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Mysteries in History
If students think history is boring, it's probably because they're taking it for granted that most things have been figured out long ago by white-bearded historians. That's hardly true; history is "riddled" with mysteries ranging from what happened to King Tut to who killed JFK. Maybe by putting students in the "driver's seat," investigating these questions for themselves, they'll find that they really do enjoy history! Each of these unique activity books includes 9-10 different mysteries related to American history, world history or ancient history. Each mystery incorporates all the background information needed and several activities where students draw upon background information, organize data, and generate their own hypothesis of what may have happened. For each mystery, there are lesson plans for the teacher which offer suggestions for introducing each mystery and how to guide the activities. Because some of the activities may be rather time-consuming, each mystery is divided up into five days of work. The reproducible student and activity pages follow, including an "attention getter," a graphic organizer, and several pages of background information on the topic. All the information they will need to do the activities and form a hypothesis about the mystery is included, so there's no "urgent" need to research further - unless you want to! The reproducible activity pages ask students to use and apply information from the background information, or to use their creativity to generate possibilities or retell stories related to the mystery. These would be fun activities to use periodically along with your study of history to further "investigate" topics that probably already fascinate your student just by a casual mention in their text! - Jess
