5 Social Studies Activity Ideas for the 2nd Week of School

Kirsten 0:07

Hi, there, welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. This is going to be part two of the five Social Studies activity ideas. This time, we're talking about the second week of school. So likely, you've come off of an very exhausting first week, I was always exhausted at that first week, and I was sleeping all the time, likely lost my voice by this time after that first week. So the second week is another brand new week, you're still reinforcing those classroom rules, you're still getting to know your students, your students are getting to know you, and you're practicing those routines and procedures that we always love to talk about. So hopefully, these activity ideas will kind of alleviate the monotony of teaching and re teaching those different new things that we always have to teach at the beginning of the year. And kind of just switching things up. This week is going to be diving in more towards that first week where you're actually going to be teaching whatever curriculum you're teaching. So hopefully, these ideas, they're still community building, you're still getting to know your students. But they're more aligning to actual social studies, common social studies, skills that might be taught at the beginning of the year, which is usually mapping globes skills, map elements, geography in general.

Kirsten 2:14

So here is the first activity idea for you create a classroom map. What you could do is have students collaboratively designed a classroom map, they have to mark where different items are located such as desks, bookshelves, maybe a reading corner where the classroom library is, this helps reinforce mapping concepts, and just even introduces mapping concepts in a familiar environment that they have been to for, you know, just, it's only been a week or so. But it's still familiar. After this new year has started. You can also use this as an opportunity to reinforce any rules associated with those areas of the classroom. Anything specific you need to have students know maybe where's the turn in bin, and just kind of show like, Hey, this is where we turn in assignments. And when is the assignments due each week, it's due on Friday, whatever rules you might have, with that specific place or spot in the map. Another thought is that you can do this classroom map as a whole group, or you can break them apart into teams, where they're designing a classroom map. And they must have at least a certain amount of specific items that are important, and even maybe thinking of where they have to mark down specific items based off of the rules that they already have learned about in the first week of school. So this could be a great way to review what you've already talked about in the first week of school. So let's say they have to come up with five to 10 objects or parts of the classroom that they have to put on the map. And they have to explain what the rule is associated with that area or item. And what is important to know about that specific place in the classroom. So hopefully that gets your brain thinking about things.

Kirsten 4:15

The second activity idea is my place in the world. Have students create a personal map that shows where they live in relation to their city, state, country and world. This is a great easy activity to help students understand their place in the world while practicing map skills. And in general, I think it's really great to just kind of start off in social studies. Because you know, before you talk about US history in regions of the US or regions of your state, or what are map elements, it is important to have students know like, Do you know what school you go to and what district that school is in? What city is your district in? What state do you live in? What country do we live in and where is that located in the world, I think this can be a really great easy activity to see where they are in relation to what you might be talking about in social studies throughout the school year, in the upcoming year.

Kirsten 5:14

The third activity idea I have for you is called Community puzzle. So for this activity, this is where they're going to be given each student a puzzle piece, you can always make a template out of cardstock. And just make copies of it. And they can, they can always decorate and cut it out, have them decorate this specific puzzle piece with symbols or images representing their interests, backgrounds and personalities, then you would have each student come together to assemble the puzzle, you can display it on a bulletin board, symbolizing the unity of your classroom community, make sure they have their name on it somewhere prominently shown and give them a variety of utensils, tools, markers, even paint if you want to do that. And just to give them that piece to decorate and give them you know, make it as creative as they want to be. And they can share, you know what, what is represented and what they put in why they put different things on that puzzle piece.

