P.S.197 Kings Highway Academy

 PS 197 follows the New York State Core Curriculum Passport to Social Studies.

This program is aligned with the New York Scope and Sequence and was developed by a team of DOE staff and teachers in collaboration with social scientists and cultural partners.

This program provides a wealth of resources for teachers to use to create high engagement with the curriculum.

Social Studies is taught using a hands on, project-based approach.

We incorporate project based learning including inquiry, research, centers, and the use of primary documents.

We also incorporate the reading and writing workshop into the social studies curriculum.

We create centers, where students explore the core curriculum via literature and other multi-sensory media sources (maps, quotations, videos, audios, primary documents, etc).

Group activities are planned along with mini-lectures.

We concentrate on either answering a focus question and/or the development of content understandings.

Art and Music specialists connect lessons with social studies topics being taught in classrooms.

Technology instruction supports social studies research.

The library program utilizes Google Classroom for collaborative research on topics related to social studies.

Every student, including students with special needs and English Language Learners, is involved in several research projects throughout the year.

Projects can be as simple as a picture display or a brief skit, and as complex as a Google Slides presentation or a piece of writing.

Projects are coordinated with the classroom teachers, school library media specialist and the computer technology cluster teachers.

Children are encouraged to work collaboratively and support each others needs.