Absolute and relative location are two basic, important geography tools that all students must master. While there are many available assignments to teach these concepts to elementary school and middle school/junior high school students, here’s one with a twist! Students will locate all 30 MLB teams using absolute and relative location. Absolute location, of course, requires students to use latitude and longitude to give their answers. Relative location requires cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) and intermediate directions (northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest). This would be an effective assignment as the Major League Baseball season opens its latest season. Included, please find the assignment with chart for record-keeping, an answer key, and an idea for an extension assignment. Plus, how about this idea for an educational technology twist? I used Google Earth and a custom-made kml file to bring the stadium tour to life in your classroom. I have included simple instructions to install the file on your laptop or desktop computer. Find the link inside this packet. This tour allows students to utilize modern technology in the classroom to better understand the locations of baseball facilities while also observing diverse environments and city structures from the air. There are several other real world benefits and I hope you will share them with your students!

Absolute location is a very important geography concepts that all students must master. Latitude and longitude are two very important tools as well. This assignment encourages students to find 20 American cities on a map using only their coordinates. The assignment includes an answer key for easy review or grading. You may use the Internet, a classroom resource, or the map I have supplied to complete it. The choice is yours. This would be an effective assignment to use when introducing latitude and longitude in your classroom. It will help reinforce skills later in the school year as well.

The Howard Carter and King Tut's Tomb R.A.F.T. Creative Writing Project is an excellent assignment to use to wrap up a lesson about this incredible event in ancient Egyptian history. It is also a great idea if you wish to make a unit multidisciplinary: you can combine social studies and language arts into a fun, challenging creative writing project! It might even complement a thematic learning center! What is a R.A.F.T., you might ask? R.A.F.T. is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. R.A.F.T.s provide rigor, flexibility, and variety. A R.A.F.T. can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource. Young writers might pursue one of several genres or types of writing to create one of several products including a letter, a television commercial, a journal entry, and several more.

The Henry Ford and the Model T R.A.F.T. Creative Writing Project is an excellent assignment to use to wrap up a lesson about this iconic figure in American History. It is also a great idea if you wish to make a unit multidisciplinary: you can combine social studies and language arts into a fun, challenging creative writing project! What is a R.A.F.T., you might ask? R.A.F.T. is an acronym for a powerful writing strategy that stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. R.A.F.T.s provide rigor, flexibility, and variety. A R.A.F.T. can be implemented in all content areas, thus making it an excellent Writing Across the Curriculum resource. Young writers might pursue one of several genres or types of writing to create one of several products including a letter, a television commercial, a journal entry, and several more. I define this further in the packet.

Are you looking for a way to introduce a discussion about the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights into your planning? Looking for a way to teach "Constitution Day" in your Social Studies curriculum? This assignment will do the trick. Students are introduced to some basic facts about the Bill of Rights in the first page of the assignment. The remaining pages ask students to read, analyze, and explain each of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. They must also imagine a nation without these rights to protect its citizens. They will then explain how they believe life in America would differ without these protections. I have used it successfully in middle school Social Studies classrooms in the past as either an individual assignment or as a team project. What I find especially helpful about this document is that you do not have to teach with all ten amendments. You can pick and choose only a few of them if you wish.

These worksheets are good tools for teaching students about the fifty states and their capital cities. In this packet, you will find the following worksheets and visual aids: (1) State Capitals – Students must find all 50 state capitals and write them down on the blanks provided. (2) The 50 States & Their Capitals – Students must write down the name of each state on the blanks provided. (3) State Abbreviations – Teach students the proper postal abbreviations for all 50 states. (4) State Nicknames – Teach students all of the state nicknames. (5) and (6) Capital City Jumble – Two worksheets containing 15 problems each. Students must unscramble the names of capital cities and then list their respective states. (7) A colorful map containing the 50 states and their capital cities (8) A blank map of the 50 states.**

This is the create-a-country project which requires students – upper elementary, middle, or high school – to demonstrate fundamental geography skills. I mention it is a scalable assignment. Simply, there are different versions of this two-part assignment here: an upper elementary school assignment, a middle school assignment, and a high school assignment. Of course, you can mix-and-match to fit the needs of your classes. Both parts of this assignment require students to think critically to earn full credit. The first part of the assignment requires them to define their country’s unique characteristics. The second part is a map-making assignment in which they take the displayable characteristics from part one and illustrate them on a blank piece of paper. This can be a very powerful and engaging project!