HSIE Foundation Places We Know Homeschool Unit PDF

Foundation Places We Know HSIE Homeschool Unit

Help your child explore homes, neighbourhoods, communities and special places with this practical Humanities and Social Sciences unit designed especially for homeschooling families.

Created for children in their first year of school, this unit includes 10 flexible lessons exploring familiar places, natural and built features, maps, routes, journeys, family connections and significant events. Children learn through discussion, drawing, mapping, model-making, photographs, stories and observations of places they know.

The unit also introduces the importance of Country/Place to First Nations Australians and helps children consider how different people connect with, represent, respect and care for places.

Topics include:

• Homes and important places
• Features of the child’s home
• Places in the local community
• What maps are and how they represent places
• Using maps, positional language and simple routes
• Special places and why they matter
• Caring for places and Country/Place
• Tracking and representing journeys
• Family connections and personal history
• Significant events, celebrations and commemorations

Designed for homeschooling

Each lesson is designed to take approximately 30–45 minutes and can be shortened, extended or completed over several sessions.

Activities include drawing familiar places, identifying natural and constructed features, making pictorial maps, following routes, recording journeys, exploring photographs and objects, and discussing important family and community events.

Written work can be replaced with verbal explanations, drawings, photographs, models, mapping activities or parent-scribed responses, making the unit flexible for different learning styles and abilities.

What is included:

• 10 complete lesson plans
• Clear learning intentions
• Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 Foundation HASS alignment
• Mapping, geography and early history activities
• Respectful First Nations Country/Place learning
• Support and extension ideas for every lesson
• Simple assessment opportunities
• Final assessment task and assessment criteria
• Suggested resources and learning materials

This unit provides families with a clear and manageable way to teach early geography and history at home while helping children understand belonging, place, community and care for the environments around them.