Making Social Studies fun...I would have never though that possible until recently. When I was in school, many years ago, Social Studies was one of my least favorite classes. I hated trying to remember all of the dates, people, times, etc.; it seemed like a waste of time. I feel like all we did was read and test from the book. I don't remember any fun activities. However, during this semester I learned many valuable ways to incorporate FUN and EXCITEMENT into Social Studies!
One way is to make the student think and act like a historian. Give them a job to do. Instead of just reading from the book, incorporate a fun prediction discussion. Let the students tell you what they know or their opinion of what happened. Then look have them look for supporting claims. Provide them with opportunities to collaborate with other peers, let them recreate documents and present them to the class, act out scenes, question the characters and let them be part of the history. In doing so they will remember the important facts that were learned while expressing themselves.
Other ways to make Social Studies fun is to incorporate music. The Internet and World Wide Web offer so many options that were not available when I was younger. As an extension, encourage the students to create their own song to remember content. Encourage students to recreate what the scene looks like in their head as they read about the civil war or the Boston Tea Party. Have students create their own cartoon script of the events.
There are so many ways to make learning fun! The more fun students are having, the more engaged they become, the more engaged they are the more they are learning the content and not just memorizing it for a test on Friday.
Here are some websites to help you get started...
http://www.teachhub.com/5-ways-make-learning-fun-again
http://www.pinterest.com/rachris/making-learning-fun/
http://www.makinglearningfun.com
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