Engage the Brain: Games, Social Studies, Grades 6-8

Download a Sample Lesson Plan and Student Activity

Real learning can be fun with games for the brain!

The Engage the Brain: Games series offers practical activities that energize students, increase brain connections to content, and reinforce learning in a nonthreatening atmosphere.

Derived from tested, research-based strategies found in the bestseller Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites, this book provides activities that incorporate games aligned with national academic standards for the social studies, including geography and maps, American history, world history, world cultures, and government and citizenship.

You will find brain-friendly activities that can be integrated easily into your lesson plans to inspire enthusiasm and help students achieve. Each game provides learning objectives, a comprehensive materials list, step-by-step guidelines for playing the game, activities for extended learning, and required reproducibles such as game cards, game boards, and scorecards. Discover favorites such as 20 questions, hot potato, and relay races applied to middle school social studies content in games like Historical Figures 20 Questions, Magna Carta Relay Race, and Checks-and-Balances Hot Potato. All games include a focus activity, modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and a closing. Students actively process content as they play existing games, and construct and design a variety of new ones.

Use these engaging activities to supplement your curriculum goals in

• Maps, continents, and oceans
• American and world history
• Government, citizenship, and law
• Middle ages, renaissance, and colonial periods
• World cultures, traditions, and more!

Watch your students thrive and grow with creative experiences that incorporate movement, teamwork, healthy competition, and interpersonal skills!