ORGANIZING GROUP ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP THE COMPETENCE TO UNDERSTAND THE SURROUNDING NATURAL AND SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT FOR STUDENTS IN TEACHING THE TOPIC OF “PLANTS AND ANIMALS” (NATURAL AND SOCIETY GRADE 3)

In the General Education Program 2018, the subject of Nature and Society is designed to strengthen the guidance of students in individual and group learning to create learning products, and towards the goal of forming and developing scientific competence for students, including the component competence “to understand the surrounding natural and social environment”. To concretize the Program, the textbooks of this subject in grade 3 has been issued and put into use in the school year of 2022-2023; therefore, the study of organizing group activities in the direction of developing the competencies for primary school students has an important and urgent role in helping teachers understand and apply into teaching practice at the start of the new school year. This study analyzes the concept and structure of the competence to understand the surrounding natural and social environment, group activities, and the role of group activities in developing the competence to understand the surrounding natural and social environment, then proposes several ways to organize group activities for developing this competence in teaching the topic of “Plants and animals” (Nature and Society grade 3). The research results will help primary school teachers to “stay ahead of the game” in gradually approaching the new General Education Program in organizing activities to teach the Nature and Society subject and Science subject in the coming time.