Kirsten 0:00

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 Kirsten at 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.

Kirsten 0:47

Hi there, and welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. I am so glad that it is finally spring, and we are back into April, warmer weather. It's all downhill from here as far as weather is concerned. I love hot weather, so I am all for the warmer weather. I hope you are too, or I hope you are at least enjoying your week so far. We are going to be tackling a challenge that I know many of us have faced, and that is how to make those dry or complex social studies topics more engaging. Maybe you're teaching state history and your students are yawning through those early settlement lessons. Or you might be covering ancient civilizations, and instead of them being fascinated by the pyramids and the gladiators of ancient Rome, your students are completely disengaged. I hear you, some topics are more fun and some topics are not so fun, and they can feel harder to make exciting, especially if you're not somebody who particularly enjoys a certain topic. But today, I have a few simple engagement hacks to help bring state history, US history, World Cultures, and ancient civilizations to life for your students. So basically, anything related to upper elementary this is going to be just for you.

Kirsten 2:08

All right, we're going to start with the very first hack, and that is to start with a story. This is one of the easiest ways to engage students in social studies. Instead of diving right into the facts and dates in a lesson or in a specific topic, introduce the compelling narrative that is connecting students to the topic on a more personal level. So thinking, if you might teach your state's history, such as Texas history or Ohio History, instead of listing the key explorers and settlers, you can tell the story of one individual. Maybe it could be a real life pioneer or an indigenous leader or an immigrant to that state who might have played a role in shaping your state's history. Lizzie Johnson is somebody who comes to mind, especially maybe around this time of year. You might be talking about the Texas cattle industry, or economic industries in the 1800s specifically to Texas, I know Lizzie Johnson was really big at cattle ranching, and she was a major contributor of the Chisholm Trail so that's just one of many examples. And then, in relation to ancient civilizations, maybe you're teaching about ancient Egypt. You don't just want to talk about pharaohs. You can try telling a story of perhaps King Tut's tomb discovery and the curse that followed, and even something interesting about like what they thought he might have looked like, and different things about him that we know of now, those are some interesting things to read on. Thinking about world culture, if you're thinking about, you know, contemporary societies, different regions around the world, maybe, if you're thinking about global celebrations, you can start with the story about a child that's experiencing their first Diwali festival or Lunar New Year parade. You can try to find real examples of that. And then, of course, US history, which many of you might be teaching, let's say, or covering something about the American Revolution. You can introduce Paul Revere's ride as if it were some type of suspenseful movie scene with tension and movement and that sense of urgency. And I can think, too, a specific poem Paul Revere's ride that we would always talk about, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, that you could put in there kind of make a little bit interesting and fun. But our brains are wired for these types of stories, and when you add in stories, or start with the story, rather than just going into the straight Facts, students will remember those characters and emotions and experiences so much better than maybe a list of names and a list of dates. Plus a great story hooks attention and it gets them curious about the lesson or the topic that they're going to be learning about. If you're looking for more steps to hook students with stories, I do have a podcast episode and an article. I'll make sure to link it in the show notes. It's called Fun facts and surprising stories, four Steps to hooking students for social studies with the stories.

Kirsten 5:12

All right, now let's go into Hack number two, and that is to gamify the content. I love games, and I'm sure you may too or have loved games in the past, especially as a student. If students are tuning out, you can always make it a game, just kind of make it fun, make it something interesting. When you're adding that element of competition or problem solving or role playing, it can instantly change a boring lesson into something they actually might want to participate in. So a few ways you could do this is maybe some type of trivia challenge. You can do a Jeopardy style review game with categories related to the unit that you're teaching or talking about. There's always webquest activities where students are given an internet source and then they would answer guided questions about that topic. You could do some type of simulation where, let's say maybe you're teaching about colonial America. You can turn your classroom into maybe some type of Colony, or you might have different groups, different colonies or regions of the 13 colonies, and they have to barter and trade and make decisions about survival. So that could be super interesting, good tie in to economics, and maybe they either bring in or create however they want, maybe Play Doh, or they can draw it and use construction paper to create their different resources that are common in that specific region of the 13 colonies or the specific colony, and they have to figure out how to trade and barter all that good stuff. So that's just one idea. And then I know, when I was teaching fifth grade US history, we did -it was an assembly line simulation where students were they were now factory workers, and there was somebody who had to, you know, decide on who the leader was and who the child was and there were different parts of the simulation, but they had to create toy soldiers. So that was just like a really interesting way to show how conditions were in the 20th century at the industrial facilities that might have been in the north, such as like a textile factory or a toy factory. Now the last idea would be historical role playing. I mentioned the role playing earlier. You can let students take on the roles of different historical figures and perhaps debating real world issues. So maybe thinking about US Constitution, you have students that are role playing different delegates arguing over the structure of government, knowing what specifically the people that were debating on the Constitution, what should be added, what should not be added, and even thinking about the Great Compromise, as they say, because there were some different things that were going on that they didn't quite agree on, but then eventually they did, so that's always something to look into and explore more. So here is why gamifying content works. Games are tapping into student motivation. It makes learning feel like some type of challenge, or it's just more interactive, more hands on, rather than your typical lecture with notes and maybe a slide show. Those are definitely needed and important, but it's also important to make it fun and gamified. Plus you might have some competitive kids out there, it encourages participation from even your most reluctant learners so that's always a bonus. If you're looking for webquests, because I did mention that I do have a resource, and I also have a blog post and podcast episode on how you can implement webquests, whether you want to create your own or use WebQuests - I give you some information on how you can do that and learn more about it.

