From Ancient Civilizations to Today,
Bring History to Life
Whether you're introducing Hammurabi, studying the three branches of government or reviewing World War I, our songs, videos and activities will complement and enhance your instruction. Read on to find subject-wide lesson plans and implementation suggestions, and then experience a social studies video.
Subject-Wide Lesson Plans
Where Are They Now? The Past’s Connection to the Present
In this lesson, students will compare and contrast past and present time periods across the world.
Time Travel with Historical Fiction Writing
Reading historical fiction provides a compelling way for students to learn about different time periods. In this lesson, students will write their own short historical fiction story using details from a historical period.
History Debate
Debating an historical event can help students clarify their understanding of a topic, support their opinions and understand other views of current events. Debates encourage interactions and socialization in the classroom. We've provided some guidelines and a worksheet to hold a formal debate as well as tips for more informal discussions.
What is History?
In this lesson, students will use Flocabulary's Week in Rap, Year in Rap, 18 Years in Rap and a history unit on the French Revolution to examine a key question: What is history?
Implementation Suggestions
Schedule Recommendation
Use social studies videos and additional resources at any point during the lesson sequence: to introduce new content, go in depth with a subject or review at the end of the unit. They are great for bellwork or "Do Now"s.
Plan Out the Year
Our Social Studies curriculum mirrors typical courses of Ancient World History, Modern World History and United States History, as well as civics. At the beginning of the school year, review the videos to see where they match with your sequential curriculum and make sure that you don't miss a Flocabulary video!
Preview the Unit
Before you begin a new unit, ask students to watch the Flocabulary video. This will give students familiarity with key people, terms and dates, and we hear from teachers that it serves as a great hook! When you watch the video as a class for the first time, ask students to stand or raise their hand when they hear a key term they know.
Jigsaw the Lyric Notes
The informational text in the Lyric Notes provides in-depth historical information; some teachers use these passages to replace text book reading. Divide the Lyric Notes among your students, and have them teach historical information to one another.
Lyrical Timeline
Set aside space on the wall of a classroom to create a timeline for your history course with an area for each historical period. Have students write their favorite lyrics from songs in that time period's section. They can print out characters they like from videos, or illustrate key concepts from that time period. Regularly review a few lyrics and key facts from the time period throughout the year.
Connect Social Studies to ELA
In addition to social studies videos, you have access to our entire library of language arts resources. Whether you're tackling the main idea of a reading passage or planning an end-of-year research project, explore Flocabulary's ELA videos to help build core literacy and writing skills across the curriculum.
Show The Week in Rap Each Friday
Zoom forward through history to current events. Flocabulary creates a new current events video called The Week in Rap each Friday. Explore The Week in Rap, and make time for it in your class each week.
End of Year Review
At the end of the school year, review for final exams or state tests by watching all the Flocabulary videos you covered throughout the year. The Fill-in-the-Blank exercise that accompanies each video is an especially good way to review key terms. You could have one long video day, or show a video or two for review each day for two weeks at the end of the year.