Tips Archive » Content » Social Studies

• Map Skills (8 tips)
• Government and Politics (4 tips)
• Occupations (1 tip)
• Past and Present (4 tips)

Map Skills

Teacher Visit

From Marlene Hermes, a fourth and fifth grade teacher at Whitman Elementary School in Littleton, Colorado:

"In order to make a writing assignment on how to give sequential directions meaningful to my students, I send a letter home to parents asking them to provide their child with a map showing how to get from their house to the school. The map must include the street names. In class, the students write a paragraph giving me directions on how I can drive my car from our school to their house. I inform the students that anyone who does a terrific job will have their name put into a jar and I will actually visit them at home. I randomly select two students from the jar, prearrange a visit and drive to their house using their directions. It's amazing the difference this incentive makes in motivating the students to give me a well-written paragraph."

Bedroom Maps

From Stella Bock, a third grade teacher:

"In order to reinforce map skills, my students write a detailed description of their bedrooms including shapes, sizes, colors and directional relationships between objects in their rooms. After a few lessons on maps, keys and symbols the students create an aerial view map of their room. I display the bedroom maps on the bulletin board and include a zip lock bag with the children's descriptions in the middle. There are only numbers that I can identify on the descriptions so the students don't know who wrote them. During free time, the children can take out a description and try to match it to a map on the board. If the work was done accurately, the challenge shouldn't be too difficult."

Geography Dictionaries

From Daniel Edwards, a teacher at Wilson Jr. High School in El Centro, California:

"In an effort to help my students learn geography vocabulary terms, I have them create their own Illustrated Geography Dictionary. Students find pictures in magazines that illustrate their geography vocabulary terms. National Geographic Magazines work very well for this. They clip out the pictures, paste one picture onto a sheet of paper and write the term with its definition under the illustration. If students cannot find an illustration of a term in a magazine, they may draw the geographic feature instead. I usually assign 20-25 terms in order to receive an A on this project. Those that know a second language can also include the foreign term in their dictionaries."

Alley Cat Directions

From Michael Szewczyk, a fourth grade teacher at Berkeley Terrace School in Irvington, New Jersey:

"My students and I identify the cardinal direction of east based on the position of the sun during early morning. Once east has been established in the classroom, south, west and north can be located by making a right angle turn for each respective direction. Next, I play the song The Alley Cat and teach the students the dance steps that go along with it. After a series of specific left and right moves, there is a prominent pause in the instrumental music for which the students make a hard right angle turn and then clap. While the students clap, they also call out he cardinal direction they are facing. This helps reinforce and remind students of the worldly reality of cardinal directions. The students love the novelty of learning through music and movement. The same procedure can be applied and appreciated when reviewing the intermediate directions."

Mystery Map

From Allison Smith, a speech and language pathologist for Perry Public Schools in Perry, Ohio:

"To teach communication skills, I split my classroom in half and create a mystery map. The students in each group choose a place in the school to write directions to for the other group to follow. Each student in the group creates a direction and together we write it on a piece of butcher paper. Throughout the experience, I encourage the students to visualize their directions by closing their eyes. After the directions are complete, the groups exchange them. Each student is responsible for reading a direction and repeating it to the group while the others listen and work together to discover the mystery destination. Afterward, the groups return to the classroom and we discuss how well we followed the directions and where each group ended up. This is a really fun way to work on listening skills."

Beach Ball Toss

From Carol Berlin, a third grade teacher at Charlotte A. Dunning School in Framingham, Massachusetts:

"To give the students a sense of the proportions of the earth that are land and water, we toss a beach ball that's decorated as the globe. These are available inexpensively. As they catch the ball, they must report whether their hands land on earth or on water. I keep track of it on the board. After every child has a turn, we tally up the results. Surprisingly, this works successfully. As an extension, the student can call out the name of the continent on which their hand lands."

Floor Maps

From Sharon Morgan, a second grade teacher at South Penn Elementary School in Cumberland, Maryland:

"Our social studies curriculum requires us to reach a unit on Africa so that our children become aware of the needs of people throughout the world. To assist with geography skills, I use a projector to trace the outline of Africa and the countries onto a white bedsheet. I use fabric paint to paint each country and then cut the map out. I place the map on the floor on a blue bedsheet that represents the oceans. I cover the map with a heavy plastic so the children can walk on it as we work. We place labels for directions on the map as well as country names, paper and plastic animals, yarn for the equator and tropic regions and pictures of natural resources on the continent. This activity really keeps the children focused and excited each day."

Improving Geography Quizzes

From Don Schulte, a teacher at Pattonville High School in Maryland Heights, Missouri:

"I use post-it notes for quizzing students on geographical locations. I start by writing large numbers on the post-it notes then; I stick the numbers on maps that I have on my walls. The students must identify the locations from the numbers. The post-it notes are great because I can easily change the numbers to different locations on the maps. The quiz that I give to one class is not the same quiz that I give to the next class. Make-up quizzes are not the same twenty states the students had on their test the day before. Students can no longer find out from their friends what cities, rivers, countries, etc. to learn because it constantly changes."

Government and Politics

A Kid Friendly Pledge

From Michael Szewczyk, a fourth grade teacher at Berkeley Terrace School in Irvington, New Jersey:

"Each morning, public school students have to stand and salute the flag by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. After my students complete the Pledge in its standard form, we repeat it in a kid friendly style that is more understandable and meaningful for them. The following is the student version that we created together."

"I promise my faithfulness to the banner of the United States of America and to our government for which it stands, one country under God, for which we will stick together, and freedom and fairness for all."

