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Upper Elementary Teachers Chatboard

Social Studies Learning Fair?

by teach4

Feb 7, 2009

Anyone ever done a grade level learning fair using Social Studies themes? Fellow teachers want to try this instead of a science fair this year. Our class's topic would be the Civil War.

Jerry I was once in charge of a Social Studies Fair. Our theme was the American Revolution and I tried to incorporate a multisensory experience for the children using food, music, etc. Children dressed up in costumes representing the Minute Men, British soldiers, famous Americans and foreigners who helped us.

On the Civil War page on my website:...See More

Feb 7, 2009

Jenn This isn't exactly the same as what you are thinking of but it's similar. Our entire school (K-6) does a "5 Themes of Geography" fair every May. Each grade has a continent - each class within that grade chooses a country in that continent, studies it through books, encyclopedia articles, news articles, web sites, visitors, etc, whatever is appropri...See MoreThis isn't exactly the same as what you are thinking of but it's similar. Our entire school (K-6) does a "5 Themes of Geography" fair every May. Each grade has a continent - each class within that grade chooses a country in that continent, studies it through books, encyclopedia articles, news articles, web sites, visitors, etc, whatever is appropriate for the age level. Each class then has students prepare age-appropriate written research as well as a project. For Kindergarten, it might be a class big book; for 1st grade it might be a few sentences, etc. We met as a social studies committee and planned it all out. The idea is that the students are exposed to the 5 themes of geography as well as learning about other cultures at the same time. We have a parent night for about an hour when parents and the community can come and walk around the classes and see the displays.

We've had a hard time with that because many of the kids don't want to come as a) they're required to stay in their classes for the entire hour to present their projects and answer questions and b) it's baseball season, so many of them have baseball practice and don't want to miss it. We tried making it mandatory but parents became angry. Some parents end up pulling their kids out of their classes where they're presenting to wander around the building with them, and many of the parents end up staying in the rooms talking with their friends rather than visiting all the classrooms. The following day we essentially devote to the classrooms visiting each other. We don't have time for every class to visit every other class, but we've set up a schedule where each class sees at least one country per continent.

It's a lot of work, and many teachers find it exhausting. Our librarian has spent a lot of time buying books that support each country so that we have the materials in the building. The kids do end up learning about their own country, especially in the upper grades where they have to do extensive research reports, but they don't come away with a lot from visiting the other classes. We do get a lot of neat projects from this.

Not exactly on your topic, but I hope some of it helps.

Jenn

On 2/07/09, Jerry wrote: > I was once in charge of a Social Studies Fair. Our theme > was the American Revolution and I tried to incorporate a > multisensory experience for the children using food, music, > etc. Children dressed up in costumes representing the > Minute Men, British soldiers, famous Americans and > foreigners who helped us. > > On the Civil War page on my website: > [link removed].

Feb 8, 2009

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