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Ruth Messenger's Shop

Average Rating3.44
(based on 19 reviews)

I've been teaching history for four years, and I aim to provide lessons that are ready to go with minimal tweaking just to personalise the resource to your class and their prior learning. I'm a big fan of paired discussion, group work, debates, living graphs and hot seating, and I provide a variety of tasks in each lesson to ensure learning happens at a pace and that all learning styles are catered for. All feedback gratefully received.

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I've been teaching history for four years, and I aim to provide lessons that are ready to go with minimal tweaking just to personalise the resource to your class and their prior learning. I'm a big fan of paired discussion, group work, debates, living graphs and hot seating, and I provide a variety of tasks in each lesson to ensure learning happens at a pace and that all learning styles are catered for. All feedback gratefully received.
Roman Trading Game
ruthmessengerruthmessenger

Roman Trading Game

(1)
This is a great game for introducing numeracy into a history topic. Students work their way around a Roman Empire trading map and at each port they are offered opportunities to trade goods that the Romans would have traded, for denarii. Once they get to the next port, they flip a coin or roll a dice to find out what price they receive for their goods, then they have options to buy more goods of a different time and move on to the next port to find out what their luck brings. The accountancy sheet helps them to keep track of their money, they will need counters to indicate their position on the map and coins and a dice to help them work out what happens with their products. As mentioned, this game is great for numeracy, but also in giving students an idea of the scope of the Roman Empire and how trade opportunities were increased by the stability offered by the Empire. Perfect for KS3, but not too tough for the top end of KS2. Many thanks to Paul Durnall who gave me this.
To what extent did the lives of Black Americans change to become more equal by 1968?
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To what extent did the lives of Black Americans change to become more equal by 1968?

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UK Teachers: This resource is intended to support the learning of AS and A Level students, but can be adapted to support learners in KS4. It is designed to cover 2 lessons and lead towards students writing an essay on the topic for homework, alternatively the essay could be completed in class and form a third lesson. Essay resources and structure included in the PowerPoint. US Teachers: This resource is aimed at students who would be aged 17 and 18 in the UK, although it can be adapted for younger or less able learners. It is an in depth investigation of the success of the civil rights movement using facts and statistics, leading learners to write an essay on the topic. Learning time should be 2 hours in class, plus time to write the essay. NB the term 'black Americans' is used throughout, you may want to change this to African Americans. Lesson Objectives for this resource: LO: To be able to make a judgement on how much change took place by 1968 LO: To be able to support this judgement with detailed pieces of evidence LO: To be able to organise our analysis into factors or themes that can be used in an essay LO: To show how our overall judgement has been arrived at from our analysis of these factors Activities include a starter based on school experiences, a card sort into factors, a living graph activity that can be done in pairs, or groups, and an essay based on the above question. Resources needed: scissors, glue, coloured pens, sugar paper or large piece of white paper (A3 should do) Please let me know what you think of this resource in the reviews - particularly if you have any suggestions on how to improve it.
Life in the Hitler Youth Game
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Life in the Hitler Youth Game

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This game gives students the chance to be a boy in the Hitler youth following the Nazi policies. Board spaces are either events such as reading aloud from Mein Kampf, or questions from the sheet provided to test students knowledge, allowing them either to move forwards or remain. Great consolidation game for KS3 and KS4, especially when revision pressure starts! Thanks to Paul Durnall who gave me this.
City Living in the Industrial Revolution
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City Living in the Industrial Revolution

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A source based lesson on life in cities during the industrial revolution focusing on making and supporting inferences. A mixture of picture sources and written sources are used and a homework suggestion is included. The Learning Outcomes this lesson targets are: ALL will be able to use sources to find out information (L4), MOST will be able to make inferences from the sources (L5) SOME will be able to explain our inferences by linking the sources to each other, or our own knowledge (L6)
1066 and beyond: Medieval England and William's Conquest
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1066 and beyond: Medieval England and William's Conquest

8 Resources
Seven exciting lessons to kick start the new term with your new year seven class. These lessons do not require any textbook, nor do they contain youtube links that will soon be obsolete, instead they are activity and role play based and allow students to explore the middle ages using drama, discussion, peer to peer learning and structured literacy tasks. All resources fully differentiated, enjoy!
A Play about Henry VIII and his 6 wives
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A Play about Henry VIII and his 6 wives

