Menu

Standalone Units

World History teaching resources for the high school classroom: lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes and simulation games for KS3, IGCSE, IB and A-Level teachers.
 

Recommended for Grade 6 (age: 11-12)

The Worst Jobs in History: Medieval

This activity can be used as a stand-alone lesson, homework assignment or as part of a broader unit on "Was life Good or Bad during this particular period?". The worksheet has basic activities for a 30 minute lesson, and extension tasks that could be followed up later.

The Origins of the Calendar

Students design their own calendar, designed to illustrate the origins of the names of the months of the year (I usually set this as a Christmas Holiday homework so the calendar is going to be useful for a whole year!)

Creating a Family Tree

Students create their own family tree after analysing that of The Simpsons cartoon characters.

A History of Masks

Since the COVID pandemic, face masks have become familiar to all of us. In this investigation, students will learn how face masks have been used throughout history, all over the world, for all sorts of weird and wonderful reasons.


Recommended for Grade 7 (age: 12-13)

The Worst Jobs in History: Early Modern

This activity can be used as a stand-alone lesson, homework assignment or as part of a broader unit on "Was life Good or Bad during this particular period?". The worksheet has basic activities for a 30 minute lesson, and extension tasks that could be followed up later.

Street Detectives! - History through Local Road Names

The names given to our roads and streets provides a rich source of potential for local history projects. Students can research the events and people commemorated in these names to engage in some open-ended history that is not constrained by a particular topic, theme or period. The following example uses Google Maps to make this an interactive, collaborative project, but there is no reason why paper-based maps could not be used instead.

Design a Virtual Museum

During the COVID-19 lockdown period I got my students to collaborate on a "Virtual Museum" containing items from around their homes.
It worked well and is something which I'll now do regularly as a standalone project - you may be interested in trying a similar thing out with your own classes.

Made with Padlet
 

 

Recommended for Grade 8 (age: 13-14)

Design a Historical Road Trip!

In Summer 2024, I conducted a road trip around Europe. In the process of putting together the overall itinerary, and individual itineraries for certain cities like this one for Vienna, I learned a great deal about the history of the places I visited.

With this in mind, I started off my IBDP History course that September with a simple induction project in which students were challenged to design a historical trip, complete with an advertising brochure and Google Earth itinerary.

Statues and History

This unit ties in particularly well with a study of the Civil Rights movement, but can be treated as a standalone unit. Should monuments of controversial historical figures be removed, or does this make us victims of history rather than subjects who can understand and engage with it?

The Worst Jobs in History: Victorian

This activity can be used as a stand-alone lesson, homework assignment or as part of a broader unit on "Was life Good or Bad during this particular period?". The worksheet has basic activities for a 30 minute lesson, and extension tasks that could be followed up later.

The Bilston Cholera Epidemic

A complete project pack for a 5-hour unit.

ActiveHistory Mysteries!

A series of engaging "Historical Mysteries" designed to develop skills of question formulation, deduction, research, groupwork and essay writing. Using a range of visual and written "clues", students piece together a genuine historical mystery and work towards an independent conclusion. Worksheets and markschemes included Choose from:


 


© 1998-2024 Russel Tarr, ActiveHistory.co.uk Limited (Reg. 6111680)
1 Torrin Drive, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY3 6AW, England

All rights reserved | Privacy Policy | Contact

  WARNING: Your account expires in days. RENEW NOW to avoid losing access!

testimonials

Buy the Books!

 

Latest Additions

New resources are added every single week of the year!

View more

About

ActiveHistory is the work of full-time history teacher Russel Tarr
.

Latest news from my classroom

Connect

Get full access now!

ActiveHistory provides vast amounts of worksheets, lesson plans, interactive simulations, self-marking quizzes, model essays and teacher support materials for the high school world history classroom.
Whole-school, 24-hour access for students and teachers costs less than a few textbooks!

CLICK HERE