Kirsten 6:18

The fourth activity idea is called Map challenge. This is kind of fun. And what you can do is give each student a blank world map, or a map and if your country map of your state, just whatever the topic of your courses. So for example, if you are teaching us history, you can give them a map of the United States. And then what you're going to do is ask them to locate and label cities, states continents, and major bodies of water, you can specify what that is like you can for US history, you can see how many states can you name, just giving them that blank map of the United States, maybe blank with the states there but just not filled in or anything? And they have to decide, like where how well do you know where the states are? You could do this with your state as well, your individual state. So for example, Texas, you can give them a blank map of Texas and see if they can label different cities in Texas, how many cities can they label, and then on top of that, if you want to add in bodies of water, like rivers or lakes or oceans, you can also have them label that. So this is just kind of an open ended challenge that you can give students depending on what you want to do to make it challenging. And another thing you can do is turn this into a competition for added engagement can always do it maybe at the end of the week, like a Thursday or Friday, however you want to do it just to kind of see what they know, not at all for a grade, I would definitely not recommend that. But I would love something like this to do as a student I would. Because I always was really interested in the Rand McNally state books, there was one that my brother had that I would also read on road trips. And so geography was definitely one of my favorite interests are in relation to social studies.

Kirsten 8:15

The fifth Social Studies activity idea is called landmark Pictionary. Now, this can be definitely done towards the end of the week if you want to. But of course, you can do it any day. But what you would do is divide the class into teams. And maybe you could do teams of two, or you can break it apart into three teams, depending on how many students you have. And you're basically having students in those teams take turns drawing famous landmarks from around the world, all their teammates, guess the location, this is a great way to reinforce geography knowledge in a fun and creative way. So you would definitely want to show the actual photographs of these famous landmarks and label you know Eiffel Tower or pyramids of Giza or something like that. So that they have a heads up of what you know what it looks like. And what they are going to be doing, let's say Billy Bob and Joe, Joe is going to be the one drawing on the chalkboard or not chalkboard dry erase board or projector or wherever it might be. But he's going to be trying to draw the Eiffel Tower. And Billy and Bob are trying to guess what it is. And he cannot say anything. You do not want to have him say out loud what it is. He's going to try to draw as much as he can. And they have to say what the landmark is. And you can even do it like timed where they have 30 seconds or one minute. But it's a really fun way to just kind of, you know, talk about famous landmarks. And then when they might have gotten it correct or even if they get it wrong, you can always talk about oh, this is the Eiffel Tower. It's located in Paris, France and even pull up maybe Google Earth or Google Maps and show where it is in relation to where you might live or where your students live.

So to recap the five activity ideas, it is create a map for the classroom, my place in the world, community puzzle, map challenge, and landmark Pictionary. Now, of course, as you know, and I've talked about last week, I do have at the time, this is going live a back to school social studies pack, where you can have all five of these activities, and also the other five activities from last week and put it all together and mix and match. Just using the prompts or just having it there for you just making it one easy thing to do for you and getting your class set up for classroom community building and fun social studies, engaging activities, that just will get students really interested in social studies. And what I do recommend is taking the time to do these fun activities in the first couple of weeks of school, kind of related to whatever curriculum you might have. If you're using my Smart and Simple Social Studies guide to curriculum, you can always embed that very first unit into these activity ideas. Maybe you're not doing every single activity in the unit, the main thing I do recommend is not just going full force first week of school, hey, let's learn about the regions of the US let's learn about math skills, I really do think it is important. And I've always done this with all my students, that first week or so of school, you are building a community with fun icebreaker activities, just kind of getting their feet wet, it's been a summer break, the summer slump has happened, you want to kind of get them engaged and excited to be in your class. So these activities are a great way to do just that. And then when you might have exhausted all of the activity ideas, you've run out of ideas or you are ready to dive in or you're forced to dive into social studies, real social studies units, then you can go in and do that. But I think it's important to kind of enforce rules or reinforce rules, practice routines, practice procedures, because community building without those routines and procedures, it's going to make the rest of the year a lot harder. It'll just be so much more smooth whenever you have a little bit of fun with a little bit of learning about your new grade level. So with that being said, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. Tune in next week, I will be talking about some new changes in the social studies teak standards that will be taking effect next month. All right. I will talk to you see you guys soon.