Making History Come Alive: Why I Start Social Studies With a Mystery

A few years ago, a student gave me a gift inside this cute little box. I loved the box and hung onto it, but I didn't know exactly what to do with it. Fast forward a couple of years later and it came in handy for my Explorers unit. 

Each day, we have started our next lesson with a little connection mystery to get students thinking. 

On the first day, here's how I used it. I set up the box ahead of time, and had it ready for social studies class. I gathered my students around me and told them this: 

"Inside this box are three things that people hundreds of years ago were willing to spend enormous amounts of money to buy. Some people even risked their lives traveling thousands of miles to get them."

"What could possibly be inside this box that would make someone risk their life?"

Then I allowed the students to make predictions. Some were WAY off, but some got pretty close. Then after everyone had guessed, I opened the box and slowly pulled out one item at a time. 

First up was a silk scarf. I told them that one of the items people wanted was silk. I let the students feel the soft silk scarf. 

Next, I pulled out the cinnamon. I let each child smell the cinnamon and told them that this was another item people were desperate for. 

Then last, I took out a bottle of peppercorns. I showed the students and told them that pepper was also considered precious back long ago. 

We discussed some questions such as:

Why would people want these things?

Which object do you think was the most valuable? 

Would you risk your life to get any of these?

Why might something ordinary to us have been extremely valuable 500 years ago?

Then I explained that spices and silk were highly desirable in Europe. These things came from Asia and it was expensive to get them from Asia back to Europe. 

 

I showed students a map from the 1400's featuringing the then known world. After, we launched into our lesson about Christopher Columbus and why he crossed the ocean blue. It was so surprising that he never even realized he had discovered a new land. He thought he had landed in India and so he dubbed the people there "Indians". 

Students, as you can imagine, were highly engaged. After the lesson, they had a short activity that involved coloring and focused on Columbus and what his mission was.

If you can bring a bit of mystery into your next lesson, do it. I promise you won't regret it.