Breaking Down the TEKS: Texas Social Studies Standards for Grades 3-5

Kirsten 0:46

Hello, everyone, I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. Thanks for tuning in to the social studies teacher podcast. I do have a quick favor for you before we start. If you love this podcast, and you love to tune in each week with the episodes that I share with you, I would so appreciate it if you can review this podcast rate this podcast. If you're loving it, definitely, you could plop in those five stars and share what you love about it, I definitely would highly, highly appreciate it. I love seeing everybody's feedback on this show in general. And I want to be able to have more teachers be able to tune in to this podcast. And also if you have a teacher, friend or know somebody who teaches social studies, and they are an upper elementary teacher and grades three, four, or five, I would love it if you could share this podcast with them. Bonus points if they're in Texas, because this episode today is specifically about Texas teachers. But if you want to just give them the link to the entire show in general, I would truly appreciate it. I want to spread the word about how we can make social studies a better subject for upper elementary teachers.

Kirsten 2:07

So we are going to be thinking about the Texas TEKS social studies standards, I know that it can be a little bit tricky, or let's say a lot tricky navigating the many Texas social studies standards that students need to learn. So in this episode, I'm going to be breaking down the meaning of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, also known as TEKS, for third, fourth, and fifth grade. So I'm going to be talking about when were the current TEKS standards implemented. And just introducing the standards in general what we need to know about the TEKS standards for social studies. Also, I'm going to be sharing about the eight domains of the Texas social studies standards that need to be known and taught and are consistent throughout K through 12. As well as Star testing and some other things like currently happening right now.

Kirsten 3:03

Kirsten 5:03

All right, next, we're going to talk about the eight domains of the Texas social studies standards. Each domain covers a specific set of topics and skills that students should master in order to be proficient in social studies. So let's take a look at each of the strands or domains that are outlined in the TEKS. Again, this is featured in all grades from K through 12. So that is one thing that's consistent about the social studies TEKS is that you're going to see a variety of the strands, all of the strands for each grade level, but the different specific standards are going to change and be different. So history: this is the chronological record of significant events such as those affecting a nation or institution, and it often includes an explanation of their causes. Geography: is the description, distribution, or interaction of the diverse physical, biological and cultural features of the Earth's surface. Economics: is a description and analysis of the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. Government: is a system of rules and the people who make and administer them. Citizenship: basically everything that has to do with being a citizen or full member of a country or community. Culture: the pattern of behavior shared by a society or group of people. Science, Technology, and Society: is another strand. This discusses the impact of science and technology on a society. Lastly, Social Studies skills: these are critical thinking skills to organize and use information from a variety of sources. It also encompasses, geographic tools, communication, and problem solving and decision making skills recently, and this last round of updates for the TEKS social studies, Social Studies skills has been beefed up, there's been more added related to making a claim and supporting evidence for that claim related to primary and secondary sources. And I do have a YouTube video related to all that information, if you want to check that out. I also have a podcast episode related to that as well. So I'll make sure to link that specific episode in the show notes.

All right, related to star testing. In Texas, students are not assessed through standardized testing until eighth grade. So as you can imagine, there is very little emphasis at the elementary level, because of this, it's kind of like we're gonna push it like I'm thinking inside out 2 where we push those negative thoughts, we just toss it out, we don't want to think about it until it starts, you know, till it comes up. And the seventh and eighth grade teachers have to play catch up. So to kind of give the middle school teachers a little breather and to you know, they will thank you, I promise, it is important, I think to make sure to spend some time teaching as much as you can, related to the social studies standards in the different strands. And also, with the social studies skills, embedding those social studies skills within the lessons that you have for each of the other first seven strands. Let me go back and just share with you those strands again, history, geography, economics, government, citizenship, culture, science, technology and society. And then the last one is the social study skills. So you've got those, you're embedding the social study skills with the other previous seven strands, while third through fifth grade lays a foundation for communities around the world, Texas history and US history. Looking ahead to your middle school, you have sixth grade, focusing in Texas on contemporary world cultures, seventh grade, focusing on Texas history, but in more depth, and then eighth grade focusing on US history. And then they're taking the STAR test for that in eighth grade. And then high school is going to be the US History star. So there's really only two star tests throughout K through 12 for social studies.

All right, final thing related to just if you are kind of stressing out a little bit because you're like, oh my gosh, I have to teach all of these skills and standards, and I really don't have a great resource to do all of what I need to do. Well, you're in luck. And if you're listening to this social studies teacher podcast for the first time, I want to share that I do have my curriculum that is TEKS aligned I've got third grade year long curriculum, fourth grade Texas history, and then the fifth grade US history. So that is there for you as a tool to be able to teach great way to put in 30 to 45 minutes of time into social studies. And then I also have my Smart and Simple Social Studies membership, low monthly fee, or annual fee if you want to do annual, and save some money, you can access my library of resources to supplement. And there's also some tutorials for teachers and trainings for teachers workshops for teachers, there's always a monthly surprise for the Social Studies, classroom, variety of resources that you and your students will love on a variety of topics and domains. And this specific membership is for anyone if you're in Texas or not, there will be a Texas component of it with some Texas resources if you opt in for that. But if you're not in Texas, you just have to select the default option. And you'll be able to access all the resources and you don't have to sift through any Texas resources on that. But just great things like daily passages that you can do in five to 10 minutes a day, guided notes, some projects and mini lessons, some WebQuest a lot of web quests I'll say audio mini lessons for kids. So there's a lot in there if you're just looking for just kind of like a one stop shop to just teach as much as you can throughout the year.

So with that being said, I hope you enjoyed this episode about the Texas social studies standards. Hopefully it was informative, related to how to interpret the standards, because I know it is a lot of worrying and mumbo jumbo. Sometimes it's just like, oh, like what do I have to do? What's important, what's not important? So hopefully that guides you in your next steps. All right. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.