Middle School Social Studies

 

Subcategories

Africa
Asia
Europe
North America
South America
Social Studies Skills
Geography

Links

Ideas

  • T-Shirts ShopOdd.com sells a couple of T-shirts that are great for crazy social studies teachers. "I'm Hungary for Turkey" and "I got Greece on my shirt," with outline maps of said countries.
  • Traveling this summer, I wanted to buy a bunch of cheap foreign coins, like the equivalent of pennies, and bring them back to my students. I couldn't find a bank with rolls of coins, though. Does anybody know of a place you can order rolls of foreign pennies by mail?
  • Putumayo's World Playground CD This amazing world music recording label makes a children's CD called World Playground. The music is great and for only $20 bucks you get the CD plus a book of resources for teaching using the songs. They're now selling 4 or 5 other "Playground" CDs, each focusing on a continent. I see now that they've set up a site called Putumayo Kids.
  • Time Zone Clocks--Here's a great idea I stole from another teacher. Wal-Mart sells cheap, plastic, black-and-white clocks for about $4. Hang a couple of them in your classroom, set to the times of different cities around the world. It gives your classroom the feel of a newsroom or airport, and provides a vivid illustration of the idea of time zones. Students frequently come into my room and comment on what time it is somewhere else and what the people there must be doing.
  • Around the World in 80 Days--Click for more

 

Lesson Plans and Necessary Handouts

Social Studies Diagnostic
I use this at the beginning of the year to get an idea about my students' general SS knowledge and skills. If anyone uses and improves this, please post a revised version. It needs a few questions that see if students can use a map scale. Somebody could also make it multiple-choice, without it losing a whole lot. That way it can be graded with Scantron, saving time during that busy first week. The same day, I also hand out a newspaper article and have students read and summarize, to get a sense of their reading and writing abilities.

Blank Comic Strip I have my students read about a historical event and then make a comic strip of the events. It's good for teaching summarizing and sequencing and may also be useful in Language Arts classes.

Unit Plans

 

  • An interdisciplinary unit on Inherit the Wind. This unit includes both Social Studies and Communication Arts lessons related to the play, Inherit the Wind, and the issues debated in the play: the teaching of evolution in public schools, and every person's right to think for himself or herself.

Attached Files   

Blank Comic Strip.xls jpmanching Jun 03, 2012 16 KB
Social Studies Diagnostic.doc jpmanching Jun 03, 2012 31 KB