5 Strategies for Unboxing the Past

Hands-on and Minds-Engaged Learning Experiences

How can teachers "unbox" the past?

Think outside the box. Bring the past to life through hands-on and minds-engaged learning experiences that go beyond traditional instruction. This approach is grounded in the belief that students learn best when they are actively constructing knowledge—with their hands, hearts, and minds fully engaged.

Rather than just reading about history, students can unbox it—quite literally or figuratively—by interacting with primary and secondary sources, artifacts, and manipulatives.

These experiences help students build historical empathy, content mastery, and critical thinking skills. Students engage in the types of exploration, problem-solving, and analysis that historians use in the field.

Fire-ups — Hotter than Warm-ups!

Ditch the dull daily warm-up! Begin each class with a provocative question, controversial issue, or bold historical claim. These “Fire-ups” are designed to ignite student curiosity, spark debate, and create urgency for learning the day's content.

Historiography — History Remix

Introduce students to the idea that history is not just facts, but interpretation. Use competing secondary historical accounts, textbook comparisons, or shifts in historical narrative over time to help students critically analyze how and why interpretations of the past change. This approach fosters metacognition and deeper critical analysis.

Manipulatives — Not Just for Math Class

History manipulatives are interactive tools that help students learn and understand historical concepts in a hands-on and engaging way.

Concept Connection Hexagons - Use visual tiles for exploring historical concepts, and help students make connections between different events and ideas.
Source Cards - Sort, organize, and analyze primary source visuals—artifacts, paintings, photographs, posters and more.
Maps - Annotate, connect, and compare places and global issues with desk and wall maps.
Timelines - Build skills in chronological thinking and causation with annotated physical timelines.

Primary Source of the Week — Decoding the Past

Uncover the stories, voices, and truths hidden in a single historical source—one clue at a time. Students analyze a weekly source (brief excerpts or visual sources) with four steps:

Source it – Who created it? When? Why?
Read it – What does it say? What’s its message?
Check it – How reliable is it? What is missing?
Post it – Summarize or respond in 280 characters or less.

History through Literature — Stories Stitched in Time

Use novels, poems, short stories, or historical fiction to humanize the past and enrich students’ understanding of historical experiences. Literature can reveal the emotional and cultural dimensions of historical events, especially for voices not always present in traditional texts.