Acton Public Schools Social Studies Curriculum

Grade 2: Students compare life in Acton today with life in Acton around 1900. This study tracks Acton's evolution from a small farming enclave, to an industrial community, and finally into a suburban town which is very much a part of the global community. See Old School Day.

Grade 3: Studies focus on the history and geography of the State of Massachusetts. Students begin the year learning mapping and geography skills. Later teachers use a more chronological approach, beginning with the first settlers in Massachusetts, the Wampanoag Indians. Students study the arrival of the Pilgrims and a few selected periods of Massachusetts history including the events in Boston, Lexington and Concord that led up to the American Revolution and the development of the mills in the 1800s.

Grade 4: The curriculum introduces students to North America geography, to some of the peoples who have settled the continent at different times and the history behind that settlement, and to the relationship between the environment and the cultures of those peoples.

Grade 5: American History from the 1700s through 1865 is the main focus of the social studies curriculum.