Guide to using Social Studies Simulations to step away from the lecture podium and engage your students with hands-on history activities.
Integrating art and content in the ELA classroom. Tips and resources.
Quick strategies to get your kids talking about the RIGHT stuff at the RIGHT time!
Do you want to try interactive notebooks in your social studies classroom but are worried about the cutting and gluing getting out hand or wasting precious learning time? I want to share with you 10 tips that will hopefully ease some of the stress and provide a smooth transition to INB's.1. Create a Teacher Copy I always create an example copy to show my students. I want my students to see exactly what is expected when they put together their interactive notebook. A messy, half-cut page foldable
BOOM! is an easy and active review game that works well for any subject. This review game for middle or high school students is SO MUCH FUN! I play this in my classroom before test day. It could be used for math, science, social studies or any other subject!
A preschool teaching blog about preschool activities. My hands on activities can be used for 3-5 year olds ina preschool classroom.
Do your students have to create timelines to meet academic standards? I'm sharing 10 engaging types of timelines that make this activity FUN for students!
Picture books are one of my all-time favorite ways to introduce content in social studies! They're perfect for bringing in higher order thinking skills.
I love spending the final weeks of school working on projects with my students! While we complete a variety of projects throughout the year, my students become project-making machines after testing!! And we love every minute of it!! At this point in the year, the stress of fitting in curriculum has vanished, students have…
In this post, I will share with you my monthly themes for science and social studies for Kindergarten! I recently received an email in whi...
Reading and writing about a famous person is hard work! Find out how we research and write about our Biography Reports in second grade.
Update: this unit study is no longer available for free. Okay guys, I'm excited to finally share our Vikings Unit Study with you! I've been talking about
Do you need some ideas for preschool social studies activities? From recycling to road rules, fathers to firefighters, we’ve got you covered.
Make sure you cover all subjects in the special ed classroom with the help of the Science and Social Studies Adapted Work Binders!
Kids will have fun while learning where do I Live with this printable activity perfect for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students.
This four page printable is designed to encourage children to do some really good research about a country of their choice, and put together a book that they will be proud of! We've asked them to compile all sorts of interesting facts but left room for creativity too.
Make teaching about past vs. present in your kindergarten social studies lessons a breeze with these fun and engaging resources.
Is it that time when your students suddenly forget the classroom expectations? Well, then it's time to try V.I.P student!
Upper elementary teachers learn five ways to incorporate curiosity and wonder into their classroom to engage their students.
Do you need some ideas for preschool social studies activities? From recycling to road rules, fathers to firefighters, we’ve got you covered.
Social Studies is such a fun topic to teach in first grade. At this age, students are becoming more aware of the world around them, asking q...
It's time for some fun geography hands-on learning! I love mapping activities and have put together a fun printable set to build a city map. This fun printable set is 15 pages long and includes 5 different
Do your students have to create timelines to meet academic standards? I'm sharing 10 engaging types of timelines that make this activity FUN for students!
This is a social studies choice board with 14 options designed to be utilized for any social studies unit and almost any age/grade level (recommended for third grade and above), regardless of what time period, region, etc. you are studying. This could even be laminated and used again repeatedly in e...
The connection between social studies and art includes different cultures while using art to explore history in new ways. Read more!
5th Grade Social Studies is where it's at, my friends! In this blog post, I will share how I sequence, plan, and make social studies fun for my students. I'm fortunate to have found my niche
This is one of my favorite activities for beginning the school year! However, it can be used at any time to reinforce the importance of giv...
Virginia history begins with studies of the Jamestown Colony, and this post is filled with ideas for teaching about Colonial Times across the curriculum. Check it out on Virginia is for Teachers.
These debate activities and lesson plan ideas for elementary students will keep you kids engaged. Debate pdf freebie and structure will help you plan your next debate in the classroom.
Social Studies Interactive Notebooks are a great tool to reinforce learning in any classroom. Give your students a forever resource this year by ...
Learn how to use social studies political cartoons to increase student engagement. Includes link to a free political cartoon analysis activity!
