Dancing Panda Fun for All Ages: Family Rules

Learning Connections

In elementary school social studies, children learn to understand and participate in the world around them. They learn about why rules and laws exist and how they help communities and institutions to function. Social studies instruction in early elementary school focuses on rules in their personal communities, such as the home and school. We discuss rules in our families first because children immediately understand everything in their own world. This lays the foundation that rules, or laws exist, and that they are created to help people organize themselves and solve problems. In later elementary school, children learn about rules and laws in our government and how they help our society function. Older elementary students also learn about how rules and laws are made. Once children learn why laws exist, they can then learn how laws work, how they are created, and how political systems work to keep everyone in the community, state, and nation safe.