Almost eighty years ago, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, founder of Bank Street College of Education in New York City, wrote about social studies in ways that sound remarkably contemporary: "In the first place, we shall say that the curriculum should continue the laboratory methods, which means it should furnish the children with as many first-hand experiences with the mores of other groups as possible, that it should supplement with vicarious experiences gained through source materials; that it should supply source materials relating to their own mores from the point of view of historic origin, present functioning, and comparative method; that the children should have more than a passive, absorbent role; that they should do something to their data." Mitchell's ideas have new currency today with the introduction of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for State Social Studies Standards, or the "C3 Framework" for short. Geography has found a prominent place in the framework as one of four "core disciplines" of social studies--and a particularly important one for elementary education. In many states, geography is taught to all students only in the early grades. This article returns to the setting in which Mitchell's ideas about geography and curriculum developed-New York City. The authors offer several teaching strategies suitable for grades 3-5 that blend three curriculum documents: Geography for Life: National Geography Standards, Second Edition, The C3 Framework, and New York City's social studies standards for the elementary grades.