If you are looking for quick, no prep activities for Elementary students to learn and write about Rules and Laws then you are in the RIGHT PLACE!
I'm a first grade teacher and let me be honest by saying that planning social studies and science is never top on my priority list!
That was UNTIL I realized there are some hidden gems in the form of golden opportunities when it comes to my social studies instructions.
When it come to teaching Rules and Laws to my Elementary students, that means INTEGRATING this social studies unit into my back to school routines and procedures.
Read this post if you want to learn how to build in intervention time and meaningful writing opportunities while teaching your students about Rules and Laws!
Learning the Facts about Rules and Laws
I typically teach Rules and Laws at the beginning of the school year because it goes right along with learning our routines and procedures.
It is very easy to connect school rules and laws because laws are simply rules that we must follow according to our state government, rather than our teacher or school principal.
I like to focus on positive behavior traits when I'm talking about school rules and I usually only cover one or two a day. I feel like this creates a positive atmosphere while still allowing you to address things that a good listener or good worker wouldn't do.
What I really love about the character traits worksheets you see on the left is that you can make them as easy or as difficult as you want to. You can have students draw examples, write words or write sentences.
Here's my next secret…. I love using these Fact Posters (picture left) in place of a full mentor text to help save me time in the classroom! Instead of reading a book about how laws work, we simply read over this fact poster and complete the fill in the blank activity together.
I think that “fill in the blank” style activities are super helpful for young learners. Not only are they building their knowledge of social studies, but they are also working on:
- context clues
- inferencing
Cut and Paste Activities
Next up comes cut and paste activities. These are PERFECT for when students are ready to become a little more independent.
Again, these are GREAT for the beginning of school because I can model for students how to CORRECTLY complete a cut and paste activity…
and YES I go through each and every cut with them!
and YES we practice throwing our trash away before cutting the pieces apart!
and YES we practice how to put glue on the PIECES not the PAPER!
Side Note: If you check out the cut and paste image of School Rules, there is also another option that allows me to easily differentiate this activity for my students. Most students simply trace the words, but for those who are ready for a challenge, they have to write a fact/sentence to match each picture!!
All activities in this blog post can be found in my No Prep Rules and Laws social studies unit.
You can purchase it for a week of rules and laws activities for $3.
More Social Studies Favorites for First Grade:
