3 Warm Up Ideas for Social Studies

Do you need warm up ideas for social studies? I want to share 3 of my favorite warm up ideas for social studies classes with you. These are engaging and easy to implement!

3 Warm Up Ideas for Social Studies

1. Watch CNN10: Play a CNN10 video and have students discuss one event that they found interesting. CNN10 breaks down current events into a free ten minute news segment for students. This activity helps students stay informed about current events and encourages critical thinking and discussion. You can check it out here​
2. Map Activity: Reinforce students’ map skills by putting an image of a map on the board. Then you can ask simple questions like: what country is to the North of ____; What is the distance between ____ city and ____ city; what continent is this country part of? This activity reinforces geographic knowledge and helps students practice using and interpreting maps.
   • Start each class with a geography challenge that asks students to locate specific places on a map or answer questions related to different regions of the world.
   • If you need activities to review map skills with your students, check out these Continent and Oceans Task Cards and this Parts of a Map Activity. These resources provide hands-on learning opportunities and can be used as warm-up activities or as part of your lesson.
   • These 18 task cards are perfect for reinforcing geography and map skills. Students will identify and label the continents and oceans in this task cards activity. These 18 task cards include images and questions for each of the 7 continents, questions about the 5 oceans, and labeling a compass rose. Students will also identify cardinal directions (North, East, South, West) in these task cards. Best of all, these task cards have digital and printable options!
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   • Students will practice parts of map vocabulary and skills with this matching activity. This is great for helping all students access grade level content! This is a quick review of map skills for students to demonstrate knowledge. Students can cut and paste the parts of a map, write the answers in the blank, or complete the activity digitally.
3. Read a News Article: Choose a current news article for students to read and then have students discuss with a partner and answer questions about it. This activity enhances reading comprehension and encourages collaboration and critical analysis of current events.
   • I like to give my students two choices for the article that they read and then they can choose to read whichever one interests them more.
   • Another option would be to assign half the students to read one article and the other half to read the other article. Then partner students together who read different articles and have them tell their partner about the article that they read.
   • You can change it up each week by introducing local, state, and national current events.
   • Provide discussion questions or prompts for students to respond to related to the news article.

Let’s Chat

Now it’s your turn to share! Have you used any of these 3 warm up ideas for social studies before in your class? If so, how did they work out? If not, which of these warm up ideas for social studies classes are you excited to try? Comment below and let me know! I’d love to hear about your favorite warm-up activities and any other ideas you have for engaging your students in social studies.

Need Ideas for Teaching Social Studies to Special Education students or English Language Learners?

Read this blog post, Incorporating Special Education Strategies in Social Studies Classes, for more ideas!

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