Social Studies Interactive Notebooks - Yep, Again!

Here are some pictures of my social studies interactive notebook where I have been using lessons from InspirEd Educators to teach how ancient civilizations developed and failed along with our ancient Egypt interdisciplinary unit.

A full page graphic organizer folded and then taped into our notebook.  For social studies, I chose to use a composition notebook instead of a spiral notebook.  The way this is attached, students can still access the page and complete the activities.

This was a flow chart from InspirEd Educators Ancient Civilizations unit on how a civilization develops.

Quizzing students on what is really needed for a civilization to develop.

Another lesson from InspirEd Educators based on scenarios related to survival for an ancient civilization.

This is a simulation activity where students are "color" coded and have jobs to do.  Some students had to draw diamonds for basically no reward while a few others got credit for completed sheets, but had to count the diamonds, while an even smaller group was "paid" just for bossing all of the others around.  Students could see how different social classes came to be within a civilization.

Mapping ancient Egypt.  Students were enthralled with the fact that Lower Egypt is actually located "higher" than Upper Egypt.

Understanding the archaeology of ancient Egypt.

Learning about the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt.

Figuring out the bartering system of ancient Egypt.

Inside my Social Studies Interactive Notebook

Some had mentioned they would like to see inside my social studies interactive notebook so I finally remembered to bring it home and snap some pictures.  It is not as creative as my language arts one!  I used some foldables from Dinah Zike, some I found online, and some great units from InspirEd Educators. 

This is my first year teaching social studies (in middle school, in my career, and in 6th grade).  I teach in NC and our state will be implementing the Common Core starting next school (2012-2013).  In addition, all of our other curriculums have changed to what they call Essential  Standards.  I was put on the Social Studies Essential Standards training team for our county. 

Needless to say, I was panicked and lost at the beginning of the school year.  I started out with the five themes of geography and landforms and then moved to South America which was found in our old textbook while we read The Cay in language arts class.  Since being put on the training team, the team was told after the first nine weeks that we were allowed encouraged to convert to the new essential standards curriculum.  With that came a complete loss for me.  I had no social studies materials to start with, but the change meant I had absolutely nothing, not even the old textbook.  I headed to the Internet to search for materials, lessons, actually anything I could get my hands on and discovered InspirED Educators. 

InspirEd Educators was like this amazing find for me (and in no way am I affiliated or paid to promote their products)!  They have several thematic units on ancient world history which is what our new essential standards is for 6th grade.  These lessons contain a variety of hands on activities, primary and secondary sources, whole group/small group lessons, research projects, and collaborative projects just to name a few. 

So...long story short:  my social studies notebooks started out more interactive but then became a place to glue all the lesson from InspirEd Educators as act as a textbook for social studies.  Here are a few pictures to get started.

The table of contents for my social studies interactive notebook.

Five Themes of Geography flip book foldable.  We took notes on each tab for that theme.  Notice the capital/bold letters spell MR. HELP...this was our acronym to help remember the five themes (found on the Internet somewhere).

One of the tabs from our Five Themes of Geography flip book foldable.

Longitude and latitude foldable using a paper plate and then glued into our notebooks.

Here is the paper plate foldable unfolded in our notebook.