Unit Plan 25 (PreK Social Studies): Working Together Through Time
Help PreK children explore how people long ago worked together to farm, build, and trade—connecting past teamwork to helping others today.
Focus: Help children hear and act out simple stories of people in the past who worked together to farm, build, and trade, and begin to understand that people have always helped one another to get what they need.
Grade Level: PreK
Subject Area: Social Studies (History • Economics)
Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 15–20 minutes per session
I. Introduction
In this unit, children explore how people long ago worked together to meet their needs. Through simple, age-appropriate stories and pretend play, they learn that families and communities in the past farmed, built, and traded to get food, shelter, and other things they needed. Children practice listening to and retelling short stories from the past and notice that, just like today, people worked jobs to help their families and others.
The focus is on gentle, concrete images: farmers planting together, builders raising a house together, neighbors trading items. Children connect these past examples to their own experiences of helping, sharing, and working in the classroom.
Essential Questions
- How did people long ago help each other?
- What kinds of work did people do to get what they needed?
- How can we listen to and retell stories about the past?
- How do we work together and help others in our classroom today?
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:
- Listen to short stories from the past and share at least one detail (who, what, or where).
- Use words or actions to show how people worked together to farm, build, or trade.
- Name at least one worker or job from a story and how it helped others.
- Participate in simple dramatic play acting out past work (e.g., planting seeds, building, trading objects).
- Contribute to a class chart or mural showing people working together “long ago” and “today.”
Standards Alignment — PreK (C3-based custom)
- PK.C3.Econ.3 — Understand that people work to get what they need. Learns that people have jobs to earn money and help others.
- Example: “My mom works at the store.”
- PK.C3.Hist.5 — Listen to and retell stories from the past. Enjoys simple historical or family stories.
- Example: Listening to “When Grandma Was a Little Girl.”
Success Criteria — Student Language
- I can tell one thing people did to help each other long ago.
- I can name a job or worker from a story.
- I can act out people working together (farming, building, trading).
- I can share one idea about how we help each other in our classroom.