5 Ways to Make Social Studies Fun

Kirsten 0:09

This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm curious to know the southern teach an educator and mom who is passionate about all things, social studies, I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. It's hard to believe that it is already April. And it just seems like two days ago was January. I don't know where time goes. But it is crazy to think that, you know, it is springtime, and it's almost the summer time and it's almost the end of the school year. But either way, I wanted to kind of start off this month with a light and fun episode, in honor of it being April Fool's Day yesterday, if you're listening to this when it's live. So we're gonna think about five ways to make social studies fun. I'm going to be just talking about some ideas of how you can kind of get your students engaged with a variety of random activities that could be something that you can incorporate in your classroom.

So first up on our list is biographie lapbooks. These are interactive projects that can blend research, creativity and presentation skills. Of course, into one exciting activity, students can dive into the lives of historical figures and explore their achievements, challenges and impact on society. Students can add colorful graphics and have filled out sections and different commentary and just kind of responses to the different topics and sections. These biography lap books that students create can bring history to life. Whether it's talking about influential leaders, groundbreaking inventors, or unsung heroes, these lapbooks offer a really fun hands on approach to learning that students will not forget, I talked about doing lock books in a previous episode. And I will make sure to link that it's Episode 32, using literary nonfiction with social studies. And I kind of go into more depth of how I utilized it with biographies. But I think this is just a really fun way to make it, you know, interesting to learn about different people rather than like reading a biography about them, they can create a lap book about it. And I always just use large rectangular poster board, but we would fold it into thirds. So the main bulk of what is when they're folding, it's not going to be quite a brochure, because there's going to be no the two flaps that are in the front are going to be a lot smaller than that middle section. If that makes sense. I'll make sure to link this on my blog. And I'll show a couple of pictures of how I utilize this with my actual students. I also have this in a couple of my units, including one of my newer units, famous heroes in communities. So this is in the third grade communities curriculum. It's a four week unit, but it talks about a variety of military heroes and state national heroes and first responders. So this is something that is a project, it's basically they can pick whichever hero they want. And they are going to be filling in information based on what they've researched. And then they create a printable, they can create a printable lap book. And I also have a digital lab book. It's really cool, because if you have it in slideshow mode, they can actually click on the different tabs and it'll go to that specific page. So I've made it nice and fancy digital wise. But if you're interested in that, you can check it out in the shownotes wherever you're listening to this podcast.

Let's go into the second idea. So the second idea I have is to think about memes. So have some type of social studies meme activity, because who says learning can't be hilarious? So you might have heard or might your students if you haven't heard, they know that meme of like, what are those? You know, they're pointing to shoes, and it's what are those? That's a meme. There's all kinds of other means there's photo memes, there's audio memes that it's just something that kind of gets popular and is kind of converted into something else and can be put into other contexts. So by harnessing the power of the internet culture, you can always engage students by having memes. So from witty captions to different images, you can have students create memes, or you can create memes that capture the essence of whatever you're talking about historical events, political movements, and cultural phenomena. Now, we don't want to, like, you know, make fun of people or anything like that. But we can make it light and kind of clever as far as you know, just kind of taking a historical event, while you're talking about unrelated to something that is more relatable in our current time. So these memes can not only spark some laughter, but they can also encourage some critical thinking and some deeper understanding of the complex concepts depending on if you discuss these memes afterwards. And kind of the meaning of why the memes are the way they are.

All right, going into the third idea I have for you is to have students chart their own courses with their own country, so have some type of project where they are designing their own nations and maps related to a country that they completely make up. From rugged coastlines to bustling cities, students can craft every detail of their fictional landscapes, they want to think about, you know, terrain, climate, resources, geography, what their flag looks like, like literally everything, there's so many different things that you can think about. And they can also just gain a deeper appreciation in general for how the different cultures in real life in our countries can kind of interconnect and how diverse our country is, as a whole and how diverse our world is. I do have a resource related to this. And it is happening to be a create a country research project. So this is a project based learning activity. I have lots of guided questions for students to create their own country. And they can literally the sky's the limit of however they want to make it and they're going to create a brochure and a advertisement of some sort to convince people to come live in their country. So it's really fine. It goes into all domains, geography, economics, the history of their country, culture of their country, the government, how their government is structured, so it's really kind of hitting all the bases and it makes it really fun and of your activity.

All right. Going into the fourth way to make social studies fun is thinking about a virtual field trip. So I love having virtual field trips with the click of a button. You can have students explore ancient ruins, tour museums, and also immerse themselves in cultures, all from the comfort of their own classroom in their own laptops. Whether they're scaling the Great Wall of China or looking at hieroglyphics, virtual excursions, virtual field trips can offer a window into history that goes beyond time and space. One of the sources I'm going to share with you is related to the Anne Frank museum. It's a virtual museum. And I'll make sure to link that I utilize this link with my students. And we had like a kind of a corresponding worksheet activity sheet like with questions, and like, you know, kind of guiding them to go through the Anne Frank House. And they really, really enjoyed it, they can actually go and see all of the different places where Anne Frank and her family and the other families were in hiding during World War Two. And additionally, if you go to learning.th c.texas.gov, forward slash virtual field trips, you will see a variety of different virtual field trips, you can kind of go into indigenous Texas, Texas Revolution, the Republic of Texas entrepreneurial Texas, World War Two in the world made so this is another really great way especially if your your Texas history or you are located in Texas, this is a great way to kind of learn a little bit about different historic places in Texas and how it relates to what you're talking about in your classroom.

And the fifth place or the fifth activity I have to make social studies fun is to go on a web quest adventure. Web quests are online scavenger hunts where you're challenging students to navigate the Internet. And you can do this through sources that you've already pre vetted for your students or have somebody else pre vet them and they are answering guided questions related to information on that specific web. Ah, so this is a really great kind of way to foster critical thinking skills, research skills, and also just more digital literacy. And I do have a another episode related to web quests that I did previously in this podcast. And that is episode number 18. Three easy steps to practice research skills with web quests. So you can always check that up if you want to learn more information about web quests in itself, and how it kind of is organized, and how you can create your own web quests. But if you're looking for a simple activity idea, I do have a whole bundle of web quests that you can take a look at a variety of topics that you can utilize throughout the year, very seasonal, some are evergreen, some you can just utilize just for fun with subs. And they're all pre vetted web pages that are kid friendly. And students are answering the questions. And they can also check their answers as well. So hopefully you can check that out.

And also kind of think about some of the different activities that I shared with you whether it's doing some meme activities, or doing some of the different virtual field trips doing a biography lap book or even the Create your own country activity. Hopefully, this kind of gets your brain thinking about ways social studies can be fun and not as boring as we might have grown up with for elementary, because I really do think that, you know, teaching history and having students learn about history, whether it's history of their community or history of the country, can be really beneficial and just kind of help them have a more globalized thinking, and just overall enhance their knowledge about their communities and the world around them. So anyway, we can make it fun. I definitely say go for it. All right. That's the end of this episode. Hope you enjoyed it. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.

Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode. For more teacher tips and strategies

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