Curriculum Outline

The Arkansas Studies Curriculum was created to provide students, teachers, administrators and parents with a comprehensive program of study.  It is a continuous, vertically-integrated whole and is tied to the Arkansas Department of Education frameworks in a thorough and systematic manner.  In addition, great care has been taken to construct the curriculum within the context of literacy development so that it integrates and re-enforces instruction across several areas. 

Instruction at all levels is organized so that it can be delivered as integrated Units of study at each grade level as mandated by the legislature.  Each year’s instruction builds on and re-enforces earlier learning and also provides a preview of what will follow.   All materials can also be infused into other curricular emphases, particularly within the context of the most recent Social Studies Frameworks.
The goals of instruction at the Early Childhood and Kindergarten (pre- and very early literate students) are to have students understand that Arkansas is a state, that it has clear and easily recognizable boundaries, that it contains many varied and wonderful things, and that not everywhere in Arkansas is like their own home town.  Arkansas has mountains, lowlands, rivers, caves and forests.  These concepts are conveyed to students with the help of the Big Bear of Arkansas and his Critter Crew in the texts,  The Big Bear’s Arkansas ABCs, winner of the Arkansas Library Association’s Arkansiana Award for Juvenile Literature, and ALL AROUND ARKANSAS.  Both texts are available as Big Books suited for use in shared reading contexts.

In the 1st Grade, students are introduced to the idea of historical change.  They learn that Arkansas hasn’t always been like it is now and that it is the way it is now because of the contribution of many different groups of people.  Again, the Big Bear plays a central role in student instruction through the music CD, Arkansas Stories for Young Children, and two accompanying texts, “I can tell you stories, if you gather near...” and “Where did we come from, Grandpa.”  These texts are also available as Big Books.

The curriculum’s goals for students completing the 1st Grade are that students have a solid, basic, understanding of Arkansas’s primary spatial characteristics, its environmental and cultural diversity, and an understanding that the Arkansas they live in now is only the latest stage in our state’s historical development.  With these basic concepts in hand, students,  now at the early literate stage of their development, can begin a more detailed and systematic consideration of Arkansas’s past as they prepare to become leaders for Arkansas’s future.

The next step in the curriculum is to provide students with a more detailed knowledge and understanding of Arkansas’s environment.  This is the focus of instruction in the 2nd Grade.  The primary text is titled Sydney and Garrett’s Great Arkansas Adventure in which two youngsters, their grandmother, and their readers take a magical trip exploring Arkansas on a most unusual craft guided by a most unusual captain.   The adventure contains a wealth of original photographs and illustrations providing readers with both broad vistas and detailed descriptions of our Arkansas landscape.

In the 3rd and 4th grades, the curriculum adopts a different mode of presentation; one modeled on the popular Chapter Book format, in which the story is text-driven and illustrations are placed in a more supportive position.  In the 3rd Grade the emphasis is on Arkansas and United States government and citizenship.  The primary text, Vivianna Becomes an Arkansan, tells how a little girl from China helps her neighbor and his classmates learn to be citizens and responsible community members. 

In the 4th Grade the emphasis shifts to economics.  The primary text, Cephas Faulk and his WayBack Powder, takes three youngsters on a journey that includes twelve stops in Arkansas space and time to experience the historical underpinnings of Arkansas’s contemporary economy.  As they make their way back to the 21st Century they experience firsthand what it meant to earn a living at different times and places along Arkansas’s way to the future, and how these were shaped by basic economic principles.  Their travels are charted by thirteen original map graphics and fourteen black and white illustrations created specifically for this story.

The culminating piece of the Arkansas Studies Curriculum is a brand new Arkansas history textbook that can be used at the 5th and/or 6th grade levels.  Arkansas: From Then to Now was designed to be a student’s first master textbook in Arkansas history.  Organized into eight, chronologically ordered chapters it provides windows into what life has been like during different periods of Arkansas’s development.  The text describes Arkansas’s past in a way that strongly encourages student thought and imagination in asking and answering the text’s central question, “What was it like?”  With its fast-paced narrative, its many never-before published illustrations and “sidebars” that provide a wealth of detail regarding Arkansas people, places, and events, this text presents a thorough and comprehensive synthesis of Arkansas’s history, geography, and economy, as well as its governmental and social structure.    In 2006, Arkansas: From Then to Now was cited for excellence in production by The Printing Industry Association of the South and in 2007 it was awarded the Arkansas Library Association Arkansiana Award for Juvenile Literature.

Each of the texts is supported by a teacher’s guide and resource materials in digital format providing additional stories, primary texts, images, songs, links to vetted Web Sites and hardcover resources, as well as activities linked to specific Arkansas Department of Education strands and student learning expectations.

Arkansas Studies Curriculum Map

Click here for a .pdf file of the Curriculum Map

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