Long Ago and Today Social Studies Unit

There’s something truly magical about watching a young mind grasp a new concept, and one of my absolute favorite units to deliver this magic is the Long Ago and Today Unit. Trust me when I say it’s not just another lesson plan; it’s like stepping into a time machine with your students and exploring the past and present on multiple levels.

If your classroom is filled with eager learners who need that extra bit of guidance, this unit about life long ago has been thoughtfully scaffolded to meet the needs of all primary students.

The Long Ago & Now Unit is one of my favorite units to teach now.  It teaches students to compare and contrast on a variety of different levels.  It is scaffolded for students who need a lot of help or also perfect for those who don’t need as much assistance.

What is Included in the Long Ago and today Teaching Resource

I’ll go into more detail below, but to give you a quick rundown of the unit. The Long Ago and Now Unit is broken down into three sections that are available individually or as a bundle:

Informational Article and Comprehension Activities

• Audio MP3 of the whole passage (about 5 minutes) and each individual paragraph
• An in-depth article with a fact sort activity, and comprehension questions
• QR codes to videos for additional multimedia research
• Mini-book that supports the article

Compare and Contrast Artifacts and Writing

• Vocabulary cards in two formats.
• Compare and contrast artifacts long ago & today
• Sorting Activity
• Interactive notebook component
• Scaffolded compare and contrast pages

Timeline, Family Tree, and Grandparent Interview

• Family Tree
• Grandparent (or older relative) interview: includes comparing students’ lives to their grandparents’ lives.
• Timeline: students choose important events in their own lives

Here is a video of some of the components included in this teaching resource

Scaffolding Academic Language

All of the writing tasks are scaffolded from requiring just one word, to a sentence, to a full paragraph of writing.  I give different tasks to different groups of students based on their skill levels.

The writing activities within each component are also meant to prepare students for the other components.  For instance, the writing in the artifacts sections prepares students for the writing of the grandparent interview.

Vocabulary Cards About Life Long Ago

The vocabulary cards come in two formats.  The first format, which includes pictures, is three-part vocabulary cards.  These would make a great station activity or pocket chart activity.  The second format of cards (not pictured) is just the words and definitions and is great for a word wall or whole-class pocket chart.

Artifact Sort & Compare and Contrast

The artifact sorting and writing activities are one of the backbone components of this unit.   There are so many components and facets it’s hard to put them all into one blog post.

Artifact Sort about Long Ago and Today

The first below is the sort.  It comes in several formats – small group cards, cut-and-paste worksheets, and interactive notebook flaps.  The small group cards are also great for pocket chart sorting, too.  I use them to orally practice some of the sentences students will use when writing about this topic.

The worksheet is great as a stand-alone, for interactive notebooks or homework.

I also added a flap book for interactive notebooks, although it can stand alone, too.  All of these resources use the same artifacts, so choose the activity that meets your teaching style.

Artifact Writing using COmpare and COntrast

Students generally have multiple opportunities to work with the artifact cards before we take it to writing.  I want to make sure they have academic language in place orally before I expect them to produce it in writing.  Our writing is scaffolded in several ways.

There is a fill-in-the-blank sentence frame, which is perfect for lower-level English learners or students who have difficulty writing full sentences.

There is also a form for sentence writing.  This is generally the one I use at the beginning of the year for my second graders.  Most can write a sentence pretty well, but I’m asking them to write a compound sentence using a compare-and-contrast structure, which is a little more difficult.

Not pictured is the paragraph paper.  It’s similar to the above but with enough lines for a paragraph.  When I teach this unit at the end of the year, that is the form I use.  I also require my higher students to use it at the beginning of the year.

Long ago and Today Informational Article & Minibook

One of the components in this long ago and now social studies unit is a two-page article and mini-book.  The two pieces of writing are the same text but presented in two formats.  The two-page text is great for close reading and photocopying.  The mini-book is perfect for scaffolding but is a bit more copy-intensive.

Also included with the informational articles are audio versions. There is a full-length audio version of the whole text that lasts about five minutes. Also included is audio for each paragraph independently so that students can listen to each paragraph at a time.

QR codes for additional research and to build background knowledge are also available.

Timeline about Students’ Lives

To add a personal perspective, my students create a timeline of some of their more important life events.  This is so difficult for second graders!  It is really hard for them to reflect on their lives and remember specific events as significant.

Students create the events on their worksheets, cut apart the worksheet into quarters and tape the pieces together in order.  This makes a great keepsake for parents, too!

How to Purchase

You can purchase the Long Ago & Now Unit on What I Have Learned or on Teachers Pay Teachers.

More Examples of How to Scaffold Instruction for Writing

I always have quite a few English learners in my classroom and need to scaffold the academic learning in our classroom for them to be successful.  Here are a few other blog posts on ways that I scaffold that learning.

• Develop Academic Language with Familiar Content
• Urban and Rural
• Teach and Practice Cause and Effect