Interactive Social Studies: Making History Cool Again!

Engaging Teaching ideas & Idea Share

https://tinyurl.com/st2wydvw

Just for Social Studies???

• Absolutely not!

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• You will find many of these ideas easily cross over to other subject areas.

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• Many of the principles can be adapted across subjects as well.

Quizlet

• Teacher created flashcards sets that correspond to a chapter/unit of your text book
• Assign through Google Classroom
• A variety of study options/activities
• Flip, Study, Match, Test
• Quizlet Live…independent or teams

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Quizizz

• Gamified quizzes
• Teacher created questions
• Create your own or borrow questions from others
• Powerups
• Class competition
• Brief Overview
• Use its AI to create quizzes from other documents/videos???
• youtube video to quiz creator??

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Kahoot!

Online Simulations

Mission: US (PBS produced)

1. For Crown or Colony
2. Flight to Freedom
3. A Cheyenne Odyssey
4. City of Immigrants

MISSION: US

• Comes complete with lesson plans
• Excellent selection of student activities to supplement simulation
• In classroom or out of classroom
• You can save!
• Online or offline capability
• Lends well to discussion
• Takes about a week each to complete

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MISSION: US

Other Online Simulations

From nationalgeographic.com

https://web.archive.org/web/20200315023648/https://www.nationalgeographic.org/interactive/journey-freedom-underground-railroad/

You are a slave. You belong to a farmer who owns a tobacco plantation on the eastern shore of Maryland. Six long days a week you tend his field. But not for much longer . . .

What will you do? Make your choices well as you embark on your journey to freedom.

Other Online Simulations

Over the Top: WWI

https://www.warmuseum.ca/overthetop/game/

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Geography games

• Seterra
• Sheppard Software

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Online/Offline board games

• Risk
• Imperialism/WWI
• https://www.pogo.com/games/risk-pogo-domination/play
• Freedom: The Underground Railroad
• Oregon Trail
• https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_Deluxe_The_1992
• Card/board game

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Offline Simulations

Finance Education

• Banzai.org

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• Mind Your Budget (University of Oklahoma)
• https://gameportal.k20center.ou.edu/

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Quality Educational Video

• Learn360.com
• WELS Subscription Services
• Check with your local Education Service Unit. You may already have access to a similar site
• American History Video Quiz series

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• America the Story of Us (History Channel)
• Fantastic production value, info, and visuals
• Youtube series link
• Youtube
• Utilize an ad blocker & YouTube cleaner browser add on. Remember to preview!

Others to try…

• SEQUENTIAL VIDEO-BASED CURRICULUM VIDEOS/QUIZZES

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• http://www.hippocampus.org/

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• https://www.khanacademy.org/

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Film/Film Clips

• Copywrite law allows educators to show any film for educational purposes
• Again, preview. Mute/skip, when necessary
• Recommendations? Google is your friend.

Student created video assessments

• Show 7:20-9:48 of French & Indian War Video

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• 3-4^th grade community videos

Research Online

• CIA World Factbook

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• Worldbookweb Student Encyclopedia online
• online subscription through our ESU

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Explore Your Book’s Website!

• Check your own textbooks to see what great resources your students can use or you can project!
• Vocabulary activities, games, summaries, webquests, quizzes, other extended learning content

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Explore other books’ websites!

• Even if yours doesn’t have one or if you would like to supplement, see if other books have them
• Taj.glencoe.com

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• Classzone.com…RETIRED

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Government Learning

• icivics.org

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https://www.icivics.org/games

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Videos, articles, GREAT GAMES and SIMULATIONS

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Webquests

• Online task to research info and work with that info to produce a finished assignment or report.
• Bestwebquests.com (waybackmachine)
• Webquest.org (Coming in March)

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• Introduction
• Task
• Process
• Evaluation
• Conclusion
• Credits

Songs/Raps

• Find great recordings!
• Have students make one as an assessment
• Make your own to share content with students
• EXAMPLES
• Continents, Presidents, States, Capitals, Bible
• Flocabulary.com
• Ancient Mesopotamia Song
• youtube link

Video/song examples

• Flocabulary
• Fertile Crescent�
• President’s Song
• PDF of piano sheet music

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• School House Rock Collection
• Preamble Song

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Daily News/Current Events�10 min daily videos

• The World from A-Z
• https://worldatoz.org/�
• CNN 10
• https://www.cnn.com/cnn10

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• NHK World – Japan
• https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/programs/#1001

A Great Variety of Reading Strategies

• Essential Question/Enrolling Question
• Reading Train
• Inside/outside circles (good for reviews, too)
• Small group, desk partner, random partner, solo, etc.
• Random student/group maker tools
• What are your creative ways to read a lesson from a textbook???

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Textbook Audiobook

• Electronic texts
• Bookshare.org
• Read Aloud google chrome plug-in
• Reading example
• https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/
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Keep your class engaged…

• 20 Engagement Strategies…
• https://www.3plearning.com/blog/20-student-engagement-strategies-captivating-classroom/

Children’s Literature (for big kids too!)

Storytime…location, location, location!

• Read your children’s lit book in a special place!
• Reading corner, go outside
• Read from your textbook in the same way!
• Drill students to understand that history is a whole collection of stories

Debates

• Pick out a controversial topic
• Women’s voting rights
• Slavery
• How a government should spend a set amount of money
• Immigration policy

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EXAMPLE OF PROCEDURE

• Display a poster in the room a week in advance to create anticipation
• Divide students into difference sides
• Allow time to research and to get together with same side
• Rearrange room or go somewhere special to hold the debate
• Set clear ground rules for speaking/participating

Virtual Field Trips

• Through use of live streaming technology, presenters from long distances can present to your classroom or many school at once
• Students can respond and interact with the presenter
• Local/Regional/National
• Optional day-after recordings
• VFT LIST https://nvis.esucc.org/vftlist.aspx

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Facetime/Zoom/penpal a Missionary or student?

Guest Speakers from community

• Have local “talent” speak from personal experience!!!
• Vietnam, Korean, Gulf Wars
• Geography studies
• Mayor

Making Connections to your own life

• Tell students where in the country/world you have been
• Inspire them to travel as well!
• Show pictures from your stay

Student choice and variety in unit projects

• Allow students to choose the kind of project they prefer from a pool you have preselected
• Allow students to present in the way they prefer
• Let’s them choose a multiple intelligence they are good at
• Student choice increases motivation and quality of end product

Unit 4 “The New Republic” �U.S. History

• Illustrating Reading Assignments (make a list, and create an original drawing)
• Describe the present day departments of the President’s Cabinet
•  Draw a political cartoon dealing with some aspect of the Unit
•  Write a tribute to George Washington
• Writing a letter FROM John Adams TO Thomas Jefferson ABOUT John Marshall
•  Describing Washington D.C.
•  Lewis and Clark Travel West MAP
•  Lewis and Clark letter
•  Protest the Action of the Barbary Pirates
•  Rewriting a Famous Song
•  Flow Chart Poster and explanation 
• The Amazing Erie Canal
• Interesting Characters of the late 1700s and early 1800s

Questions???�What about your ideas?

• Which strategies or activities have you used that your kids love and where learning actually happens???

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