The world has turned upside down and middle schoolers’ brains have been invaded by false news, Instagram, and social media mayhem. Fragments of news about unemployment, war, or pandemics can cause anxiety. Parents, family, and educators have to put the news and current events into perspective. Here are some great current event activities to get started.
1. Time Magazine for Tweens
Time magazine has current issues for kids and articles to dive into. Great for reading comprehension skills, how to look for information, fact check, and write in a journalistic way.
Learn More: Time for Kids
2. Study Current Events to impress your teachers
News surrounds kids 24/7, but they don’t know how to study it or learn about it. Kids can read articles and summarize what they have read, do PowerPoint presentations, and interview others about what is happening in the world.
Learn More: Social Studies for Kids
3. Current Event Worksheet Guideline
This worksheet will help middle schoolers organize their facts about news stories. You can use it with any source and it is great to do in class or give as homework. Also, a fun twist is to get them to find “Fake News “and see if they can write it well so it’s believable.
Learn More: SVSD 10
4. Newspapers are not for “Grown ups”
Teachers shy away from current events curriculum, they prefer not to touch “hot topics”. There are expert strategies for teaching and we have to look at the how-to’s so that it’s not boring and we capture their attention. Exploiting the entire newspaper is possible and fun!
Learn More: Make My Newspaper
5. Which class journalist is going to win the article of the week?
Competition and competitive activities are necessary for middle school children and this is a great way to have them work in teams and compete for the article of the week. Teachers can make this a part of their weekly routine and change the theme. Teams will get together to be placed in a 1-4th place on the board.
Learn More: Musings from the Middle School
6. Crime in the news
Unfortunately, part of current events is crime and violence. This is something in the daily news every day. We must expose children to crime in the news so they will be more aware of what is going on in the future. In this crime scene activity, they can collect information and answer comprehension questions to solve the case.
Learn More: Busy Teacher
7. Prove that history repeats itself
Riots, discrimination, political corruption, and more. What goes around comes around and history does repeat itself over and over again. In this current events assignment, the students will find 2 news articles but demonstrating the past and the present. Excellent resources for middle school.
Learn More: Tuttle Schools
8. Current News Lesson Plans
This site is packed with 10 Current event news lessons for middle school. so children can read them and learn how to tell the class about what’s happening in their state or country. Middle schoolers can read about presidential decisions, democracy, education and teachers, environmental issues, and much more.
Learn More: Share My Lesson
9. Did you catch all the details?
One of the biggest issues with tweens and teens is attention and listening skills. This activity is great. Read the news article from the daily paper to your students and depending on the age and level of students, the length and difficulty will vary.
Learn More: CNN 10
10. Who, Where, What, When, Why & How
When teaching children reading comprehension, we must take into consideration the 5W’s. They have to be able to answer these questions to really report back the information like a news chronicle.
Learn More: News Moor
11. The News Rap
Music and Chants are something that allows us to have rhythm and flow with Flocabulary and the interactive resources. Listen to the songs, the chants, and the raps. It’s all about the news and facts. Keep up with the beat and you can try to sing along but the message of the raps is really strong. Don’t be a fool and try to play it cool, if you learn from music, it’s one of the best ways to learn about current events and you’ll have success.
Learn More: Flocabulary by Nearpod
12. Bigotry & hatred is a current event topic
Well, taboo issues have been talked about and pushed under the rug or behind closed doors when it comes to discussion in the classroom. Now that the whole world has been hit with COVID 10 and the war, abortion issues, and more, we have to address them in a special way but not beat around the bush either.
Learn More: Facing History
13. “Get your news!” “Daily News is here!”
Keep your kiddos in the loop by having them engage with interesting current events. Invite them to browse a bunch of articles from trusted sites before challenging them to read through an article of their choice and then summarize it into a printable current events journal.
Learn More: Homeschool Helper Online
14. Where in the World is Wally?
Wally is going to be our journalist traveling around the world. To learn more about current events you have to know where you live, local, national, and world geography to understand the location of places and the site has additional activities too.
Learn More: Geography Education
15. Arts teachers, art is news too!
Sometimes art seems to take second place in the world of current events, but it’s important to teach your budding Picassos that art can make the front page too! So why not task them with exploring art through media by having them research unconventional tools that can be used to produce art?
Learn More: Davis Art
16. Money makes the world go round
Inflation, taxes, rise in costs, wages, stock market, world bank..all this unknown vocabulary children and teens hear weekly but it goes in one ear and out the other. They don’t really understand how money works, only if they want to buy something and they are told “No. Let’s challenge students to be savvy about cash in a fun way through the news.
Learn More: The Curious Economist
17. Creatures in the news
We all love animals big and small and we hear stories locally about crocodiles in the swimming pool or snakes being found in your toilet. Animal welfare is important and they have rights too and their “voice ” needs to be heard. What better way than animal news to read and write reports on?
Learn More: NBC News
18. What’s your source?
When we teach kids about the news, we need to teach them about the different sources and where the info came from. You can’t believe everything you read. This activity is to teach them about primary sources and secondary sources. Before we write learn about the facts.
Learn More: The Library Collection
19. Civics Education 101
Global Issues, Economy, Government, and much more. All of these topics should not be “taboo” for kids. This site is filled with lots of material and info to get children into reading and studying current events.
Learn More: Academy 4SC
20. Legality versus Mora
What happens when you read that your favorite sports star has been arrested for bringing into the country a vape pipe not knowing that it was illegal they end up going to jail for 3 years in a foreign country. Is this legally right or should we think about morals and true intention? This happens a lot in current events and news.
Learn More: Academy 4SC
21. Jeopardy Time
Newsbrain is “teacher’s best friend” and it will help you create some fun exciting jeopardy-style games using any content of your choice and in this case current events. Fun and fast pace the kids will beg to play.
Learn More: Newz Brain
22. Segregation in the Society
Unfortunately, segregation still exists, even in clubs, schools, and the community. Kids need to hear current news and events about racism and discrimination that we see daily and find ways how to stop it.
Learn More: The New York Times
23. Tween Tribune
This site has a good focus on issues that can be used for classroom activities. It has different activities per grade from 7th-12th. Lots of great material for middle school students and it’s a great online learning resource.
Learn More: Smithsonian Tween Tribune
24. Why should we care about plastic?
Sea smart Sustainable News is trendy, and we hear about plastic. We know we have to reduce using it, but our sea creatures are eating it and dying every day. Not to mention the fish you eat has traces of plastic in it. Read about these topics and learn about habits and change.
Learn More: Sea Smart
25. 100 things to talk about in current events
Sometimes kids get bored when you bring up issues like global warming, traffic, pandemics, or unemployment. These are issues that they have heard over and over again and they are tired. So let’s give them new topics that they can research and investigate.
Learn More: Owlcation
26. Sports in the News
It’s not just about the scores and the champions. There are other news sports related such as tax evasion, fraud, money laundering, illegal betting, and more. So if we invest in scandals that come up in the news, we will be one step ahead of the game.
Learn More: Time for Kids
27. I Dare you!
Middle schoolers are influenced by everything and in the news we hear about vaping, smoking, drinking, and the legalization of marijuana. So why wouldn’t these kids be tempted to do something dangerous? This site will help educators teach about current events with drugs, alcohol, and violence.
Learn More: Dare
28. TikTok News
Many tweens and teens are Tik Tok crazy and it’s growing and trendy. TikTok is now a pastime, occupation, and even a way to learn new things. Let’s check out the Tik Tok news to keep up with the latest trends.
Learn More: TikTok
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