New Life for Old Textbooks

I am so excited!  This is my first blog post that has been contributed by a fellow Civics teacher.  Her name is Beth and she teaches in Caroline County.  We met this past summer at James Madison's Montpelier during the We the People conference.

She has me inspired!

New Life to Old Textbooks

Folder games are great for stations and seat work when students need some extra reinforcement. The problem? They are not made for middle school Civics students. So I made my own.

Materials Needed:

- Old Textbook (I used one district then I use in the classroom to prevent repetition)

- Colored file folders

- glue sticks, scissors, markers, post-it notes

- cut-out shapes- Dollar Tree has a variety of sizes

  

I previewed the textbook to get an idea of how I could organize the information. I prepared all of my supplies and began tearing up the textbook. 

I sorted the pages as I tore into the following piles: political cartoons, review questions, skill builders, debate topics, branches of government, and pictures. It took me several hours as I was reviewing the information to evaluate how I could use it and I decimated the entire book.

I took the sections that were similar to construct the activities in the folders. For example, each chapter had a political cartoon with questions. I combined 4-5 together to provide more focused practice.

Above Left: Cover                        Above Right: Inside of Political Cartoon Folder

The textbook had enough political cartoons to create 5 folders. I have used them for a station when reviewing media. In total, I have 30 separate folders. The folders topics are as varied as their uses , and even I have levels for my Self Contained classes, Inclusion, and what is used in tutoring. The debate topic folders were used in small groups for discussion then rotated to another group. The Supreme Court cases have been used for writing prompts and for discussion. I have found the more I use them, the more uses I have found for them.

Another way I have used this is to isolate specific skills. The textbook uses a lot of charts and graphs, so they can be used with the Students with Disabilities that struggle with these skills and can be presented in a format that is more user friendly.

I had all folders laminated for durability. All folders are numbered and have a generic answer sheet. They can be adapted for group work, extension activities, or however to fit your needs. The students are kinesthetic and visual learners like this format more than the traditional textbook.