[00:00:00] Kirsten: 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. Feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm Kirsten of the Southern teach, an educator and mom who is passionate about all things social studies.

[00:00:30] I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement, so let's dive in together.

[00:00:48] Hi there, and welcome to another episode of the Social Studies Teacher podcast. I wanted to do something a little fun and special because I happened to go on to my podcast [00:01:00] analytics and I noticed. That we are officially at 10,000 downloads. So thank you guys for tuning in, listening, re-listening to some of your favorite episodes or just being in support of my podcast.

[00:01:18] I truly appreciate it. And if you're watching this on YouTube, I'm super excited to almost hit. 500 subscribers. So thank you for supporting the little channel I have here, and I'm hoping to continue to support you as social studies educator. So I wanted to highlight the top 10 most downloaded podcast episodes of all time from the beginning of the podcast in June of 2023.

[00:01:51] That is where we're gonna go all the way back. We're gonna highlight some really great things about each of the 10 episodes, [00:02:00] and of course you'll get those links in the description if you want to give those episodes another listen. Of course, I can't start the episode without making sure that you know that you can subscribe.

[00:02:12] You can like this YouTube channel, or you can always listen to podcast episodes wherever you love to listen to podcasts, whether that's on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, wherever it is, you can always check that out and listen on the go. And there's always a blog version of most if not all episodes if you go to the southern teach.com/blog.

[00:02:36] So I wanted to plug that in and we are gonna go ahead and get started on number 10. We're gonna go kind of countdown style and I can't wait to get started. Okay, here we go. Number 10 is actually very timely to this time of year. It is the cultural sensitivity during the holiday season episode. This aired in November of 2023.

[00:02:58] I created this [00:03:00] episode based off of my experiences as an adult in the classroom. With other students of a variety of backgrounds. I grew up in a private school for most of my elementary years. And we were just doing Christmas. It wa there was no learning about other holidays, even though there are plenty of winter holidays that other communities celebrate.

[00:03:26] And when I became a teacher, I realized how important it is to be able to expose students to a variety. Of holidays, whether that is something they celebrate or something they may not celebrate. 'cause it's a really great way to compare and appreciate other cultures. So I share with you three ideas and things to think about when you are in the classroom.

[00:03:55] You might be at a public school, you have a student population that's very [00:04:00] diverse and they celebrate a variety of things during the holiday season. And just things to keep in mind. So that you can be culturally sensitive and supportive to your students during this time. This also includes an experience I had with a student who didn't have any celebrations.

[00:04:15] They did not celebrate birthdays, did they did not celebrate holidays, and I share both my experience and how I navigated that situation with a very helpful parent. Number nine. I am not surprised at this, but it is the five key components to a social studies lesson, and I actually re-brought this episode onto this video version of the podcast.

[00:04:41] So it is a video YouTube version. I'll put both links in there so that you have it. But I go into five easy ways you can teach social studies. For pretty much any topic, starting from making sure students are aware of student learning [00:05:00] objectives all the way through having a strong check for understanding or assessment or exit ticket so you can assess whether students have learned the actual content.

[00:05:11] This was initially published December 9th, 2024. Number eight was published August 15th, 2023, and this is five steps to Setting Up Interactive Social Studies. Notebooks. While I initially had to have interactive notebooks for the school I taught at, I learned to love them. And it was a really great routine, especially with social studies.

[00:05:36] We didn't really have a lot of things to work with and content to work with, and when I did create guided notes. And some type of anchor chart, and we kept up with the table of contents, making sure that they would write in their entries and page numbers and take notes and all that great stuff. There was that accountability.

[00:05:55] We used it for open notes for quizzes and some assessments, [00:06:00] and it was a great way to track learning over time, but I really enjoyed. Setting up the notebooks themselves. It was one of the very first activities we did in our social studies block. So I taught ELA in social studies, and the first day we would set up our ELA notebooks, and then the second day, or if we had time later on, we would set up our social studies notebooks.

[00:06:22] And this could take 1, 2, 2 days depending on how much time you have. I recommend it for the beginning of the school year, but it's never too late to set up interactive notebooks if that's something you want to do. Alright, number seven. Three Frustrating Challenges Social Studies teachers face. This is one of my very first episodes that I had.

[00:06:43] It was published in June of 2023, and this was another one that I re featured at the beginning of season three of the Social Studies Teacher podcast in a video episode format. So I talked about, I think one or two different frustrations, [00:07:00] but this. Particular podcast episode, one of the first ones talked about three frustrations, and I'll just highlight a big one is the lack of resources.

[00:07:09] There's never usually enough social studies resources that hits on exactly what you need, and that's part of why I create the guided curriculum that's primarily aligned to Texas teachers, and I can't wait to expand into middle school. So seventh and eighth grade teachers hang tight. There will be social studies, resources coming your way.

[00:07:32] Number six is something a little bit more recent, and it was published in July of 2025. It is the first 10 days of social studies. I basically took two weeks, the first 10 days. Of your school year and what you could do to incorporate social studies. So I go from step to step in a lot of detail of what you can do on day one, day two, day three, all the way to [00:08:00] day 10.

[00:08:01] And of course I had to incorporate interactive notebooks and then gradually building with certain concepts and certain. Activities and also making sure you're adding in that classroom community building because that is incredibly important as you're establishing procedures and routines with your new class at the beginning of the year.

