ED 470 Social Studies Methods

Social Studies Activities based upon Multiple Intelligences

(Gardner Heacox)

Bodily-Kinesthetic
Drama/ Dressing up for character (British Loyalist)
Act out major historical scene
Drawings/ sketch visual representation of places and spaces
Artwork creating piece of history
Murals
Debates live presidential debates
Props handing out primary sources
Utilizing the gym align students into military strategies
Put kids on a spectrum where they stand and debate issues
Human timeline people are assigned event to get in order
Simulate an event with students in positions of the people (slaves lying on the ground)
Songs with actions
Have students act out simulations poverty sim
Field trips
Plan out historical events
Wax museum
Experiments
Ball-throwing discussion
Build models
Run for Marathon

Visual-Spatial
Drawing/ sketches
Cities
Maps
Field trips to historical places
Hands-on projects such as creating scale models, tri-fold presentations, etc.
Interactive videos/ virtual tours
Create own videos/ films
Examine photographs as primary sources
Look at architecture how it has changed and developed
Create/ look at art
Side-by-side comparison (something familiar vs. historical content)
Movies (critique and compare to actual history)
Look at original text, what do they show?
Take their own old pics w/ black and white filer on phone then tell the story of the picture

Logical-mathematical/ Logistical
Debate
Looking at statistics/ census
Voting results 270towin
Population numbers/ movement
Congressional districts/ gerrymandering
 War stats
Demographics immigration, Dust Bowl
Riddles/ word problems
Supporting argument right, wrong, why?
Worksheets
Mapping out movements
Maps and distances
Sailing
Traveling
Create a code (like what was used in WW II)
Using a poll (asking questions in a class: who says what and why?)
Looking at economic patterns
Why fluctuate because of differing rates
Foreign rate compared to U.S.
How money (how much) can either help or hurt different countries
Stock Market activities
Looking at numbers to explain historical difference
Creating equations that arent necessarily numbers (social equations to determine why a society is the
way it is/ how it came to be
Timelines
Oregon Trail
Tycoon powers
What If? Scenarios
Venn diagram
Plan a campaign

Naturalistic
Class outside
Field trips
Reenactments outdoors with recreation of environments
Activities that involve improvisations and solving problems
Going outside the textbook to use non-traditional information/ methods to teach a subject
Maps and being at a place
Cooking to teach culture
Service projects
Job shadowing
Analyze documents/ Pictures
Real world experiences/ applications
How political systems work
Current events
Financial literacy
Projects with things only in the room: observation
Project-based activities

Intrapersonal
Papers
Anything on your own (reading, writing, original docs)
Personal journal/ diary
Worksheets
Individual research/ projects
Biogrpahies
Models of places/ events
Research and papers
Genealogy
Personal goals
Personal views
Making a personal story with new vocabulary
Research
Make a journal of that time
Reflection activities
Varying sources
Differences and similarities
Motivation
Political beliefs
Cultural development
Put together own civilizations
Before a unit, have students write down goals or what they want to take away from learning about the
time period
Generate own questions
Write a paper about culture research about norms/ society
Have students create conspiracy theories over JFKs assassination
Have students create their own presidential campaign
- Flyers, billboards, campaign spending
Have students choose a book to give an oral report on
Individual article review
1:1 teacher student conferences

Verbal-linguistic
Have students create an inaugural speech like they were becoming president
Word puzzle: create their own word puzzle for vocabulary words or important figures or events
Read Martin Luther King Jrs jail letters
Take notes through a KWL chart on the Civil War
Make their own propaganda posters that relate to Hitler in WW II
Give a speech on why someone should vote for you and give it to the class
Write own rules for the classroom based off of the U.S. Constitution
Stories, speeches
Memory games
Research papers
Historical fiction writing
Word games
Chronologies
Mapping activities
Book reviews
Role play to tell stories
Document Based Questions (DBQs)
Essays
Family histories
Quiz Bowl/ Jeopardy writing and hosting
Jigsaw
Fish bowl discussion
Mentoring younger grades (writing books)
Read alouds

Interpersonal
Group projects
Have students in groups of four create their own type of government: what does it look like?
Have students split up the classroom, half and half one half Republican, one-half Democrat; then
divide again to have them pick a candidate and write speeches to the class persuading them to vote for
them
Split the class into 3 sections: Union, Confederate, slaves. Each student writes individually how they feel
during the war on that perspective share with group
Create/ write a play based on historical events and students act out each others
Create a mock draft students can enlist or wait to be drafted
Given fictional lives, they must role pay with each other representing the lives of general people
Debating two sides of an argument in class
Role play (LARP)
Poem writing
White board share activities
speed dating activities

Existential
Columbus on trial
Morals and ethics debate
Venn diagram
Philosophy discussion
Global concern discussion
Discuss differing points of view
Learning about religion in relation to subject
Current events
Both sides of events