Teaching about immigration is important, but it can be tricky with younger students. We want to help them understand different experiences and connect history to today. In this blog post, I suggest fun activities for second, third and fourth graders to learn about why people move to new countries.
We’ll explore interactive lessons that help kids think and make personal connections. By sharing stories, we can create a classroom that celebrates all cultures. Let’s take a look at some easy and engaging activities you can use in your classroom!
Slide Shows
If you are interested in slide shows, but do not want to dig into Power Point or Google Slides to create your own, there are some publicly available slide shows that are terrific to share with your students. Mr. Donn’s website has some that are free through Slideshare. You could pick and choose which to show or talk about with students or you can share them all in order. Personally, I think they are aimed to slightly older elementary or middle school students. They also include some real photographs which helps build an understanding of the immigration experience for students. Here is one on Ellis Island and Angel Island.
Ms. English has a slide show available that would likely work better for younger students. Check it out here!
Scholastic has an interactive tour of Ellis Island here. I have actually been to Ellis Island at the same time as huge group of middle school students but most of us can never take our students there. Here’s the link.
Videos
If you’re looking for a video tour of Ellis Island, here is another option for a virtual tour of Ellis Island from the channel called maternitybvm on TeacherTube! Make sure, as always, to do your due diligence and watch any video you are going to show your class the whole way through before sharing it.
A fun option for younger students is this video aimed specifically at them, with a young student from the You tube channel called A Kid Explains History!
Keep reading for more tips!
Books to Use to Teach Immigration
Take a look at my previous blog post which highlights books that you can use to teach immigration!
Bonus:
I recently came across this beautiful story called My Diary from Here To There by Amada Irma Perez. You can grab it on Amazon (the book includes an English and Spanish version) or go to Youtube and use the read aloud.
More Online Resources
The New York City Tenement Museum has lesson plans for teachers that include lots of great interactive activities, videos, lessons on creating a timeline, photos , factory inspection reports, a report from 1914, crossword puzzles and more!
KQED has educator resources, programs and reports about immigration communities in California. You can find other videos articles and more at their website here.
If you are looking for lesson plans, you might want to stop by Learning for Justice. This website has a very thorough set of cross curricular lessons. One of the lesson plans available will help students appreciate diversity among their peers and the diversity of immigrants all over the world. Through hands-on exercises, students will discover similarities and differences they share with other children.
Ready to Go Activities from Teachers Pay Teachers
Wouldn’t be it easy for you if you had ready-to-use activities and resources from Teachers Pay Teachers to incorporate into your social studies lessons or centers that already align with your state’s social studies standards? These resources have a lot to offer!
I always found teaching about immigration to my second graders be challenging, so that’s why I created this comprehensive resource. You can find it over on Teachers Pay Teachers. It makes it easy for you to bring the topic to life for grades 2-5. Designed with differentiation in mind, it includes a variety of engaging activities.
Key Features of the Immigration Resources
- vocabulary cards
- writing prompts
- task cards
- differentiated reading passages
- think-about-it questions
- a homework project
- differentiated immigrant diary entries
- an immigrant diary assignment
- and a foldable mini book
How to Use This Resource
This resource can be easily integrated into your classroom in various ways:
- Small group instruction: Use the task cards for targeted review or bring students to the teacher table to complete the reading passages or writing activities with you
- Reading center: Place the task cards or writing assignments in a center for independent work.
- Whole class activity: Incorporate the activities
- Homework: the immigrant interview is a homework project!
Download the resource today and watch your students’ understanding of the immigrant experience in the 1800s and early 1900s soar! You can also click on the cover or any of the sneak peek images below.
There is also a digital immigration resource and a bundle of both available on TPT.
These resources have more than 100 reviews on TPT which is great if you’re like me and don’t commit to anything without reading a few reviews. So you don’t have to look them up, here are a few:
Five Star Reviews
“This resource has so much to do! My 3rd graders have been learning about immigration and the journal entry writing was a huge hit! They loved pretending to be someone traveling to Ellis Island and making up a story. I can’t wait to do more with them.”
“Thank you for the wonderful resource! This worked very well with our third grade unit on immigration and my students found the activities to be fun and engaging!”
“My students were really engaged and as a teacher I loved that they got to practice a lot of different skills!”
Other blog posts you may want to check out:
- Books to Use for Teaching Immigration
- Ideas for Teaching Immigration
- Must Have Fun Phonics Resources
- Cracking the Code: Essential Strategies for Teaching Tricky Syllable Types
- 5 Powerful Tips for Teaching Capitalization and Punctuation
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Good luck this week and remember: you got this!
