Please welcome Emily from E is for Education to the blog today! She is not only a 6th grade teacher, but she is also my sister! 🥰 Emily is sharing her tried-and-true ideas on how to teach history to middle schoolers in fun and engaging ways that will get students excited about learning.
Growing up, I didn’t love science or history.
The subjects felt dry, textbook-heavy, and just plain dull. So when I became a teacher, I made a promise to myself: my classroom would be different. I wanted students to enjoy learning history, ask questions, and get involved in the process.
If you’re wondering how to teach history in middle school in a way that students actually enjoy, here are my top three strategies that work in my classroom!
Here are 3 Fun Ways to Teach History
- Give Students Time for Inquiry
- Giving students an opportunity to ask thought provoking questions is crucial in keeping them engaged in their learning.
- Not only should they be asking YOU questions, but they should be asking one another and having time to quietly think on their own, write down their response, and then get with a partner and share out their answers. Encourage them to add to their answer after they have gained more knowledge when meeting with a peer.
2. Let students respond to one another!
- You don’t have to be the one doing all the talking. One of the most powerful shifts in my classroom came when I gave students time to respond to each other’s questions and ideas. In 6th grade, we already use debates and argument writing in ELA, so I extend those skills into social studies!
- Try these strategies to get students talking:
- Use sentence starters like:
“What about when…”
“This reminds me of…”
“I respectfully disagree because…” - Pass around a microphone or a talking stick to give everyone a voice.
- Embed discussion questions right into your guided notes or lesson slides.
- Giving students ownership of the conversation encourages deeper thinking and active participation—core pieces of effective middle school history instruction.
- Use sentence starters like:
- I often include these discussion questions right into our classroom notes like the one below:
3. Track student learning and put it on display!
- Use a chart paper to track their questions. I put it on display to show students that there are still gaps of information we are still curious about! Use that curiosity to your advantage! Have them research on their own to find the answers they are looking for.
- When someone has found the answer to the question on the chart paper, have students write it on a post it note and paste it on the chart paper!
- The great thing about this is that you can add to this throughout the unit and check off the ones you’ve already answered as a class! Think of it as an on-going KWL chart that they can reference and look back on throughout the unit.
- This one is FREE in my store! 🎉
My PowerPoint slides and guided student notes are a great way to make ancient history come alive! I taught virtually all year last year and I needed all my products to adapt to the change. I also included Google compatible versions of all the products!
P.S. I’ve used my lessons when being observed and I got my highest rating, not because of what I did, but because of what the students did! They were incredibly engaged, asked one another thought provoking questions, sang along with the videos, and had fun learning! You too can make students love learning!
If you teach younger students, here’s a blog post about social studies in the elementary classroom.
My name is Emily and I am going into my 5th year of teaching 6th grade. I work in a k-6 elementary school, so I teach ALL the subjects but my TpT store focuses primarily on ancient history, earth science, and classroom decor! Follow me on TpT for some amazing classroom resources!
PIN THE IMAGE BELOW TO SAVE THIS POST FOR LATER!
