There are ways to choose what to teach beside just following the state standards. Yes, they must be taught, or should be if you are homeschooling. But, there are other things to consider beside that for teaching fun social studies lessons. Social studies can be fun if you take a few things into consideration.
A major concern when planning for lessons in this subject is to teach what the child has an interest in learning. The young child is learning about their world, and naturally have an interest in what they are discovering. Things that are happening in the world is an interest of theirs, and it is advisable to plan lessons around these events.
It is important that when planning lessons you choose something you are passionate about yourself. If there is a subject you feel drawn to, include it in all your activities such as read-aloud activities. Plan mini units based around that subject. If you are excited about a subject, students will soon catch on to your passion about that subject and will get excited with you. This may help a child learn to love history when they see your joy in it.
Yes, you have state standards you are required to teach, or choose to teach if you have a choice. But, you don't have to follow a textbook. You can design lessons to teach those standards in a way the will interest the student, and yourself. Anything that all in which you are interested, teacher interest involving student, will make the lesson more exciting and appealing to all.
Discovery history is the goal. This involves discovering history with the teacher, instead of just having history presented by the teacher. This may involve research and writing. One way to do this is to present three scenarios and have a group of students discuss them and determine which one they would decide as the best idea. Try to encourage the group to all agree, using this opportunity to teach give and take in making decisions. Have them to write about how they arrived at their decision.
Taking the details of a historical event and having them decide what they would do helps with interest as well. Don't reveal the event, but introduce the details surrounding it. Have the write or tell about what they would do under those circumstances. Hopefully they will come up with what the event is, or if not, tell them what actually happened and see how close to that they come.
Though there are different learning styles, most children learn more visually than any other way as their writing and language skills develop. Starting new units and concepts are powerfully introduced with large visuals. Do a search on the internet for images to find pictures, charts, etc., for the period or concept. Show them a few images and have them make inferences about the time or concept. This develops social studies concepts as well as the vital skill of making inferences.
The images used for presenting a concept should be large and visible to all the students. This is best done using a projector and screen. It should be very colorful so as to keep the attention and excite students about the image. Have the students keep a copy of their inferences, keep the images for pre-activities and post-activities to help them see and make comparisons to their inferences and what really happened.
A major concern when planning for lessons in this subject is to teach what the child has an interest in learning. The young child is learning about their world, and naturally have an interest in what they are discovering. Things that are happening in the world is an interest of theirs, and it is advisable to plan lessons around these events.
It is important that when planning lessons you choose something you are passionate about yourself. If there is a subject you feel drawn to, include it in all your activities such as read-aloud activities. Plan mini units based around that subject. If you are excited about a subject, students will soon catch on to your passion about that subject and will get excited with you. This may help a child learn to love history when they see your joy in it.
Yes, you have state standards you are required to teach, or choose to teach if you have a choice. But, you don't have to follow a textbook. You can design lessons to teach those standards in a way the will interest the student, and yourself. Anything that all in which you are interested, teacher interest involving student, will make the lesson more exciting and appealing to all.
Discovery history is the goal. This involves discovering history with the teacher, instead of just having history presented by the teacher. This may involve research and writing. One way to do this is to present three scenarios and have a group of students discuss them and determine which one they would decide as the best idea. Try to encourage the group to all agree, using this opportunity to teach give and take in making decisions. Have them to write about how they arrived at their decision.
Taking the details of a historical event and having them decide what they would do helps with interest as well. Don't reveal the event, but introduce the details surrounding it. Have the write or tell about what they would do under those circumstances. Hopefully they will come up with what the event is, or if not, tell them what actually happened and see how close to that they come.
Though there are different learning styles, most children learn more visually than any other way as their writing and language skills develop. Starting new units and concepts are powerfully introduced with large visuals. Do a search on the internet for images to find pictures, charts, etc., for the period or concept. Show them a few images and have them make inferences about the time or concept. This develops social studies concepts as well as the vital skill of making inferences.
The images used for presenting a concept should be large and visible to all the students. This is best done using a projector and screen. It should be very colorful so as to keep the attention and excite students about the image. Have the students keep a copy of their inferences, keep the images for pre-activities and post-activities to help them see and make comparisons to their inferences and what really happened.
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