[00:08:22] Number five is a great one. It was published in June of 2023, and it's four reasons why Social Studies. Should be a priority. This is something that, of course, is super important to me. Having social studies not on the back burner, but rather something that is daily and something that students are looking forward to and wanting to learn more about.

[00:08:45] Because I think as. Citizens of our community, it's important for us to understand the history of different communities, whether it's our local community or the entire world history or state history or country's history. And [00:09:00] then in addition to that, knowing ways to be good citizens, showing civic responsibility, understanding where things are located.

[00:09:08] All of those social studies concepts are important to know as citizens and just human beings knowing about our world and the things happening around us. So that in a nutshell, is why I think social studies should be a priority. But I list four reasons in this specific podcast episode that you should definitely check out.

[00:09:28] Number four was published in July of 2024, and it's five activity ideas. For the first week of school. So this is a little bit different from the first 10 day plan. This is primarily thinking in mind for the first week of school, and I give five activity ideas you can do. They're kind of correlated to my back to school social studies activity pack that I ended up creating after I created that podcast episode.

[00:09:55] 'cause I was so excited. I was like, oh my gosh, these are great activities. I need to create something like this that's low prep. [00:10:00] That's. Teachers can easily do. So there's a little bit of those activities in that activity pack, and I believe the link is somewhere on the blog post if you do wanna check out more information about that.

[00:10:12] But these not only can be back for the first week of school, but think even back to the first week after winter break. That could be a really great thing to incorporate as far as just getting, you know, there's two weeks off for winter break for most. Schools and districts. Then when you're getting back into the.

[00:10:32] You know, the nitty gritty of January and that post winter break slump incorporating some fun little activities to build that classroom community. Remind students of the rules because even if they're in fifth grade, I have learned they still need to be reminded of all of the different things we're supposed to do at school.

[00:10:53] And what we need to turn in and all that great stuff. So I think that this could be not only useful for the very first [00:11:00] week of school, but it could be useful for the first week back after your winter break. So bookmark this episode. Listen to it maybe on winter break so you can get some ideas. Alright, here we go.

[00:11:11] Number three was also published in July of 2023. These are another one of my very first episodes that people love to go back and listen to, or that's where they start, if they come across this podcast. And that is four Ways to Make Social Studies in Engaging, because I know that. If you don't have the resources or you don't have the time or you don't know what to do to make it engaging, it can be really hard.

[00:11:38] And so this episode highlights some strategies that have worked for me to make it fun and make it something that students could look forward to. I know science can easily be fun with science experiments and all sorts of stuff. Math can easily be fun with math games and. Different fun activities with dry erase boards or something like [00:12:00] that, and it could be hard with social studies to kind of pull that same type of energy into the subject, especially when you don't have the tools.

[00:12:08] Or know how to do so. So that episode was a great one, and I can understand why it is one of the top three downloaded episodes in the podcast. So number two is technically not a real episode, but I can understand why it is one of the top two. It is the trailer of the social studies teacher podcast, but it is featured at the very top of most podcast platforms like Spotify.

[00:12:34] If you are just coming across my podcast, it's usually gonna be the first thing you see and probably one of the first episodes you listen to. So it is a little episode. It gives an intro as to who I am and what I have done in the classroom and my experience in the classroom and what I wanted to do as far as my idea and goals for this podcast in general.

[00:12:55] So if you want a little insight as to my origin [00:13:00] story for this podcast, you could always listen to that. It's a great one. To listen to and learn about myself, and number one was published in July of 2023. It is drum roll seven Fun social studies, activities your students will enjoy. This is the top podcast so far as of November 20, 25 that people have downloaded.

[00:13:26] And I can also understand why this is a highlight because. You want something fun, you want social studies to be fun, and I share with you some fun activity ideas that you can incorporate good for any topic. And it's something that is time and time again, something that people will go back and listen to, even if it's all the way down near the bottom of the podcast feed because it's one of my first episodes of the podcast.

[00:13:53] So yeah, that one is the most downloaded episode of all time. And I am so [00:14:00] happy that you guys have enjoyed that episode and all the other ones, I know these two words are overused, but fun and engaging is something that I believe truly that social studies can be for upper elementary students and. Middle school students, it is something that can be done.

[00:14:21] You just have to be a little creative with it. But it doesn't take hours and hours of prep. It doesn't have to take hours and hours of prep. It can if you want it to, but I know me and I don't want to at this time of my life, I. I want something to be simple but powerful, and that is what I strive for as far as sharing ideas.

[00:14:42] It's something that's doable, gives you those quick wins and something that you don't have to pull out all the hat tricks for. That's Pinterest Perfect. Or Instagram or TikTok. Perfect. It could be something that's a little messy, but students remember it. And really, [00:15:00] truly appreciate it. Alright, well thank you so much for 10,000 downloads.

[00:15:05] Here's to 10,000 more, and I truly appreciate you tuning in to the Social Studies Teacher podcast if you're feeling generous. You are more than welcome to rate and review the podcast. If you have been loving this podcast and you've been tuning in, all you have to do is go into Apple Podcast. Make sure you're signed into your account is type in the Social Cities teacher podcast.

[00:15:30] Hit those five stars or however many stars, and share a little bit what you like about the podcast. I would truly appreciate. That. So with that being said, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and I will talk to you next time. Thanks for listening to the Social Studies Teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review.

[00:15:53] I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at. The Southern Teach. I can't wait [00:16:00] for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.