3rd Grade Social Studies Curriculum – Characteristics of a Community – TEKS

Are you an upper elementary teacher looking to find a quality TEKS-aligned resource that targets the characteristics of communities? Looking for minimal-prep and engaging lessons and activities to teach social studies concepts to your 3rd grade students? Look no further!

Unit 7 of the Smart and Simple Social Studies Communities Guided Curriculum is about Characteristics and Types of Communities. The main topic of this unit is designed to help upper elementary students understand the common characteristics of rural, suburban, and urban and reasons why people form communities. They will also compare the ways people have met their needs in communities through government, education, communication, transportation, and recreation in the past and present.

This 2-week unit includes lesson plans, guided notes, practice activities, exit tickets, a project, unit assessment, and more. Each lesson includes slideshows in both PowerPoint and Google Slides, as well as student digital activities of the notes, practice activities, exit tickets, project, and unit assessment.

This unit primarily correlates to the current TEKS 3rd grade Social Studies standards (adopted in 2024). It includes EVERYTHING you need to teach about characteristics of communities– just print & go!

This unit covers the following topics:

• Lesson 1: Introduction to Communities
• Lesson 2: Reasons Why People Form Communities
• Lesson 3: Ways People Meet Community Needs – Past
• Lesson 4: Ways People Meet Community Needs – Present
• Lesson 5: Characteristics of Communities Review

What’s included in this resource?

• 2-week pacing guide and overview
• Scope and Sequence
• 5 teacher lesson plan guides
• 4 non-editable slideshows (Google Drive & PPT versions)
• 1 editable slideshow review game
• Guided notes for Lessons 1-4 (2 versions: fill-in-the-blank and highlighted words)
• 4 practice activities
• 5 exit tickets
• Digital and full-color versions of student activities
• Unit Project
• Unit Assessment
• Answer keys for all student activities

What makes this Guided Social Studies Curriculum Smart and Simple?

✅ The social studies daily lessons and activities are bite-sized and can easily be implemented in 30-45 minutes.

✅ The social studies curriculum is TEKS-aligned (for Texas) but is still flexible enough to use in any order and in conjunction with any state curriculum.

✅ Each social studies unit has everything you need to simply teach social studies – easy-to-follow lesson plans, guided notes, practice activities, exit tickets, and more!

It’s everything you need to implement engaging social studies lessons that students love and teachers enjoy (because it’s comprehensive and easy to prep)!