Whether you teach World History or US History to middle school or high school students, one of your biggest units in the year is likely to be World War 2.  The scope and impact of the war was so massive that you need at least a few weeks to cover everything. That means you need to have a wide variety of high-quality, engaging lessons to use throughout the unit.

From the causes of WW2, to the people, main events and battles, the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the lasting impact of WW2 into the Cold War - it's a LOT to cover.

Here are some of my favorite lesson plans and activities to use with secondary students for teaching World War II:

1) Rise of Dictators Pop Up Notes

One of the first things students need to understand is the rise of dictatorships and fascism in the years before World War II. Hitler in Germany, Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, Benito Mussolini in Italy, and militarists in Japan all took power during the 1930s.

To teach students...

Andrew Jackson is one of the most important figures in US history. In fact he's the only person to have an era named for him: The Age of Jackson.

As a result, you want to make sure you cover the essential understandings students are going to need to know about the Andrew Jackson presidency based on your state standards, but also make your lessons engaging and hands on so students really connect with the material.

I spend about 2-3 weeks on the Age of Jackson in my American History classes. We look at the rise of the Common Man, Spoils System, the Indian Removal Act, Nullification Crisis, Jackson's war on the National Bank, and other important events of the period.

Here are five awesome activities that you might want to use to teach about Andrew Jackson:

1) Jackson & Adams Campaign Songs

Jackson and John Quincy Adams had two contentious presidential elections in 1824 and 1828.  In the 1828 election, each had a theme song that they used her campaign events. These campaign...

One of the most important things kids need to learn now in social studies is about Fake News”. Obviously, you hear about Fake News all the time. It dominates social media and the news outlets.

Kids need to be able to recognize what is fake news, what is real news, and how can you tell the difference. This is a 21st century skill that every kid needs to learn in high school. It's so important for our society to teach these kinds of skills so that kids can graduate with the ability to be informed citizens.

I teach this lesson about fake news in both my US history and my American government classes.

I love this lesson because it connects students to fake news in history from the Yellow Journalism era of the late 1800’s early 1900s’ in American history and also the fake news of today.

The Lesson Plan

I start the lesson off with a warm-up cartoon from the yellow journalism era and ask students to interpret it. Then we look at for glaring examples of fake news from...

Hey there! My friend Lindsay is a former high school math teacher and went through the same struggles early on in her career that I did - no textbook, terrible resources, and no little help to figure things out. 

Thankfully for the both of us, we figured things out and found success by creating our own resources and then sharing them with others. She's now got an awesome blog where she shares awesome teaching tips. Some are math focused, but many others apply to any subject and I LOVED this post on Classroom Management Tips and wanted to share it with you. 

Everything in this post resonated with me and brought me back to those early days of teaching where I'd be up late into the night trying to plan a lesson that would keep kids busy the whole period because I hadn't yet learned those important strategies to make my classroom engaging, filled with learning, and with a natural fow built on respect.

If you're just starting out or want some important ideas to review...

Hey all - hope your summer is in full force and you're enjoying the sun and naps that make summer amazing! 

Over the next few weeks, I want to share some resources from friends of mine that I think might be beneficial for some of you that are not strictly social studies teachers. As the end of the summer approaches (sorry to bring that awful reminder to you), you likely will start thinking about resources and lessons for your classroom.

Meagan England is an Accountability Instructional Supervisor and previously served as an Instructional Coach,  K-8 Reading Interventionist and a 5th and 6th grade ELA teacher in Tennessee. She's got a great blog called Oodles of Teaching Fun that you might want to check out! 

She's got some great free cooperative learning activities for both reading and math here. You might also want to check out the printable activities she's got on her blog and free resources for writing, technology, and reading.

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The Civil Rights Movement is one of my favorite eras to teach in US History. There's so many compelling stories and it's easy for students to connect with the young people advocating for change in American society.

There's also a lot of events to cover. A great way to either introduce students to the era or review the Civil Rights Movement as a whole is with a timeline. This gives students a broad perspective of what was going on and how long it took from Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks first refusing to give up their seats in Montgomery until the Civil Rights Act finally ended segregation. 

I use this set of timeline activities in my US History classes. 

First, students paste into their notebooks a 2-page timeline that covers the height of the Civil Rights era. Once completed, it will look like this:

Students respond to the prompts for each event after reading short overviews that are placed at stations around the room. The 10 events we cover in this timeline are:

• Brown...

If you're a teacher, you know that one of the longest days of the year is Back to School Night. At some schools it's a once-a-year thing while at others you might have a couple of them. Either way, it means you're likely at school for 12+ hours. 

Obviously, any way you can make such a long day easier is a huge. You've just taught a full school day (which is tiring enough!) but then need to stay at school until 8 or 9 pm. 

My friend Kim has a great blog called "Stress-Free Teaching" where she shares great tips that are mostly focused on elementary. However, I wanted to share with you her blog post on Back to School Night Tips because they're super helpful no matter what grade you teach. 

My favorite of her recommendations is to create a video presentation to share with parents that couldn't make it to Back-to-School Night. Teaching high school, this is a common occurrence. I think most years I average about 5-7 parents out of a class of 25-30 kids. Most parents...

The Age of Absolutism is a great unit in World History. My students love learning about the rulers who held absolute power in Europe and seeing pictures of their great palaces. 

In my World History curriculum, I have a great Absolute Monarchs activity to get things started. Students receive worksheets with Europe's most well-known absolute rulers to cut out: Louis XIV, Philip II, Henry VIII, & Peter the Great. 

They also receive an interactive map of Europe that will go in their notebooks. We'll then go through a PowerPoint. As they learn about each monarch, they cut out the figures and glue them on the map so they pop-up. So it becomes a literal "Rise of Absolute Monarchs" right in their notebooks! 

Students love the hands-on nature of this activity. It keeps them engaged during the PowerPoint and helps them better connect with each leader. 

Next, students analyze a primary and secondary source on King Louis XIV's daily routine as Versailles and...

A great way to review Ancient Rome in World History is with an interactive timeline that covers early Rome through the Republic, Roman Empire, and finally the Fall of Rome. 

I use this set of timeline activities in my World History classes. The variety is great for differentiation and making the lesson engaging for all the kids in my classroom. 

First, students are provided with the reading activity on Ancient Rome. This is condensed so that it focuses on the most essential information students need to know. The download includes a 2-page PDF version for printing and a 3-page Google Doc version (this one can also be printed but it includes some more pictures). 

Students also receive a printable timeline that goes across 2 pages in their notebooks. The timeline features boxes with headings on the major events they need to know along with guiding questions. Students sometimes draw an event or analyze the text for their response.

 Students can work independently,...

Some of the most important concepts for students to understand about the American Revolution are the causes and events leading to the war and then the battles and key events that took place during the Revolutionary War.

Timeline activities are perfect to help students grasp the significance of each of these and are a great in-class activity. I combine activities that students complete in cooperative learning groups, digital timelines that kids work on with computers, and teacher-directed overviews of the most import events. This way, you ensure that students have a thorough understanding of each significant event of the Revolutionary War era. 

The first activity students complete is a cooperative learning activity where students read about and sort 10 events on a two-page interactive timeline. The activity includes PDF printable cards about each of the following events:

The Enlightenment, Salutary Neglect, The French & Indian War, Proclamation of...