Middle School Social Studies
Assignment Calendar
Course Description
The Idaho state standards for Social Studies are the same for all three grades 6-8 so all three grades are mixed in each class and all Idaho standards are covered every year. There are four units, Eastern Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere, United States History and World History. Each unit is split into one quarter of the year. Two sessions of Social Studies are offered in the afternoon and every student needs to choose one session.
Each quarter, an End-of-Unit Project is required. There are several projects to choose from, and I leave it up to the student to choose. The project does need to focus on the part of the world that was studied for that quarter. Project ideas are uploaded to Google Classroom several weeks before the end of the quarter. I ask the the students choose a different project type each quarter to get a more rounded experience for completing large assignments.
Several large tests are given throughout the year. These include the 50 states and where they are located, major mountain ranges of the world, large cities of the world, states and capitals etc. I usually give two to three weeks to study for these, but time is rarely given in class to study.
The instruction is split between lecture, Performance Tasks, and textbook work. A Performance task is an interactive lesson with online videos, articles and information with a writing assignment at the end. The students enjoy these the most, but they also need to learn how to take notes during a lecture, and how to read a chapter and answer questions at the end.
I also do final exams at the end of each quarter with information from the whole quarter on the exam. A study guide is given to the students two weeks before the exam.
Homework for Social Studies is what was not completed in class and studying for tests.