How to Make an American Flag

From Jennifer Guzik, a first grade teacher at Perry Elementary School in Perry, Ohio:

"As a way to honor president's day, my first grade class creates their own homemade American flag. This flag is made using a full flat white bed sheet and red, white & blue Crayola Tempera paint. Before beginning the project, wash and iron the sheet. Find a large area on the floor where this flag can be kept for three days without being moved. First, line the floor with some kind of paper (not newspaper) or cardboard to keep paint from getting on the carpet or floor. Then tape down the flag over the paper or cardboard to the floor stretching it out eliminating most of the wrinkles. The flag should be as smooth as possible. Once finished taping the sheet to the floor, measure the length between the stripes.

"With a tape measure or a yardstick, measure and mark a pencil line about every 6 inches. There should be a total of 12 marks from the top of the sheet to the bottom. Then from the marks, draw straight lines across the entire length of the flag creating the 13 stripes. Then draw a vertical line from the top of flag to the seventh stripe to make the square for the star area. This is about 45 X 51 inches from the left corner of the flag. Using masking tape, place tape on this vertical line and on the horizontal line back to the left edge of the flag. This will create a box for the star area. Taping the lines will keep blue paint from getting into the stripe area. With teacher guidance, the students can paint the star area all blue. Sponge brushes work best, avoid using paintbrushes. Let this dry overnight. The next day, you can peel the tape off of the star area and you should have a perfect box with straight lines.

"The students will create the stripes using their hands as stamps. Individually place the students' hands in red paint. Make sure the entire hand is covered in red paint, not too heavy on the paint. Then take the child's hand and place it on the stripe. The first stripe is red. Make sure the child spreads his/her fingers far apart. Have the student make three or four handprints in a row. Continue with all the students. Remember to keep the handprints very close to one another as well as keep the handprints going in the same direction. Also, stay in between the lines. Remember to skip every other stripe making the red/white pattern. Then let the flag dry overnight. If the pencil lines are apparent the next day, a large pink eraser will erase the lines. The next day have the students create the stars using white paint. The students can use their index fingers to draw on the stars. You can also use a star sponge if you prefer. Make sure to include all 50 stars. A suggestion would be to mark the place of each star forming vertical lines in the star area. Then let it dry again overnight. Remove the tape and hang for display. I would suggest using pins to hold this flag up; the flag tends to be heavy from the paint.'

(See the finished products.)

Political Ice Breaker

From Connie Bowler, a school nurse at Perry High School in Perry, Ohio:

"I collect a variety of old buttons and bumper stickers from various elections. I select the ones that pertain to the topic that I want to discuss and put them in a paper bag. I ask a student to draw one out at a time. Old political buttons can be used to generate discussion on what the political leaders contributed or discuss how their decisions affect us today. Buttons on health orientated topics can lead into a discussion on a variety of topics."

Political Groups

From Jodi Wortman, a third grade teacher at Harry S. Truman School in Kansas City, Missouri:

"I seat my students in groups and each group votes on a name that is a state capital. One student in the group is the governor and the rest of the citizens are state representatives. I am the president and live in Washington, D.C. Each group does a collective report on their state and presents it to the class. Statehoods last approximately three weeks before the group becomes another state. This is a fun and meaningful way to present states and their capitals."

Occupations

Class History Book

From Joanne Goodrich, a fifth grade teacher at Deadwood Elementary School in Deadwood, South Dakota:

"I bring in the newspaper from home everyday until I have six days worth. I divide my class into groups and ask them to find an article with an international dateline, another state's dateline and a dateline from our state. They staple these on an 8 x 11 piece of paper. Each group briefly tells the rest of the class about their articles. I fill in information and we file them. Each month I redistribute the month's pages and we narrow the articles down to the best six. We post these on the board and the students vote on which ones to keep. At the end of the school year we'll have twelve news pages for a class history book."

Past and Present

Pioneer vs. Modern Schools

From John Pitrelli, a fourth grade teacher at Perry Elementary School in Perry, Ohio:

"My students study pioneer school life and compare it to modern day education. The students do computer research and create an original poster showing the comparisons between modern and pioneer days. Before they draw the poster, we brainstorm and site comparisons they found in their research. They fold their poster paper into eight sections and illustrate four of their favorite comparisons. We display the completed projects in the hallway."

Class History Book

From Joanne Goodrich, a fifth grade teacher at Deadwood Elementary School in Deadwood, South Dakota:

"I bring in the newspaper from home everyday until I have six days worth. I divide my class into groups and ask them to find an article with an international dateline, another state's dateline and a dateline from our state. They staple these on an 8 x 11 piece of paper. Each group briefly tells the rest of the class about their articles. I fill in information and we file them. Each month I redistribute the month's pages and we narrow the articles down to the best six. We post these on the board and the students vote on which ones to keep. At the end of the school year we'll have twelve news pages for a class history book."

Computer Timelines

From Doug Bloom, a fourth grade teacher at North Branch Main Street School in North Branch, Minnesota:

"Part of our curriculum in the fourth grade is to learn to read and to interpret timelines. At the beginning of the school year, students make their own timeline in the computer lab that will be used throughout the year. Whenever a big event happens in our community, our state, our country, or our world, the students add the event to their timeline. We do this before we start a keyboarding lesson. At the end of the year, the students will print out their timeline and have a record of the events that took place while they were in the fourth grade."

Current Events

From Tamara Roberts, a third grade teacher at Perry Local Schools in Perry, Ohio:

"In order to keep my 'current events' current in my classroom, I assign the student of the week the job of clipping local, state, national and world news articles for our news bulletin board. When they come to school on Monday with pictures of themselves and their favorite items to share, they also have current events to share with the classroom".