How to End Your Year in Social Studies with an Engaging Project Your Students Will Love

Are you struggling with keeping your students engaged during social studies class?  

Are they flipping water bottles, spinning fidgets, hiding slime and anything else to avoid having to do actual school work?

My fifths can barely sit still right now.  But I can't give up on teaching and learning yet.  We still have a lot to cover - the entire American Revolution to be precise.  I can't let those slime loving dabbers off the hook yet!  

So how do I tackle this problem? By sneaking in learning, while making them feel like they're having fun!

This is where mock trials come in!  If you've never tried mock trials in your classroom you are missing out!

To read more about how I implement mock trials in our classroom check out this blog post HERE.

Mock trials are my absolute favorite project every single year!  They are the perfect way to bring alive any event in history AND bring the judicial branch to life in your very own classroom.

We started our mock trials projects last week with auditions, and now our attorneys can't keep their hands off every book/source that has anything to do with the topic of their case (either the Boston Tea Party or the Boston Massacre).  Literally they are working their little behinds off (yes working hard in May!!!) and their sense of purpose and drive blows me away every year!

Meanwhile, I'm wandering around aimlessly without much to do while they're strategizing with their witnesses, writing their opening and closing statements, practicing their lines of questioning and learning more about these events than I ever thought possible!  

I can't imagine doing social studies any other way. My kiddos are so engaged I haven't seen a water bottle flip in almost a week!