Blogs this time of the year are full of wonderful ideas for the first day of school. I would like to share with you a lesson that I do on the 3rd or 4th day of school after all procedural things are taken care of.

I start off by brainstorming with the kids – asking the question “What don’t you like about history?” We write their answers on a flip chart.

Then I show them this awesome YouTube video by jhayesteach.  It highlights a small little speck of the amazingly cool things about history!

Then I go through this prezi I created called Top 10 Reasons to Learn History.  Which also highlights a few things about why history is so awesome. Through this we go into discussion and talk about our own personal histories.

We’ll revisit our chart of what they don’t like about history and create a new one that displays what they think is cool about history.

This year I think I’ll wrap it up by showing them this YouTube video by John Green (VlogBrothers)  called An Open Letter to Students Returning to School. He talks insanely fast and it’ll probably go in one ear and out the other but the point I want my students to get is that we all are “stupid” as he puts it and we are all learning to not be stupid together.

Best of luck to everyone starting school this week!!! Happy teaching.