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It was the end of term, my lovely year 7 asked me for a drama lesson, so I wrote this play. We rehearsed and performed it within just one lesson, minimum props needed. The play is several very short chunks that allows up to 32 students to have a named part. Each scene is written for between 2 and 5 students and there are 10 'scenes' so lots of people get to be Henry and lots more get to be various wives. I provided yellow cardboard crowns and some cardboard swords and we used our imagination for the rest. After each group had had 15 minutes to rehearse, to plan their entrances and props and actions etc, I gathered them all into an arena shape with a half circle of chairs in front, several tables behind so all could sit and all could see. The groups performed the scenes in order as I called them, it was a beautiful farce that was lots of fun, and lots of clapping. The most memorable part was when a group of boys enacted Jane Seymour giving birth.. lots of ad libbing! I hope you enjoy this as much as we did, I will definitely be using this again. NB I wrote it with a mixed ability class in mind so the reading isn't too challenging. To beef it up you could have a selection of keywords, or historical terms on the board and give points for groups that include them.
Understanding Significance
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Understanding Significance

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This lesson is an introduction to the historical skill of significance and explaining significance. It gets students to discuss why someone might be significant in history eg. They changed peoples lives at the time, or they made a lot of money, or they achieved something extraordinary. Students put these in order of the most effective way of measuring historical significance to the least. I designed this for year 7, but have found myself using this lesson over and over again with all secondary year groups as it helps to reset the basics for understanding significance. The second part of the lesson is the balloon game, I would get students to play this in groups rather than as a class.
What did Protestants Protest about? The origins of the Protestant Church
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What did Protestants Protest about? The origins of the Protestant Church

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This lesson is an introduction to the basic issues that Martin Luther had with the Catholic church. It touches on the central role of the priest, indulgences and the financial profligacy of the church. There is one task that uses a page from the SHP Year 7 textbook, but most textbooks will have a page to help answer the question 'what were the main differences between Protestants and Catholics?' This is the question that students use the page to answer, so if you have a similar resource then this lesson is still good for you. Here are the lesson objectives this lesson is designed to satisfy: ALL: Will be able to identify differences between the Catholic and Protestant Churches MOST: Will be able to explain the differences based on what the Protestants protested about SOME: Will be able to make supported inferences about why some people were unhappy with the Catholic church
Doom Paintings and the Church in the Middle Ages
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Doom Paintings and the Church in the Middle Ages

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This is a pretty relaxed lesson that guides students towards the following objectives: ALL: Will be able to describe doom paintings and their message MOST: Will be able to make inferences from primary sources SOME: Will be able to analyse sources to make an inference as to how powerful the church was in the middle ages. This lesson features a 'see it, describe it, draw it' starter, some paired discussion and a written task to demonstrate understanding. NB. there is no text or clip detailing what a doom painting is, or where they were found. This lesson relies on you having subject knowledge to support students in their inferences.
Gerald Ford, the 'Half a Term President'
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Gerald Ford, the 'Half a Term President'

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This lesson gives students the task of working together in a group to publish a short newspaper and it is designed for KS5 as independent research skills are central to this lesson. They have to chose whether they use a Pro Ford headline, or an Anti-Ford headline and need the resources available to research aspects of Ford's presidency. I strongly suggest that you make textbooks available such as 'Access to History, Politics, Presidency and Society' to support this piece of group work. Within this PP are prompts for the group to research on the economy, women's rights, racial equality and politics within the Republican Party. At the end, students have to decide whether to include a political cartoon about Ford being the 'the mender'.
Intro to the Ideologies of the Cold War: Communism and Capitalism
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Intro to the Ideologies of the Cold War: Communism and Capitalism

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Designed for KS3, the HA resources are appropriate for KS4, with an additional research task this could be adapted for KS5. This lesson considers the ideologies separate from their historical contexts so it is a great introduction, but also provides space for debate that would be appropriate to a politics or citizenship lesson. Tasks: a vocab based starter, a main that encourages group work with speaking and listening the main method of learning, a class vote as to which ideology is best and a plenary that sneakily uses group work to consolidate learning. Learning Outcomes for this lesson: To be able to identify differences between ideologies To describe one ideology and give a way in which the other ideology is different To explain the differences between the ideologies and why they appeal to people To analyse the pros and cons of the ideologies to understand how they would work in practice Please note this is a self contained lesson with all necessary materials included (unless you want to adapt for KS5), no textbooks needed and no potentially problematic youtube clips to play. Whether you love it or you hate it, please review below so I can keep adjusting these resources to suit! Many thanks, Ruth
Home Front Board Game - make one, play one, consolidate learning
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Home Front Board Game - make one, play one, consolidate learning

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Includes instructions for how to make a board game that includes elements of luck and elements of testing knowledge. This activity needs to follow at least one lesson on the home front so students can set their own questions. Essential Resources needed: Large pieces of paper, pens. dice Desirable Resources: coloured paper and card, scissors, coloured pens This is a fun lesson for the end of a unit, feel free to make your own board game as an example, or to model what other board games look like. I have attached a list of questions if your students are a little stuck on setting their own, the answers have a star next to them
How did the Feudal System help William keep control of England after 1066?
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How did the Feudal System help William keep control of England after 1066?

