Have you ever had a good book that you felt so emotionally connected to that you felt you lived the lives of the characters? Have you ever been reading and your hands are shaking, your heart is pounding, and you are out of breath, but you haven’t left the couch? If your answer is yes, then I think you can figure out where I’m going with this fun social studies activity for middle schoolers.
What if we could teach so that students felt deeply connected to what was being learned? And I don’t mean those individuals who happen to have a close connection to a specific topic, but a whole class connecting to what might seem like a very distant topic. Like deep history. Or government.
The best part of a good book and the best part of learning, coming together over a game. Competition between students who have an interest in independently finding out everything they can about a particular ancient civilization. Or suddenly become passionate about designing a government. Or a religion. Or a sewage system! (No spoilers…but this is a legitimate answer to my fun social studies activity for middle schoolers, which is posted in my Free Resources tab).
Finding ways to engage kids these days with the history requirements of Middle Schoolers requires ingenuity and creativity, but here’s the key: make them want to find out for themselves.
I’ve attached a new resource in the Teaching Resources tab of this website. It connects to a part of the Grade 7 Social Studies Curriculum where I live and teach. It’s a set of slides that you can connect into any power point in order to create a learning experience that prompts inquiry, authentic learning, and genuine excitement!
Say you have to introduce the idea of government or religion. Students generally need to understand this sort of thing as a way to organize and manage large groups of people, like cities and nations. What if, rather than telling them everything, you set up the circumstances so that they had to compete with other groups in order to solve a problem before anyone else? If you give them the right challenge, they’re automatically set up to try to develop some sort of way to organize their people, likely a government.
Regardless, they’ll develop a stronger idea of what it looks like to be an organized society. Plus, it will give them a chance to try to figure out something that they are closely invested in; namely, the chance of their group to succeed in competition with another group.
What I’m Enjoying Right Now:
I’m in the middle of report cards right now, so no time to read as much as I would like to. I do have a book I’ve been enjoying though, which I will post below. If you’d like report card ideas, here is the blog entry where I talk about it, along with a free resource.
Reading: Quiet is a Superpower by Jill Chang
So far I have been enjoying this. I’ll review it properly when it’s finished but it seems to be a run down of tips for introverts in the business world. Interesting ideas, and her anecdotes feel very relatable.