Hi y’all. Let me just say that poetry is quite possibly one of my favorite things to teach. I use it in all content areas. Walk into my room, and you’ll probably find a poem about the rock cycle hanging next to a poem about skip counting. II use a few different forms of poetry ... Read More about Where I’m From Poetry
eFree Printable Hawaii Crossword Puzzle. Free Printable Hawaii Crossword Puzzle, that you can use for history or social studies classroom. If you need a crossword puzzle about Hawaii for your students, this Crossword can be useful. Help Kids learn at school having fun at the same time solving this crossword puzzle. The crossword includes 16 words and names related to
Use these two Boggle templates again and again just by changing the letters. There are two versions, one for the document camera and one for students to use individually. Have fun! Download Boggle Template Rachel Lynette You Might Also Like:Color Matching WheelColor GameCaterpillar Pom Pom Patterning ActivityConstitution Day Activities
Each year, one of our writing projects is a biography. The research the kids need to do, the expository style of the writing, the conventions that come along with it...the entire writing process is really developed well during this unit. The kids also really enjoy it, so that helps ;) But, in my class we don't just write a biography. What fun would that be? In addition to the actual biography, I have the students create a "Hanger Person" to go along with it. These are SO much fun! The kids really get into them and, consequently, have great writing as well. Most of this project is centered around the actual writing (as it should be). Because I have the ELL class, I heavily scaffold the writing process. To tell you the truth, in 5th grade the students are still developing writers as it is, so I would scaffold no matter what. Each of my students choose a biographical subject (in this case, a Revolutionary War figure, as that is our major thematic unit of study) I then help them to organize their thoughts using a few graphic organizers. This is the organizer the students begin their research with. All info they find in each of the categories is just placed inside of the box. The students make the decision later on whether or not they will actually use the info in their writing. The initial information gather is just a mish mash of everything they find initially important. When doing this, I use the "I do, You do" model. Basically, I model how to do a specific part (ie: finding information on the person's early life, or writing an introduction paragraph getting in all important information without giving away the body of the essay) Then, once the students have seen me do that specific part, they do the part on their own. Doing this has helped my class to not only become more proficient writers, but more confident in their writing as well. They see what I do, and use that as a model for their own. And, now, at this point in the year, they honestly don't need me to do as much scaffolding. They are striking out on their own and doing a great job! This is the Introduction Organizer. They do all work right on it to make it easier for the students to access the information and craft logical, interesting paragraphs. I help them to use this with the "I do, You do" modeling technique. Once the writing is done, the fun begins. I ask the students to create a "Hanger Person" in the likeness of their research subject. Using a hanger, tagboard, and some art supplies, the kids make the historical figure come to life. They LOVE this. They get SO into it too. George Washington actually wears a yarn wig. Benjamin Franklin has bifocals. Deborah Sampson is dressed like a man. The kids take their research and go all out in their creation! The students then present their work (to work on oral language standards) and the other students have fun trying to guess who the subject is just from the visual at first! Some of them are so good, the guess is instantaneous...others, we need a few hints ;) Can you tell who the people below are? (I will give you a hint....one is the wearing dark colors because he had to warn of the impending British attack at night, and the other is the father of our country) You can get the full project, complete with ALL of the scaffolding graphic organizers, rubrics, checklists, and standards at my TpT store. It is a project I promise your students, if they are anything like mine, will get a lot out of.
