What are some good children's books that I can use and incorporate Social Studies? (K-6)?

Question

Children's books that I can use along with social studies and integrate another subject with the book. Any kind of activities, lesson, or even hands-on would be great.

Answer 1

Sign of the beaver,native americans nearly adopt boy left to guard his family land and cabin.Becomes a white brother to boy whose parents were killed by white men.

Freedom Writers,made into movie.Check out movie for your benefit too,teens in gangs learn the biggest gang ever was the n***s and how they must unite races for truth or lose life  itself.They combine their stories of racial hardships and publish to get the truth out.

Freak the Mighty,small crippled boy ,very

smart and big boy picked on for lack of brains team up.Save each other from lonely,dark existence

Bridge to terribithia,young boy makes friends with the new "girl" in town.She's not so girly and opens his imagination and heart.

All these are pretty advanced.My son reads very well though.I think in part because I Challenged him with good books with big vocab.I also read him UK and other foreign authors to challenge

his idea of structure of English and story telling style.

Sorry not too many "younger " books I remember.Little Britches by Moody, seriously sad at end,but true.I don't think

K-3 are ready for serious biography like Ann Frank.The Arthur series refers to a lot of social issues,wishbone ,on PBS also good at making understandable for younger audiences.Check out their website.Canada has some good

educational programing on their side too.Don't know about online.Amazon has a list of Newberry and other awards.These go back many years and span many ideas.Then there is Daniel Pinkwater.most independent writer of this time.From preschool to adult.All are strange and fun.

Answer 2

You need to be more specific.  SS is so broad.  There are many different strands--history, government, economics, culture, geography, psychology, sociology, etc.  Almost any children's book can be used along with SS.  

But if you really have no focus then here are some examples:

Different cultural versions of fairy tales can be compared.  There are many versions of Cinderella and The 3 Little Pigs.  For SS you can use maps to show the countries each story originated from and identify cultural elements in each story.  For Literacy you can identify elements of fairy tales and compare the stories using Venn Diagrams.  Students could even write their own versions and then put on a performance.

You could use children's biographies of political figures.  There are many kids books about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, MLK Jr, and others.  You can talk about their political and societal contributions.  For literature you can examine facts and opinions in biographies.  Students could make posters telling about their political figure or give a speech as that person.

There is a book "Boomtown" about the start of a new town in the old west.  Topics covered can be the history and geography of the old west in the US, bartering (economics), and community helpers.  Student activities can be to have a bartering day in class.  Student can bring in (or be provided with) small tokens and little trinkets.  Then they could barter for the items they wanted.  Students could also create their own boomtown on a bulletin board or poster paper using construction paper.