August 30, 2022

29. 4 Tricks to Captivate Kids While Teaching Social Studies with Megan Osborn

35 minutes

In education, we put more of an emphasis on the subjects language arts and math, but there’s so much value that comes from other subjects, such as social studies. On today’s episode, I have guest Megan Osborn, who is one of my team members on Wife Teacher Mommy, and she helps shed some light on the value of teaching social studies. More specifically, we’re discussing 4 tricks to captivate kids while teaching social studies.

Megan is a former middle school social studies teacher and a graduate of Utah State University. She stopped teaching when her first daughter was born, but has continued working in education working with homeschool families, and later coming to work at Wife Teacher Mommy.

With the big two subject areas (language arts and math) taking up a lot of time during the school day in an elementary classroom, Megan reveals how teaching social studies can open up a new world for students. She explains that it allows students to make connections to the world around them, provide a different perspective on ideas, and teaches them how to be a good citizen. By teaching students our history in a way they understand how that’s related to modern day, is a powerful idea of thinking.

While Megan admits that social studies might not be everyone’s favorite subject, she provides 4 tricks to captivate kids while teaching social studies. Those tricks are: organization of the content, telling stories, use of different media, and field trips. During the episode, Megan breaks down each trick and how to effectively use it in your classroom. She provides simple ways to incorporate them whether you teach in a traditional classroom or homeschool your kids.

Throughout our conversation, Megan emphasizes that teaching social studies doesn’t have to be an isolated event. In fact, using language arts concepts alongside your social studies content actually pair very well together. We discuss the idea of research as a way to incorporate both content areas, but there are many other ideas to merge the two together.

There’s a lot of value to teaching social studies and learning about the history and culture of the world around us. In this episode, Megan brings her knowledge and passion for the subject and shares ways to engage your students in the process. By incorporating her 4 tricks to captivate kids while teaching social studies, you’ll see a shift in engagement and outcome of learning.

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