1.
Board Games
Be inspired by Milton Bradley. Have students
design, make, and play their own board games. Promote reflection on both the
game play and level of history knowledge used.
2.
Way-Back Machine Videos
Follow in the footsteps of Mr. Peabody and Sherman.
Encourage students to make a video that creates an alternate cartoon style
explanation of a historical event and host a film festival. Learn which team is the most creative and who
gets the most laughs.
3.
History Idol
Challenge the students to a song writing
competition. You can use simple pickers to assign topics. Task students with
explaining a period in history with a popular genre of songs from that period.
Students can record videos and you can host
a listening party in class.
4.
Awards Show
Host a Historic Golden Globes. Use award show nominations writing task to
have students reflect on the contributions of historical figures. Create
categories for awards and ask students to write nominations for those
categories based on historical figures studied in class.
Then host the awards show and let the audience vote for the winners of each award.
5.
History Yearbooks
Take a page from Mad Magazine and spoof a
yearbook for a year in modern history. Challenge students to ask and answer
questions that reflect knowledge of a specific year.
·
If America was a high school in 1950, who would
have been most popular?
·
What would have been the most popular song of
the year?
Use presentation software to
produce yearbooks and let students share them. Each student can be assigned a
historical figure and be challenged to sign a yearbook as that person might
have done. Imagine what Fidel Castro would have written in JFK’s yearbook in
1962.
