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3rd grade · Social Studies · Unit 3 of 10

First Farmers

From hunting to farming villages

What your child practices

The long story of early humans, how farming began about 12,000 years ago, domestication, food surpluses, and how settling down led to specialized jobs and the first cities.

Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards benchmark: 3.4.21.1; 3.4.18.2 · how farming changed life long ago, and comparing ancient life with today

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Early humans hunted animals and gathered plants for a very long time.
  2. About 12,000 years ago, people began farming and taming animals, called domestication.
  3. Extra food (a surplus) let some people do other jobs, and villages grew into cities.

Example: Why could some people in farming villages become potters? Farms grew more food than people needed. With extra food, not everyone had to farm. Answer: food surpluses meant not everyone had to farm

First Farmers in Minnesota

In the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards, this is unit 3 of 10 in 3rd grade Social Studies, after Communities Around the World and before Where Civilizations Grew.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Put these events from the human story in order, earliest first.

    • 🔥Early humans learn to control fire
    • 🧍Modern humans (Homo sapiens) appear in Africa
    • 🏙️The first cities grow in Mesopotamia
    • 🎨People paint animals on cave walls

  2. Question 2

    Which crop was one of the first to be farmed in Southwest Asia's Fertile Crescent?

    🌾
    • wheat
    • cacao
    • maize (corn)
    • potatoes

  3. Question 3

    Before farming began, how did people get their food?

    🦌
    • By trading with cities
    • By growing wheat in large fields
    • By hunting, fishing and gathering wild plants
    • By buying it at markets

  4. Question 4

    Why could some people in farming villages become potters, weavers or toolmakers?

    • The crops grew without any work
    • Nobody needed food anymore
    • Food surpluses meant not everyone had to farm
    • Farming was against the law

  5. Question 5

    Which tool helped early farmers break up and turn the soil?

    • the abacus
    • the plow
    • the sundial
    • the compass

  6. Question 6

    Which animal was the first to be domesticated, at least 15,000 years ago?

    🐕
    • the camel
    • the dog
    • the horse
    • the chicken

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