Beyond Community Helpers: The Project Approach in the Early Childhood Social Studies Curriculum‪.‬

Traditionally, early childhood educators address the gaping hole in their planning books under the "social studies" header by teaching a smattering of thematic units. When I began teaching my kindergarten and 1st-grade classes, my approach was no exception. My fellow teachers and I would sit down and plan out the year, starting with the theme "All About Me," moving on to "My Family," and eventually arriving at "Community Helpers." Although the progression of these topics seemed to follow what I understood to be logical child development theory, I was concerned that the children and I were not making as much sense out of what we were discussing as we could have. The songs, books, poems, games, centers, and art activities I planned to accompany these units were fun, and certainly not harmful; yet I sometimes asked myself, "What exactly are we learning here, and why?" My whole style of teaching changed when I began to study the project approach. According to Lilian Katz (1994),