Have you ever assigned a decades project for your US History class? It’s the end of the year. You’ve finished your US History curriculum and need something engaging for students to go as an end of the year project? It’s time to try a US History end of the year decades project!
Are you like me?
It’s May and standardized testing season is over. You feel like you’ve done all of the fun review activities you can handle for the year. You need to keep your students engaged and everyone is exhausted! You want something that students can do independently that will hold their interest. Sound familiar?
I have tried several projects over the years: Oral History projects, “pick a topic from this year and research deeper”, Instagram summaries, etc. All of these were fine, but I found that students really didn’t “get into them” and the work they produced was just ok.
What is a decades project?
I created a one-pager type summary page for each decade covering the 1920s – 2010s. Students will research a decade and create images for a variety of topics that relate to that decade. Finally, they explain how each image relates to the decade they chose.
The final product is a highly visual representation of each decade!
Benefits of a decades project?
- High interest due to student choice and topics
- Independent research means no direct teaching from you!
- Hand drawn or digital – students get to choose!
- Students love to research the “non history” stuff of a decade such as fashion and music.
How does it work?
- I created a sign up sheet for each decade.
- Students sign up for the decade of their choice. I capped each decade at 4 because, let’s be honest, 1999s rap is cool.
- After students sign up, they choose to complete the digital version or hand drawn version.
- Students begin their research on the following topics for their decade: fashion, innovations, music, fads, key events, literature, popular culture, kids/toys.
- For each topic, students would include 4 images. You could require more or less.
- I allowed students to include keywords with their visuals, but told them not to use sentences. The point is to have each decade be a visual representation.
- I required students to use color and be neat.
- Students created a separate document/paper that explained each image for the decade. They stapled it to their decades page or added a slide before turning it in.
Student feedback?
Students love this project. They love the ability to have free research time and that they can be creative.
Why do I love it?
- The creativity students have is outstanding! Make sure you have plenty of colored pencils and markers ready!
- I love the high quality work they produce on this project!
- We have been so content/standards driven all year, it’s nice to allow students a chance to breathe and research the fun stuff!
- While they are working I can wrap up end of the year requirements for my school, like grades.
High interest, low stress = it’s a win, win for both teachers and students. Check out this free and editable decades project and let me know how your students love it!