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Teaching the feudal system is not the most exciting lesson, so I have turned this one on its head. Students spend the lesson preparing to teach the feudal system to their parents/guardians at home, using the facts they can gain from the lesson. They know this at the outset, have the feudal system explained to them and have 20 minutes to prepare their 'mini lesson' during their history lesson. I have several slides explaining the feudal system with cartoon pictures in colour to liven things up, then you have a class discussion about the homework. Ask them about their favourite lessons and what kind of activities the teachers had them doing. I've put loads of suggestions for this on the PowerPoint and the best thing about this lesson is that there is absolutely no marking! Parents fill in a feedback sheet for the homework and all you need to do is smile and say well done - the parents have marked them for you! Learning Objectives covered here: ALL: Will be able to describe the feudal system MOST: Will be able to explain the relationships between each level SOME: Will be able to explain how this would help William to keep control over his new country. Bonus material - a colouring in sheet of the feudal system. Not bad cover if you got them to colour and then annotate it.
Assorted Evacuation Resources
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Assorted Evacuation Resources

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These assorted resources are designed to support your own teaching and provide a basis of knowledge for students to build on. They are not 'download and go' material, but do provide straightforward activities, an assessment and a research based homework task that are great if you are feeling a little frazzled. I'll talk you through what is included: * 'Evacuation Research Homework' gives students a URL and a series of questions to answer based on what they read on the webpage. * 'Evacuation Question and Answer matching task is extremely straight forward, you could use it as a starter or with an LA group it might be fun to cut out the questions and answers and ask the student to find their match. * 'Evacuation Experiences Living Graph' and 'Evacuation Experiences Events' are a worksheet and a PP that give students 5 events in the journey of the evacuee and they flip a coin to decide if they get the positive experience or the negative experience. They plot these experiences on a living graph. * 'Evacuation Accounts' is a real gem here, 11 primary source accounts of evacuation of a decent length to challenge your HA. Accounts range from recollections of evacuees to government leaflets. There is no accompanying task for this resource, but it is highly adaptable and extremely useful as a base of study. You would probably need about 2 mins to set questions from this resource and you would want to use only 3 or 4 of the sources at a time. Many Thanks to Paul Durnall who gave me these
Assorted Resources for the Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
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Assorted Resources for the Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Here are a bundle of worksheets, three of them are self guided and contain both sources or points of information and a task for students to do. Perfect for a homework or a cover lesson, or as part of a larger lesson plan. The topics on these sheets are: * the long term effects of the bomb * the short term effects of the bomb * reasons for dropping the bomb There is also another worksheet that will require them to have done the first three in order to complete, it is 'why did the USA drop the bomb and what were the consequences of it' and consolidates their learning. Finally I have included both an assessment and an assessment mark scheme that uses the old NC levels. Many thanks to Paul Durnall who gave me this.
Why did confidence in the US government decline between 1968 and 1980?
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Why did confidence in the US government decline between 1968 and 1980?

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You need a specific textbook to use this resource - if you download this without it, you will have to spend time pulling alternative resources together. Lesson Outcomes: ALL Will be able to describe at least two reasons why confidence in the President declined MOST Will be able to assess which factor was most damaging SOME will be able to link the factors Lesson includes source analysis, independent research and structured explanations.
Edexcel  Paper 1, Option F: In search of the American Dream LESSON 2 What is the American Dream?
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Edexcel Paper 1, Option F: In search of the American Dream LESSON 2 What is the American Dream?

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Edexcel Paper 1, Option F: In search of the American Dream LESSON 2 What is the American Dream? Follow on from the intro lesson, this lesson uses the homework students were set in the first lesson as a task in this lesson. You could just print off some articles about the US in the news though and students could use those instead. - Students identify themes in the news articles - definitions of the American dream used and discussed as a basis for finding a class definition
Lecture notes on Opposition to Civil Rights
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Lecture notes on Opposition to Civil Rights

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I attended a lecture with my year 12 and took these notes which I then typed up into a resource for them to use. There were lots of facts that weren't covered in any of the textbooks so this is a useful resource to read over before planning a lesson on this topic. Please review if this was useful.