Social Studies Lesson Plans

American History Ideas

IDEA #1

We just finished a unit on Colonial America and one of the fun projects we did was to make a chart of games and toys that children played with in Colonial times and then compare it to a similar list of games and toys that children enjoy playing today. We then checked off the games that were played both then as well as today. Using this chart, we incorporated math into the project by using ratios and averages. We took it one step further and did the same thing with occupations of yesterday and today. Comparisons are great fun for kids and they can easily see the differences AND the similarities in cultures. We also read "The Village Blacksmith" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and discussed the terminology used in the poem (for example "bellows") to decipher as much as could about the blacksmith. Then we discussed "What does the term "work ethic" mean to you?"
Submitted by: RngMyBeI@email-removed

IDEA #2 Each student in my class took a different symbol in our nation's history and did a short research on it, drew a picture of the symbol and incorporated it into a pop of book.
Submitted by: dshortt@email-removed