People Who Make a Difference Social Studies Timeline

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

This year in my classroom, I am planning to implement a Social Studies curriculum that is based on the theme of “People Who Make a Difference.” I found that last year in my second grade classroom at Arbuckle Elementary School in San Jose, a huge gap in my instruction was Social Studies. This summer, after attending an amazing Social Studies methods class, I created a multicultural timeline that has three different types of people on it: human rights activists, artists, and scientists. Pictures of people like Cesar Chavez, Louis Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, and Eleanor Roosevelt are depicted alongside important historical events in our history. I hope that this timeline will give students a sense of how people and events have shaped our history while inspiring them to think about how their own life may one day end up shaping our history. I have the timeline and pictures of the people already, but in order to have an accessible curriculum for the students, I need the appropriate books that will complement the timeline. I have searched through great children's literature and have come up with a list of books that will serve as read-alouds, guided reading books, and independent reading books. The books will enable my students to do research projects and simply explore all the exciting people and events we will be learning about throughout the year. I have picked out 30 books for the year. These books will not only serve the 20 students in my class, but also the two other second grade classes at my school. The books are exciting and are at a variety of levels so that all students can enjoy the rich world of Social Studies. Social Studies instruction is an exciting gateway towards literacy. Social Studies instruction also allows students, even in second grade, to think about global issues and big ideas such has democracy and tolerance. I want to expose my students to the positive role models that exist in our society. These books will be an important step in allowing my students the opportunity to study the events and people that have shaped our world and to see how they may also make a difference.