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Historical Card Fun

Historical figures will inspire a fun game in which students design cards featuring memorable people.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Index Cards
  • Index Cards, Unlined

Steps

  • Step 1

    As a class discuss criteria for memorable historic figures for a collaboratively created game. What might be a significant accomplishment and what types of fun facts do they think should be researched and part of the card game? Each student should research three to four individuals that fit the criteria and note some fun and interesting facts about their selected people.

  • Step 2

    Have each student write the name of their people on the backs of unlined index cards and add illusrations. On the front of each card they should write a few facts they learned.

  • Step 3

    To play the game, form small teams and divide the cards so they are equally distributed among the teams. Have a member of each team randomly select a card with the fact side up and the name side face down or hidden. As the player reads the info on the front of the card, the others on their team try to guess the name of that historical figure.

  • Step 4

    If a team member guesses the correct name, that player keeps the card. If not, the card is put in a discard pile. The one player from the entire class who "earned" the most cards at the end of the game wins. The teams' discard piles become an opportunity for more research and reading about historic figures whose facts were not readily recognized.

Standards

SS: Time, Continuity, and Change: Read, reconstruct, and interpret the past. Imagine the future. Place oneself in various times and spaces and reflect on change. 

SEL: Relationship Skills: Communicate clearly/effectively, listen actively, cooperate, work collaboratively to problem solve and negotiate conflict constructively. 

Adaptations

After playing a round or two of the game, students should remember many of the names that were included. Now have team members pick a card but instead of reading the facts ask them to choose one word to describe the person. For example if Lincoln was included in prior rounds then the person who picks the card this time might say "cabin" or "Gettysburg."

Challenge students to arrange all the cards chronologically on a timeline to denote the period in history when the person was active.