What to Teach: Beginning of the Year Social Studies Activities

Starting a new year is such an exciting time (but overwhelming)! Social studies will always be one of my favorite subjects to teach to young learners. These teaching ideas will help you plan and prepare your Social Studies class with engaging beginning of the year social studies activities.

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Beginning of the Year Social Studies Activities: Community

The first few days are for setting up our social studies notebooks and establishing our routines. Once our class has a social studies notebook or folder to house all of our work, I start by discussing what a good classmate is and what we are going to learn about this year in social studies.

We read books about the characteristics of a good classmate and fun back-to-school stories that highlight positive citizenship and following the rules.

Introduce Classroom Rules!

beginning of the year classroom rules anchor chart template picture

Before starting the meat of our social studies curriculum in our classroom, I like to go over our rules, routines, and expectations. Reviewing your class rules will help you avoid problems and ensure your students know what to do in your class.

One fun way that I like to introduce our school rules is by creating an anchor chart that we fill out tougher. I have the students share what rules they think are important, and we write them down on our whiteboard. Once we have a big list, we pick 5 of the most important rules and write them down on our anchor chart.

beginning of the year social studies school rules

To make the chart more interactive, I have students sign their names at the bottom to act as a large “contract” that we sign and agree to. I also give my class their own copy so that they have one in their social studies notebook to refer to throughout the year.

FREE Back to School Anchor Charts!

Grab the anchor charts in this post for FREE to help you save time while planning out your back-to-school activities! Grab them HERE!

Beginning of the Year Social Studies Activities: Citizenship

In addition to knowing your class rules, I like to provide activities that focus on character education. Teaching students what a good classmate is and what are bucket fillers is a great way to help students visualize and understand how to treat one another in the class.

I use this nonfiction reader from my back-to-school activity pack to introduce what a bucket filler is, then I have the class work on activities where they list ways they can be a bucket filler to their classmates.

Extra Social Studies Worksheets

The first few days of school can be a bit chaotic with all of the paperwork that needs to be filled out. I like to make sure that I have extra worksheets in case a situation arises where I have to take a minute to organize or prep something.

The first few weeks of school are a great time to continuously review class rules and expectations. I make sure that I provide lots of books that model good character and friendship. As well as have worksheets that focus on our classroom rules. Color and sort, drawing pictures, and scenario questions are some of my favorites for this time of year.

Discuss Topics We Will Learn About This Year!

One of the last activities I make sure to include in my lesson plans is gathering the class up to discuss the fun things we will learn about in social studies.

I use anchor charts to talk about the different topics we are going to learn about in social studies. I also like to see what the students want to learn more about in social studies throughout the year. It is a great way to see what your class is interested in. It is also an easy way to boost engagement when you incorporate your students’ passions into your lesson plans.

Grab My Beginning of the Year Social Studies Activities!

All of the worksheets and activities in this post are from my Back to Schools Activities unit. The unit includes lesson plans, vocabulary, activities, Reading Passages, QR codes, and more! It has all you need to kick start your Social Studies class at the beginning of the year.

Click HERE for the printable unit and HERE for the digital version. OR save money by purchasing the paper and digital bundle HERE.

Starting the year off with these beginning-of-the-year social studies activities will help you get your students excited to learn in your classroom. I hope these activities help you introduce social studies to your class during the first few weeks of school.

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