Ways to Make History Exciting in Your Classroom-

1. Join a postcard exchange.
2. Teach students to make salt dough maps of their country and/or state.
3. Write podcasts (or encourage students to write their own) to record on Audacity.
4. Write a play for your class to perform about a specific topic they learn during the school year. At the end of the year, we put on a major production about the native Americans and explorers in Florida in the 1500s (in the area of St. Augustine).
5. Make papier mache masks with your students.
6. Complete hands-on activities with your students about how homes were built during the colonial period. Our class learned about thatch and wattle and daub methods. (Lesson is from the below link- Florida Humanities Council)
7. If you live in Florida, teach a lesson from the variety of lessons offered through the Florida Humanities Council or perhaps St. Augustine 4 Kids. St. Augustine should be mentioned in any elementary history class, to be honest, because it is America's Oldest City.
8. Have students make trading cards of individuals from the past (presidents, conquistadors, native American groups, people involved during the Civil War- the categories are endless). Here is my website for conquistadors.
9. Peruse comic books (graphic novels) with your students. Chester Comix and the Graphic History Series are two history-related series that come to my mind. Additionally, Scholastic has a resource book with comics of the American Revolution, the landing on the moon and more.
10. Or encourage students to make their own comics- by drawing them or online. Visit my technology section of this website for recommendations on where to go.
11. Have a parade by wearing costumes from a period of history you study. It works very well for our school's book characters parade because we are representing non-fiction!
12. Have students write time-travel stories about going back to certain times in history. You may have to be specific and provide a list of possible events.
13. Or you can have students include a "twist" in their stories by bringing in hauntings/ghosts.
14. Have students decorate clay pots, smash them, and put them back together for an interesting archaeology lesson. My class of 2009 was not fond of it- it was challenging because I smashed their pots a bit much. Yet it does teach students what archaeologists have to deal with. You have to come to conclusions.
15. Incorporate food. Everyone likes good food! Have a colonial food day, for example. Have students prepare the foods at school, or have them bring the foods in.
16. Have your class make a living wax museum.
17. If you know about green screen technology, you can make a fabulous video! Or spend a little time learning about it. Set up a green sheet in your classroom with no wrinkles, for starters. Then perhaps when you make your video, tint it sepia and include static lines to make the video look old.
18. Have your students "construct" buildings, whether they are older buildings representing history or newer buildings representing their region.
19. Encourage students to request resources from a variety of places. If you have 25 students, for example, maybe they can send requests to the Department of Tourism for two states each. Here are all the addresses.
20. Ask teachers you know from other states to send your class leaves during the fall season, and compare them. The ones from the northeast and the mountain regions are gorgeous! My kids LOVED this during the 2008-2009 school year.
21. Locate 3-D pictures online, and get your kids 3-D glasses (I think you can actually get a good amount for free somewhere) to view the images. Have a 3-D show for the kids.
22. Have students "interview" a person in history, writing down what they believe answers from that individual would be. Model this first, though, to make sure you get quality interviews!
23. This day in history... you can have mini-celebrations based on what happened today 89 years ago and so on.
24. All kinds of bizarre holidays exist. See for yourself here. September 3rd is Skyscraper Day, for example, and the 4th is Newspaper Carrier Day. Don't forget Citizenship Day on September 17th!
25. Encourage kids to learn about their genealogy. For all you know, their parents are involved in genealogy and have lots of old photos to share. Have students make a visual family tree and write about their families. You'll never believe what some kids have to say about their families.
26. Following the last suggestion, interviewing grandparents is also exciting. How were prices of items different when your grandparents were kids? What kind of car did his or her family have? What were some popular television shows and songs of that time period?
27. Find videos of historical events online, like Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. Or find recordings- these are from Thomas Alva Edison.
28. Some antique stores have old newspapers. I have a newspaper from 1969 saying Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. You may have to do a little bit of searching for different papers.
29. Or purchase old postcards/license plates from antique stores. Kids enjoy them. You may even find an old model of something, like a Model T Ford like we have in our classroom.
30. Have students write letters to important people- try the president of the United States. You never know.
31. Students can also create brochures or search through brochures from different places in their state or nation for information.
32. Have students explore a section of a website like Second Story.
33. Teach about the TITANIC. This website is impressive.
34. Invite guest speakers to come to your classroom- or visit places in your community like City Hall. Our class decorates the Christmas tree at City Hall- it's great to be involved in the community.
35. Find people who have written books that have taken place in your state. Here are a few for Florida- Jane Wood, Melissa Forney (Oonawassee Summer, The Astonishing Journey of Teddy Bodain), Jean Craighead George, Lois Lenski, and Cynthia DeFelice (The Missing Manatee).
36. Have students put together timelines of individuals they have studied or even of themselves. I still remember a timeline I made of my life when I was in seventh grade.
37. Though I wasn't a fan of the show Kid Nation all that much, the kids' bios had questions where they reflected on current events and historical interests. I like the questions they responded to.
38. Have students write journal entries of "being" in a certain time period/event. This is sort of like the story idea. My students wrote about being in a shipwreck/storm after reading Richard Henry Dana's journal entry.
39. Teach kids how to hold a debate.
40. Have kids answer questions to be President for a Day. In the same respect, teach kids about democracy.
41. Give kids a choice when it comes to their assignments.
42. Try an activity from the Weekly Reader calendar.
43. Have the students complete literature circles with Social Studies material.
44. Have your class try text mapping with Social Studies material.
45. Have your class do something neat like making candles or recycled paper.
46. Give students ideas for making PowerPoint presentations. They can do digital storytelling, create a regular PowerPoint with narration, or use a game template.
47. Perhaps students can construct models of forts, castles, or monuments.
48. Have students jam out to educational rap, like Mr. Duey's Branches of Government or Ron Clark's presidential rap. Or watch the video of You Can Vote However You Like.
49. GO ON A FIELD TRIP! Museums, lighthouses, forts, trolley tours, archaeological site museums, living history museums...
50. Complete some community service with your students (ie. Habitat for Humanity).
51. Encourage students to make a museum box.
52. Complete R.A.F.T. prompts in your classroom.
53. Didn't get enough of Social Studies rap from before? Here's some more.
54. Encourage students to learn more about elections. This should be taught every year, not just years where there is a presidential election.
55. Bring students to a re-enactment, or try your own re-enactment of sorts at school. (I am thinking of the movie School of Life.) There's actually a website discussing about having one in school, too- here.
56. I mentioned finding local authors, but what about some great historical fiction books? Number the Stars is a tremendous novel for the Holocaust. Charley Skedaddle and Johnny Tremain are also honorable books in this genre. Try to collect as many historical fiction books as you can and organize them by categories in bins so they are easy to access.
57. Have students complete an activity where they cover a cereal box with facts.
58. Historical Bumper Sticker (from INTeacher at the A-Z Teaching Boards)

