Social Studies / History
#Inspired2Learn is a collection of Inspired Teaching® resources and lessons
to help parents and teachers foster engaging learning with students.
GRADE LEVEL
Subject Area
Finding the Zone of Proximal Development
This activity helps students to become aware of their zones of proximal development, those spaces that push them to stretch beyond what they already know and can do toward what might be possible.
Make Way for the Monarchs
Few lifecycles are as enticing to observe in their entirety as that of monarchs and watching the transformation from a caterpillar into a creature that can fly is a powerful metaphor for the kind of transformation one can do through learning.
Finding Smiles
Focused and specific feedback on how we positively relate to others is good for our self-esteem and encourages us to lean into our authentic selves.
Hands and Feet Stories
Learning to listen deeply may very well be one of the most important skills we can cultivate as members of a community and one of the ways we can demonstrate our understanding of what we hear is by sharing back what was said.
Seeing with Different Eyes
Using basic observation and listening skills, this activity can serve as a catalyst for building community in the classroom and deepening understanding of how each of your students thinks.
Yes. But… vs. Yes! And…
As teachers, embracing an improvisational mindset can help us think creatively about problems, and building this kind of thinking in our students can do the same for them. This activity is a good place to start.
Listening With Someone Else’s Ears
This activity invites students to step into the role of someone (or something!) else, imagine what they would say, and listen to what those around that person are saying too.
Zoom Out
Considering the size of our problems in the relation to a bigger context can help us understand the nature of the issue better, and sometimes even make the problem seem less huge.
Seven Bikes
This activity combines observation and inquiry as learners exercise their imaginations to find multiple answers to the same question.
Story as Witnessing: Creating Oral Histories During the Covid-19 Epidemic
How are you preserving the stories that document this unprecedented time in modern world history?
Plan a Trip
In this activity, students plan a trip from start to finish including where they wish to go and what they wish to see when they go there.
Document History with First Person Accounts
Some of the most interesting and useful artifacts from history are the first-person accounts we find in journals and interviews.