1. Each student gets a copy of the Social Studies Buddies page (I have them glue it in the first page of their Social Studies notebook). Students will write their own name on the bottom of this page where it says "This page belongs to "and that is the last time they will write their own name on this page.
2. Ask students to find a partner in the class and write it under the first line (under Pocahontas).
3. Then ask students to find a new parter to write their name under the second line (under John Smith).
4. Keep going until everyone's page is filled! If you have a small class, you can either stop and not fill out a few of the people or you can put students in groups of 3.
5. Whenever you're doing a partner activity, pick a historical figure from this page and ask your students to partner up with them. Students will quickly be partnered up and you'll be referencing important historical figures all year!
In my class, we do this on the first day of school. It's a great activity to get students circulating and introducing themselves to students outside their typical friendship circles. My students need a lot of scaffolding, so we find one partner at a time and go sit down in between partner-finding. In my first year, we didn't do this and it got confusing very quickly. I always ask students to leave their Robert E. Lee and Arthur Ashe partner blank. I choose those partners so I know I'm picking a good partner for each student to work with in a heterogenous or homogenous manner. That way I can ask students to get with their Robert E. Lee or Arthur Ashe partner if I specifically need solid partnerships for a given activity.
Alternatively, you could partner everyone up yourself!
If you grab this product, Social Studies Buddies, before Tuesday, you'll get 50% off! Enjoy!
