Primary and Secondary Source Freebies

Hi friends! Happy Weekend! :)  Next week, my kiddos will be taking a test on hodgepodge of skills in social studies.  I'm talking primary and secondary sources, conflicts, and Ohio's mound builders.  We spent part of our two day week review primary and secondary sources. 

We started by taking notes on the definitions of each and examples in this little flip book that they could use for studying.  I used a powerpoint created by my district to help us with our note taking.  

Then we played a little game that got us up in moving.  I've always been about engagement in my lessons but earlier this year, I attended my first Kagan training and it really opened my eyes on the little things I could do to engage my kiddos.  Simple things like playing a Kids Bop song during our Mission Possible Math Review, a four corners game and just simply incorporating more movement into our day are all such easy ways to keep my students more engaged. 

For our game, hung up the following signs in my classroom. 

I read off examples of each from a worksheet I had in my files and had students turn to the type of source they thought it was.  So if I read "A letter written by a WWII solider to his family," they turned to primary source.  If I read "A copy of the Mona Lisa painting I purchased at a museum," they turned to secondary source.

This "turn and twist" game was certainy quite easy to throw together but made a big impact.  Many of my kiddos were sharing examples of primary and secondary sources with me throughout the next day and were able to share lots of examples with their partner in a Kagan structure we did to wrap up our lesson.  Woohoo, I think we will be ready for our test after all. :)

Post edit: So my dear friend Nicole just finished up studying Primary and Secondary Sources and she made a great activity to review primary and secondary sources! I've wishlisted it to use next year. 

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via Nicole Roberts on Pinterest

 

Off to enjoy my Saturday! If you download and use this freebie, I'd love to hear what you think! :)