Creative Social Studies Vanessa BristolINST 6031

Did your teachers try to make the lessons fun?

Did your teachers try to make the topic interesting?

Did your teachers find creative ways to help you remember facts, dates, historical data?

If your answer to any of these is no…

There is a better way!

Soc ia l Studies was bor ing…

Remember When???

Creative and Fun Social Studies Projects

Children learn best when they are really

engaged in the material

One way to engage a child in a social studies topic is to give the student a chance to complete a project related to it.

Use creative social studies projects to help your students bring history to life.

Use Technology to help students learn about their world.

H o w t o m a k e l e a r n i n g S o c i a l S t u d i e s f u n

Who’s your family projectOne of the best ways to get students involved in history to get them to look at their own history.

Students researching a family tree can conduct interviews with their parents, grandparents, aunt and uncles.

They can discover when their family settled in their current area

Do they have a family crest or shield or the meaning of their family name?

Finding a famous ancestor or discovering that a long-ago grandparent was an explorer or a settler can pique a student's interest in general history.

Create a poster board with photos and give a presentation

Everyone gets to know you!

Beginning of the School Year Ice BreakerMy Family History

Introduces everyone to the teacher and each other

Teacher presents, too! The students get to

know the teacher.

Help students identify Native American culture in their region before Europeans settled in North America by using readings, maps and artwork.

Discuss the resources they used to construct dwellings and make clothing. How far did they have to travel to obtain these resources? Did they participate in trade? Learn how they got and prepared their food. Were they agricultural, hunter-gatherers or fishermen?

Compare and contrast their historical culture with their culture today.

Assign a Native American group to each student for a research project and notebook.

Anthropology

Divide a bulletin board into three sections labeled "Local," "National" and "International." Using either

newspapers or the internet, have students find stories, that fit into these three categories.

Community or state news would be considered "Local"

Articles from around the country would be "National" World news would be "International."

Once students develop an understanding of what is happening nearby and far away, plot the locations of

the articles on a map.

Current Events and Geography

DELICIOUS LANDMARKS

Building edible landmarks is a fun social studies project for students of all ages and grade levels.

Students are challenged to use a variety of food items to construct a historical landmark.

Landmark ideas include the Eiffel Tower, Stonehenge, Egyptian pyramids, the Coliseum of Rome and the Empire State Building.

Food supplies can include pretzel rods, wafer cookies, graham crackers, small rectangular cakes, candy stones, peppermint sticks, licorice ropes, various shaped cookies, an assortment of candy and plenty of frosting.

Provide a picture of the landmark and ask the students to work together as a team of two to four to construct the edible landmarks.

Assign each student a specific culture or let them pick from a hat.

On the day of your feast, students should prepare their selected food to share with the class.

Ask the students to share a brief history of the specific food, such as who invented it and how it has changed over the years or it’s cultural significance

To add to the fun, students may dress up in traditional cultural costumes related to the food they are sharing and discussing.

Cultural Historical Food Day

This project is fun for middle school students who operate computers well or any age that can cut and paste together a brochure.

If the students can use computers or have time in a computer lab, using a program like Microsoft Office to create a tri-fold brochure.

Students are assigned a state and will make a travel brochure

In the travel brochure, they must report about the state

An Example would be: Name of state, capitol, population/demographics, state flag, state bird/song/flower, and interesting sites.

Scale an accurate map of America to the size of your map and draw out the dimensions.

You can also plan out a fake road trip, write out where you will stop, what attractions you will visit, and how you will map out your route from start to finish

Brochures and a report of the information will be presented in class

Make a travel brochure Project

Presidential Presentations or Historical Figure Dress up

Assign a president or historical figure to each student

Students must put together a report aboutthe person with required elements.

Students dress up like their assigned person of Interest and present their report