Creative and Engaging Social Studies Activities

It’s Spring Break! I have a moment to breath and was looking back through recent photos on my phone and on Instagram and thought I’d share a few of my favorite fun activities from my social studies classes!

A couple of my classes were scheduled to take exams just before Easter and so I thought I’d make our exam review a bit more fun. If you want to see a room full of teenagers go crazy, tell them you’ve hidden eggs all around the classroom! In each egg was a key term that the students had to define before they could get their prize. The prizes were mostly stickers, erasers, and coupons for a ‘special’ pencil (see next picture), but a few had Life Savers (I know, I know…don’t reward kids with candy). They had a blast, it got them up and moving out of their seats, and they had to review some main ideas, too!

I posted to above pic on my Instagram account to show the awesome personalized pencils I order each year from Oriental Trading Company. I give them out as prizes or at Christmas or the end of year as presents. The kids think they’re funny and they make us all smile! Other phrases I’ve used include

“Abe Lincoln is my Homeboy”
“Sacagawea is my Homegirl”
“I Heart History”
“I Stole this from Miss Rush” (these were on my personal stash of pencils)

I recently tried a new activity with my classes that I call ‘Magic Picture Window’ (I learned about this activity last summer at an AP summer institute I attended). I cut small rectangles out of index cards and students use the ‘magic picture window’ cards to look closely at the details of an image. Above, students are examining a primary source (Paul Revere’s etching of the Boston Massacre) by looking at the details of the image that’s within the window cut out on the cards. It’s a fun way for them to focus on details rather than just the image as a whole.

Another recent social studies lesson that the students enjoy focuses on identifying the differences between primary and secondary sources. We first discuss this definition of each source and then I have students walk around the classroom and examine several items I’ve placed throughout. Their goal is to decide whether the item is a primary or secondary source and jot down a brief rationale. Some examples of the items I use are a photo of my grandmother when she was 15, a photocopy of my datebook calendar from 5 years ago, an outfit I wore as a baby (they LOVE this one), a copy of an historical fiction novel, a DVD, a text book, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and a copy of our local newspaper. The items illicit a great discussion as to what makes a source primary versus secondary.