Your job is to create a historical bumper sticker on the paper provided. The bumper sticker must be about the historical time period that we are covering in Chapters 9, 10 or 11. You may relate your bumper sticker to a particular person, theme or event found in these chapters. You must be creative but follow these rules:
1. Your bumper sticker must be historically accurate.
2. While you must be historically accurate, you may base your bumper sticker on present day bumper stickers.
3. The bumper sticker must be on the paper provided.
4. You must use color.
5. Your bumper sticker MAY NOT be offensive, contain profanity or degrade a person or group of people.

Some examples of bumper stickers:
Support the Underground Railroad – The Original Soul Train
Manifest Destiny Happens
Proud Parents of a Continental Army Drummer Boy
Real Men Sink Tea

You will be graded as follows:
0-10 points for following directions
0-15 points for neatness
0-50 points for bumper sticker theme – historically accurate, with historical timeframe, does it make sense.

59. Have your students "design" a newspaper indicating a specific time period.
60. Lesson for the Westward Movement (INTeacher at the A-Z Teaching Boards)-

Help Wanted-
You and your business partner need workers quickly. Your business is growing and expanding faster than you expected. You need to hire workers to keep up with your business’s growth. You need to create a business opportunity ad (Help wanted) to run in newspapers back east to encourage workers to apply with your company.

You and your partner will be assigned a business (cattle ranch or silver mine). You must create an ad that explains the following – Location of business benefits of employment, Skills required living arrangements, Pay advancement opportunities, Additional perks any other additional info, and Why they should work for your company.

Your ad should be written in complete sentences and lengthy enough to cover requirements. You will be graded on how appealing and enticing your ad is to potential employees.

61. Complete graphic organizers (Venn Diagrams, for example).
62. Have students analyze primary and secondary documents.
63. Rewrite part of a historical fiction book you have read as a script, and act it out. Perhaps make a digital movie.

Marcia Tate says there are twenty brain-compatable strategies that are proven to help us learn! Here is the list:

What is History?

Every year in her high school history classroom, my aunt Shari has done a "What is History?" demonstration with her class. Three of the students wear the hats of a detective, chef, and scholar. They then read a paper about how people in history are detectives, chefs, and scholars in their own sense. Our class is trying this for the first time!

DETECTIVE
The detective investigates history by looking at facts and coming to conclusions. Sometimes, not all the facts are there, and you have to take what you know about the time period to help people today understand what happened yesterday. Archaeologists are an example of people who have to be detectives because they may just find a few pieces of a clay artifact from many years ago. Sometimes, they just look at pieces to determine what the object is.

CHEF
The chef comes up with new and different ways to get people interested in history. People who study history have to be fun and creative. Some fun ways we will learn about history this year is by acting in plays, making archaeological pots, completing art projects, reading historical comics, and putting on re-enactments in class.

SCHOLAR
The scholar is always learning new facts about history. People always have to research history because new facts unfold every single day. There are many books to read about history. People are always making new discoveries, and you have to get a clear picture by reading about those discoveries. Not only does Ms. Jasztal teach you new things about history, you also help teach this year.

(You may also have a PERFORMER.)

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