Simulated Congressional Hearings

Winter Break Opportunities

As 2024 comes to a close, we wanted to provide you with tips for how to continue to support your child and help deepen their level of understanding.  For a list of key skills and concepts taught during each quarter, please visit this Grade 5 page on What Your Child Will Learn in Grade 5 Social Studies .  

With time off from school, winter break presents a fantastic opportunity to extend your child’s knowledge by taking advantage of the numerous resources in our communities. Below are some ideas but there are certainly numerous other opportunities to make social studies come alive!

  • Discuss current events about what is going on in the world/community. When discussing, encourage your child to closely read/view where the source came from, identify possible bias, and to compare the information in the source with other reliable sources

  • Visit local historical sites and museums.  Discuss the cause and effect of the historical events that took place there in regards to the formation of our nation.  A list of some possible places can be found at: http://sch.hcpss.org/parents

  • Encourage students to visit and engage with resources found at: http://sch.hcpss.org/resources
     

This spring the students will participate in the Simulated Congressional Hearings (SCH) where leaders from the community, government officials and school system personnel pretend to be the members of a congressional committees that will review the student knowledge.  If you know of anyone who be a great judge, please encourage them to check back on this website anytime after February to register.

 

 

The official webpage of the Howard County Public School System's Simulated Congressional Hearings (SCH). During the SCH, students assume the roles of Constitutional experts and prepare speeches using supporting current events. They present these speeches before a panel of judges, followed by a question and answer session.