There are so many different directions you can go when decorating your social studies or history classroom! I have scoured the internet and Pinterest to curate this list of perfect social studies classroom decor! Everything is linked just for you! General Decorating: Standards Posters and Compu
If you are looking for ways to integrate social studies and writing, you've come to the right place! I've been teaching these two subjects together for many years now and can't imagine teaching one subject
It was around this time of year during my first year of teaching when I got completely overwhelmed with my grading load. My main problem: I felt like I needed to grade EVERYTHING. Until speaking with other teachers about how much time I spent grading, I did not realize grading everything was unnecessary and impossible to sustain. Right then I decided to change my grading habits. My first year I was teaching English to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Since every class had two spelling homework assignments and a spelling test every week, the easiest way to reduce grading was to cut out redundant, practice assignments. My first grading change was to only grade one spelling homework assignment per week. I was still grading a ton of assignments, but just that one little change substantially reduced the time I devoted to grading. Since that first year, I have learned many more tricks to reduce grading time. Here are some of those tricks. This one is probably the most obvious: limit what you grade. Whenever possible, I limit myself to two or three assignments per week. I feel like this is enough to give students, parents, and teachers a clear and accurate picture of the students’ understanding of each topic and overall effort. I can see their understanding with each assessment grade and see their general effort levels reflected in whether or not they finish their homework completely and on time. Prioritize the most important assignments or parts of assignments. Choose what will give you the best picture of student understanding and grade that. If you have a lengthy assignment, pick only a few sections to spend time on and give a completion grade for the rest. Occasionally give completion grades. When totally swamped with teaching duties, this can save your sanity. If students complete all of an assignment, I give them 100%. If they only do half, they get 50%. I limit this to homework assignments and try not to do it too often because it doesn’t reflect student understanding. However, when I have more pressing teaching duties that will have a greater impact on my students’ learning I think this is acceptable. Have a no name policy you can handle. I used to post no name papers on the bulletin board (most remained unclaimed) and did detective work to figure out which paper belonged to which student. That took a lot of time and was not something I felt should be the teacher’s responsibility. After a couple of years of this, I decided my seventh-grade students should be responsible enough to do something as simple as writing their name on their assignment. Consequently, I communicated this to my students and made it my class policy to throw out no names. Whatever no name policy you decide to implement, make sure it works for you and doesn’t add more time and effort than it deserves. Limit late assignments. I used to take late assignments all quarter long (at a 25% grade reduction). This resulted in a deluge of assignments from students who waited until right before grades were due. It generated a ton of work for me when I needed to be wrapping things up. I had to remember how I graded each assignment, which was time consuming in and of itself. Cue a new late assignment policy: assignments are accepted no later than two weeks overdue. This policy makes it so I can still easily remember how I graded something and also keeps my grading duties at a reasonable level, even when the gradebook is almost due. Don’t let the assignments pile up. This can happen quickly and become overwhelming. Try grading in little spurts throughout the week so you never end up with more than a week’s worth of accumulated assignments. Have student helpers. Most students enjoy helping the teacher with little tasks. I often have students organize my ungraded papers so they are all neatly stacked, facing up, and paper-clipped by assignment and class period. The time saved really adds up. Let students grade their own assignments or swap papers with a classmate. This gives students quick feedback on how they are doing with a topic and where they can improve. You can discuss answers as a class and clear up problem areas as soon as they present themselves. When grading this way, I usually don’t add the grades to the gradebook because the students already know exactly how they did and it’s too easy for students to cheat. Always use a rubric when applicable. This sounds so important and obvious. But, let me tell you, there have been times when I was so overwhelmed with teaching that I didn’t have a rubric when I assigned the project. This is a huge no-no. Without a rubric, the students don’t have clear expectations. You will end up with all sorts of projects and no fair, consistent way to grade them. It becomes a time-consuming mess to grade. Trust me—always use a rubric. Design exit tickets with ease of grading in mind. Since all of my exit tickets go in the gradebook, almost all of them are short—between four and five questions long—and are mainly multiple choice. If it is important to see the depth of student understanding, I might add one question that requires students to answer in sentences. By sticking to this general format, I am able to whip through grading exit tickets. (If you teach middle school science you might be interested in my Exit Ticket Package, which contains a bunch of exit tickets designed this way.) Make peer reviewing part of projects. During big projects, take a little class time for peer reviewing. When students evaluate their classmates’ work, they learn from each other and learn to think critically. The peer review can be something as simple as providing one thing they liked about a project and one way to improve it. You could take it further by printing extra rubrics and having students grade each other that way. If you include some form of peer reviewing once or twice before students turn in their projects, you will receive higher quality work which requires less grading time from you. Implementing even just a few of these strategies will greatly reduce your grading time. Of course it’s impossible to completely eliminate grading so, if all else fails, make the time you have to spend grading as painless as possible. Use fun pens and stickers. Listen to music and light a nice smelling candle. Have a yummy snack and a special drink (or two). Wear comfy clothes and put your dog on your lap. Recruit a friend to help. What do you do to save time spent grading? How do you make grading a more pleasant experience? Comment below to share your ideas.
