History Activities That Are Definitely NOT Boring
Do you struggle to find history activities that your students will enjoy? In your classroom does history get a bad rep for being boring? That will no longer be the case, my friend. I have a whole bunch of very fun, interesting, and exciting history activities that your students will love doing!
The real struggle is finding the time to allow your students to engage with these history activities throughout the day when they are meant to be learning about other things!
Why are history activities important in your classroom?
For some people, history is full of exciting and fun stories about real-life situations and people from the past that we can learn about and get to know. Learning and reading about the past can have the same effect as losing yourself in a good novel. You enter into a world where you’ve never been, or perhaps a place or story you’ve experienced in the real world in a different light and you learn the stories that have shaped the world or a specific place. (I’m sure you can tell if you didn’t already know that I am one of these people!)
There are other people, though, who find history boring. They don’t really care too much about the history behind people, places, and things. These people care more about the here and now and what kind of future is being shaped and what may happen as a result of what is happening now. (These people aren’t wrong, I know a few of them. They just need a helping hand in order to really appreciate history.)
History activities are needed between these people who love history and devote their time and energy to learning more about it and sharing it with others and the people who would rather focus on now and the future. Using history activities in your classroom will help bridge the gap between those who love history and those who need someone to explain and demonstrate why it’s not boring.
History Activities to Prove that History is Definitely NOT Boring
While there are a plethora of activities to get students involved in to make history come to life and really interest them, these are some of my favorite history activities.
Color-by-Number History Activities
Chances are, whatever historical subject you are teaching in your classroom, I have a color-by-number resource available for you. The color-by-number history activities allow students to explore history in a different way.
Whether you are learning about Women’s History, Black History, Ancient Greek History, or even the History of the American Flag, you will find fun and creative color-by-number history activities.
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These activities allow your students to practice their reading comprehension skills with questions and answers corresponding to different colors. Each answer will ensure that your students’ color-by-number resource is colored in the right order and colors for a picture to be seen within a seemingly jumbled array of shapes on the page.
Secret Message History Activities
Check out a secret message resource today in order to prove to your students that history is definitely not boring. Secret message history activities are designed to allow students to enjoy history by reading a non-fiction passage and then answering comprehension questions. Each correct answer reveals a piece of a secret message for your students.
There are so many options for secret message history activities available for you. There are secret message resources based on the Byzantine Empire, Labor Day, Veteran’s Day, and Albert Einstein just to name a few!
Scavenger Hunt History Activities
Scavenger hunt history activities allow students to learn about history while moving around the classroom and doing different things. The biggest complaint teachers hear about history lessons is that they are boring. If you aren’t a fan of sitting and reading, that may be true. A lot of history is written down so that we read it or it is told to us in a storytelling format. Some of us (myself included) love reading and being told stories, others of us do not, and that’s okay.
For those of us who need a little bit of extra excitement in our history activities, we have scavenger hunts. These scavenger hunt resources are full of reading passages with comprehension questions that are meant to be placed throughout the classroom. For each correct comprehension question answered, there is a clue that helps your students solve a puzzle to complete the scavenger hunt. You can find history scavenger hunts based on the Renaissance, Benjamin Franklin, the Trojan War, and more!
Escape Room History Activities
Last, but not least is a favorite of every classroom: history escape rooms! These escape room history activities will take your students on a journey around the classroom as they solve puzzles, and find clues and codes all about different events in history. Each piece of detective work your students do will reveal more historical information about each event and teach your students all about history without them even realizing what’s happening!
Some of the history escape rooms available for your classroom are Martin Luther King, Jr, Civil War Reconstruction, Pearl Harbor, and more!
Are these history activities really what your classroom needs?
I would vote yes, you do need these history activities in your classroom. Some students love history and will read and learn about it all day long. However, I think the majority of students probably need some help in the motivation department of learning about history. These history activities are exactly what your classroom needs. Whether you use color-by-number, secret messages, scavenger hunts, or an escape room, there are so many good choices for developing a love of history.
Which resource will you use first in your classroom?