Kirsten 9:00

All right, let's go into hack number three, and that is to use primary sources in a hands on way. One of the common mistakes I will say that a lot of teachers might make is relying too much on textbooks or summaries and Teacher Guides instead of letting the students experience history for themselves. So this is a really great way to tie in with primary sources. Instead of telling them exactly what happened, using, you know, secondary sources, all that good stuff, let them discover it firsthand by working with real historical materials and documents. So some ideas include letters and diaries. You can have students read excerpts from real letters and analyze them like detectives. You could use old newspapers where you're showing students newspaper clippings from major historical events, and then you can have them figure out the different perspectives that shaped that reporting. I was think it's really interesting looking even to see the tone and the type of headlines used in newspapers from even 50, 60, years ago - it's really interesting to look at. And artifacts and images. You could find photographs, perhaps of immigrant families arriving at Ellis Island or pyramids under construction, or maybe even skyscrapers under construction, and then you can ask students to make inferences about daily life. I also really like the idea - something I kind of put in my units is the skyline of New York, what it looks like at the turn of the century, in the 1900s, at the end of the 1900s, and after September 11, and what it looks like today. So that's really great to also see if you can find anything of wherever you live in your state, or a community that you live in nearby, that students would be familiar with. You can maybe find really important landmarks or buildings that are under construction or just completely look different than how they do now, that's always something you can always kind of have them look at and see how things have changed. And then also, if, let's say you're thinking about culture and society, you're teaching about global traditions, you can have students analyze ancient artwork or any folk tales, religious texts, to see how different cultures express their beliefs. In middle school and high school and college, I took Latin, and so I really thought it was cool to see the different artwork and pottery in Latin, and even just some of the different letters that they used like they didn't have the letter U, so they used V instead. So just thinking about that, and just looking first hand looking at pottery or just any type of Latin text on ancient artifacts was really interesting, and just kind of see how things have changed, kind of like related to the artifacts and images you might have shown your students before or in the future. So just to wrap that all up and why this is a really great tool, primary sources can make students feel like real historians instead of just passively learning information, getting information thrown at them, they are building critical thinking skills or creating a sense of connection to the past, and it even builds their interest, and they might want to explore it further, or in the case of me, in Latin, I wanted to continue taking Latin and learning as much as I can about ancient Roman culture. If you are interested in learning about primary sources, I do have a blog post and an episode about that, and I'll link that in the show notes. It's all about ways to utilize primary sources and I give you some examples and websites where you can pull primary sources that are great for personal classroom use.

Okay, the last hack I have for you to make boring Social Studies less boring. You can bring social studies to life with hands on projects. So if you have students who are losing interest, you can let them create something. This is always really great. Hands on always does the trick, especially if they are pretty antsy and ready to get out of school, maybe especially around this time of year, April is kind of one of those months where it's like, oh, okay, we have gotten through most of it, and we still have a little ways to go, but not quite so just to kind of spark things up, you can always use projects. You can have even the most complex topics with projects more engaging, more tangible, so few ideas you could do, perhaps a state history map challenge. Give students an illustrated map of their state, and you can have them - you can see if they can label the different cities and natural features and highlighting any key historical events and landmarks within that state where it took place. Another idea is to have some type of ancient civilization diorama, have students build a mini replica of a Roman city, ancient Chinese village, or, you know, somewhere like in Aztec Mayan culture, thinking about, you know, what they've learned about those ancient civilizations, whatever you might be studying, you can have them create a diorama of what that would look like. It can be really entertaining to see what they come up with. There's also another idea here, cultural food festival. So if you are teaching about, you know, different regions of the world. You can assign each student, or you can have them pick a country and let them research or prepare a dish from that region, get them to bring it in, have a recipe card, taste test, all the fun stuff. You could even do it like, you know, how they have it on Food Network or Great British Baking Show. Make it a challenge, however you want to do it, make it fun. And then also, another idea could be to have a living museum. So instead of a traditional biography research project, you let the students dress up as a person of their choices, a historical figure. And they are presenting and talking as historical figures so it's like a class museum tour. If you don't want to have them dressed up, you can alternatively do something where they get like a toilet paper roll or a paper towel roll, and they can decorate that paper towel roll and have that but I think it's really fun to have a living museum component. It adds a little bit of extra depth to your typical biography research project. So hands on projects work really well, because when students are creating something meaningful, they are personally invested in the learning, and it allows students to kind of shine with their different learning styles, whether it's the visual spatial, or maybe they are big foodies, they love to cook and they love to create recipes and bake and all that good stuff - that's always really great to have in there. And also thinking about people who really love maps, they love, you know, learning about geography, it kind of hits on the different learning styles and personality types there. And if you're looking for some ideas as far as book projects, because that can be really hands on, depending on the type of project you allow them to do. I have a blog post and I have a podcast episode about this, and I will again, make sure to link these all in the show notes, so it's called Book projects in grades three through five, and how to conduct them. And then if you're looking for specifically PBL project ideas, I will also link that in there, because I think project based learning is a really great component to add in there. I give you several ideas in the blog post and episode.

So to recap, the four simple engagement hacks to make social studies less boring and more exciting are starting with a story where you're hooking students with narrative before diving right into the facts, number two, gamifying the content, where you're turning lessons into challenges, competitions, and role playing experiences, number three, using primary sources in a hands on way, you're letting students analyze real letters and photos and artifacts, newsletters, newspapers, all the good stuff, videos, audio, and number four, bringing social studies to life with hands on projects. So you're encouraging creativity through maps, dioramas, living history activities, project based learning. Social Studies does not have to be boring, it should be interactive, engaging and memorable. And by making those small tweaks to your lessons, you can turn even the driest topics into something your students will love. I hope you enjoyed this episode and stick around for more next week. I will talk to you later, and I hope you have a great 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.