This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 3rd grade Social Studies content. Within the folder you will access Parent Guide PDFs in FIVE Languages: Arabic, English, Hindi, Spanish, and Vietnamese to help on-going communication with caregivers. 

This resource accompanies our Rethink 3rd Grade Science course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

Students will illustrate how the use, conservation or depletion of natural resources affects an area. They will also show how people "return to nature" hoping to find inspiration that will help them cope with the stresses of their everyday lives.

This virtual field trip from Historic Bath State Site is a fun way to learn more about a kid's life in the 18th century. The field trip packet contains ,links to YouTube videos of costumed interpreters demonstrating historic activities, pre- and post-watch content for educators that provide context and engagement, and follow-up activities (games, crafts, and coloring pages). Live Q&A can be booked as part of the field trip as well.

This lesson will address the physical and human characteristics of the local community. Students will build geographic vocabulary as well as use map skills.

Students explore the characteristics of the physical environment of communities, including their own community, in order to describe and explain variations in the physical environment, including climate, landforms, natural resources, and natural hazards. They also explore these characteristics to identify and compare how people in different communities adapt to the physical environment in which they live. Students also look at excerpts from the journals of Christopher Columbus, whose journeys “opened”the New World to further exploration and settlement, to see how he described the physical environment of the islands where he landed.

In this lesson, students practice using map elements to study location, distance, and directions and create maps of the local community, comparing differences in human characteristics in rural and urban communities.

Students identify places in their local communities that are important to them. They use mental maps to analyze those places and how their personal experiences affect how they value those places.

For this activity, students find the riddle to match the picture of each landform.

This resource contains lyrics to a song about landforms. Click the listen button to hear the melody of the song.

In this lesson, student groups research an established coastal community. After locating it on a map, they will find out about its geography, cultural climate, and typical architecture. Students will make a detailed drawing of the coastal community and write a paragraph to accompany their artwork.

Students prepare a news report that highlights problems facing coastal communities and how climate change might affect coastal populations.

Students research political, physical, and cultural features of their own state or district and work collaboratively to create a state tourism map.

Students practice using map elements to study location, distance, and directions and create maps of the local community, comparing differences in human characteristics in rural and urban communities.

In this short video, students will learn the various ways people have gathered food across thousands of years.

The NC Kids' Exploration Journals are a fun educational tool to help youth explore their communities and natural surroundings! Each journal contains: 18 multidisciplinary activities with guided prompts, 6 lined journal pages for recording observations and reflections, and 4 blank pages for individual creativity.

The digital versions of the journal are designed to be printed out for students either as individual activities or in its entirety so that they can explore their school yard, local park, or own backyard. Though designed for 1st - 5th-graders, older audiences may enjoy them too! They are also available in both English and Spanish languages.

While supplies last, hard copies of the journals are currently available for free to teachers by contacting karen.ipock@ncdcr.gov.

Students explore the characteristics of the physical environment of communities, including their own community, in order to describe and explain variations in the physical environment, including climate, landforms, natural resources, and natural hazards. They also explore these characteristics to identify and compare how people in different communities adapt to the physical environment in which they live. They also look at the journals of Christopher Columbus.

In this lesson, students will look at highway maps to draw conclusions about the growth of towns and cities in the state over time.

Did you know that gold was first discovered in the United States in North Carolina? In this short video, students can learn about what makes gold so special, this historic discovery, and how people searched for it in the past.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 3rd Grade Social Studies.