I have always tried to incorporate hands on activities for students in all the lessons I do. Obviously, some lessons are easier than others to accomplish this. Social Studies was always harder for me to think of activities as well.
This is my third year teaching. This year, a new teacher came to my school who has similar teaching philosophies as I do. She also teaches Social Studies. At the start of the school year we talked about how we both wanted to do more hands on activities during our lessons. We spent a lot of time planning out our daily instruction with an emphasis on having the students get up out of their seats.
This last unit we both saw the benefits of teaching this way. We just completed a unit on the French and Indian War. During the unit one of our classes were French, while the other class was British. We then had a "war" with each other. We did not actually fight but we did send letters and leaders to each other's forts to try and convince them to stop the war. We then had to try and convince Native Americans to join our side. The Native Americans were the office staff, custodians, and other teachers.
The students were very excited each day for Social Studies. I had not experienced that in my previous two years. Each day the students asked what we were going to be doing that day, even before class started. When we tested the students we were worried that they were not going to remember details about the war. However, the students did very well on the paper and pencil test. We also received praise from parents. One parent emailed, "My daughter will not stop talking about the French and Indian War. She cannot wait to find out what happens next."
I hope to continue this the rest of the year. I know not every unit can go this well. Hopefully, we have not set the bar too high!
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Social Studies is so much for fun for the students when they are fully engaged in what is going on. I've done a few units over the years where they've really gotten involved and those are the lessons in which they seemed to have retained the most information.
ReplyDeleteThis is something I need to really put more effort into doing year after year. It does take a lot of planning, but if it goes well the hard work is totally worth the effort. It's also great that you're using writing with social studies. Always need to take advantage of a chance to mix subject areas!
Mr. Lieber, I, too, like the hands on activities for my students. This is just my second year, full-time, teaching fourth grade. I'm not sure what grade you teach but in fourth grade we teach Ohio History. Our text discusses the French and Indian War. The Ohio Valley, as you know, was smack in the middle of this conflict. Your idea to wage "war" between the classes is a fantastic idea. We are self-contained so implementing something similar in my school would work out well, I think. I'm going to consider using a similar approach with the issue of slavery when we get to that lesson. I can imagine my students taking sides, for and against,and writing letters, friendly, business, and pursuasive to each other and/or another class, maybe even another grade level. Thanks for helping me to get my creative juices flowing! Have a blast!
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