource use and weighing the benefits and costs of human-environment interaction.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 32 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Expanding America’s Borders

Students trace U.S. exploration, migration, and westward expansion using maps and primary/secondary sources, examining how geography shaped routes and how expansion brought opportunity for some and loss and harm—especially for Indigenous peoples.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 31 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Civic Debate—Rights Then and Now

Students explore liberty, equality, and rights through founding documents, analyze past and present debates, and practice civil discourse in a structured class debate using evidence from the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 30 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Work, Money, and Markets

Students investigate how early Americans earned, saved, spent, and invested by analyzing budgets, ledgers, maps, and artifacts—connecting household money choices to markets, mercantilism, and the wider economic systems that shaped everyday life.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 29 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Trade and Interdependence

Students map Atlantic and domestic trade routes, explore interdependence among regions, and analyze how resources, taxes, and boycotts shaped early American trade—showing how goods, people, and ideas moved across the Atlantic world and the growing United States.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 28 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Scarcity and Choice in a Growing Nation

Students investigate how scarcity, landforms, waterways, and climate shaped early American settlement and expansion—analyzing choices like docks vs. roads or coast vs. frontier and explaining each decision’s opportunity cost using maps, scenarios, and case studies.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 27 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Midyear Synthesis — “Building a Nation” Exhibit

Students create a “Building a Nation” exhibit by developing inquiry questions, analyzing sources, and crafting evidence-based claims that connect founding ideals, early leaders, government structures, and the new nation’s economy in an engaging, civics-focused display.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 26 (Grade 5 Social Studies): The Economy of a New Nation

Students discover how the early United States built its economy by examining scarcity, opportunity cost, regional specializations, trade, and money choices—connecting early American producers and consumers to real-world earning, saving, spending, and investing.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 25 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Early Presidents and Leadership

Students investigate how George Washington and John Adams shaped the early republic—setting precedents, managing crises, and facing disagreement—to understand how leadership and civic responsibility worked in America’s first presidencies.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 24 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Levels of Government

Teach students how local, state, and federal governments share powers and services by comparing real-world examples—like roads, parks, schools, and national programs—and guiding them to decide which level should address community issues using clear evidence and reasoning.

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Grade 5 Social Studies Units

Unit Plan 23 (Grade 5 Social Studies): Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens

Students learn how rights and responsibilities work together in a democracy, exploring how everyday actions—like following rules, showing respect, helping others, and participating in school decisions—support the common good.