Adding fun and humor to your lessons can make history more accessible to students.
For history teachers, ensuring that students retain knowledge beyond test day can be a challenge. Many students find themselves bored in history class because they are unable to form a personal connection to the facts and dates they are asked to memorize. But teachers who approach history in a lively manner can inspire students to connect course material to their own contexts.You can add humor and fun to your history classroom by implementing a number of creative assignments.
Instructions
1. Create a time line that includes major events and developments interspersed with odd or unique historical occurrences. Teach each major event within the context of the unusual ones that happened within the same time frame. Ask your students to research historical oddities and add them to the time line. Hold a contest to see who can find the funniest or most bizarre fact.
2. Assign students a creative research project on a historical figure. Have students gather important facts, but instead of requiring a traditional essay ask them to present the material to the class in the role of that person. Have them construct costumes and bring unique items their historical figures would have used. Encourage students to be entertaining and humorous while also striving for historical accuracy.
3. Create a humorous history scavenger hunt for your students. Make a list of accomplishments by or facts about key figures, then list their names in a word bank below it. Include fun facts as well as material students can find in the textbook. Instruct students to use the library and Internet to determine which fact pairs with which figure. Alternatively, ask students to create humorous history scavenger hunts for each other to complete.
