A great way to teach history! Capture your childrens' imagination with a jaw-dropping world record and then build on that interest to teach core ideas.

For example, a lesson on the world's oldest city (it's 12,000 years old—and people still live there!) leads to activities about where people choose to build cities and why, and an in-depth look at students’ own community. Research how boats changed history, read cunefiform, map the Columbian Exchange, explore linguistic diversity, and conduct dozens of other high-interest activities.

Amazing World Records of History includes a rich assortment of topics:
World’s Oldest Boat • World’s Greatest Movement • World’s Oldest City • World’s Largest Ancient City • World’s Largest Modern City • World’s Oldest Building • World’s Most Diverse Country • World’s Most Widely-Spoken Language • World’s First Writing • World’s Most Widely Read Book • World’s Oldest Work of Art • World’s Largest School • World’s Largest Religion • World’s Earliest Machines • World’s Oldest Industry • World’s Oldest Weapon • World’s Deadliest Battle • World’s Greatest War • World Records of Government • World’s Oldest Country • World’s Oldest Government

Amazing World Records of History—20 Innovative, Easy-to-Integrate Lesson Plans

$9.95

Grades 5-9

124 Pages

60 Reproducible Activity Sheets

Hands-On Projects

Teaching Guides

Complete Answer Key

Aligned with the National Council of Social Studies Standards

Part of the Amazing World Records Series of Books

eBook/PDF Download
To the Teacher

WORLD RECORDS OF MOVEMENT

1. The World’s Oldest Boat

A. The World’s Oldest Boat

B. Sailing Into History

C. How Boats Changed History

2. The World’s Greatest Movement

A. The World’s Greatest Movement

B. Mapping the Columbian Exchange

C. The Columbian Exchange Today

World Records of Settlement

3. The World’s Oldest City

A. The World’s Oldest City

B. Where Cities Are Located

C. The Birth of Your Community

4. The World’s Largest Ancient City

A. The World’s Largest Ancient City

B. Reading a Map

C. A Map of Your Community

5. The World’s Largest Modern City

A. The World’s Largest Modern City

B. Profiling the World’s Largest Modern City

C. Profiling Your Community

6. The World’s Oldest Building

A. The World’s Oldest Building

B. Shelters in History

C. Your Community’s Oldest Building

7. The World’s Most Diverse Country

A. The World’s Most Diverse Country

B. Papua New Guinea: Linguistic Diversity

C. Diversity in Your Community

World Records of Communication

8. The World’s Most Widely Spoken Language

A. The World’s Most Widely Spoken Language

B. Reading a World Languages Map

C. Languages in Your Community

9. The World’s First Writing

A. The World’s First Writing

B. Reading Cuneiform

C. How Writing Changed History

10. The World’s Most Widely Read Book.

A. The World’s Most Widely Read Book.

B. Paper and Printing

C. How a Single Book Can Change History

11. The World’s Oldest Work of Art

A. The World’s Oldest Work of Art

B. Why People Create Art

C. Art in Your Community

12. The World’s Largest School

A. The World’s Largest School

B. Education Around the World

C. Profiling Your School

13. The World’s Largest Religion

A. The World’s Largest Religion

B. Reading a World Religions Map

C. Religions in Your Community

World Records of the Economy

14. The World’s Earliest Machines

A. The World’s Earliest Machines

B. How Machines Changed History

C. Life in the Machine Age

15. The World’s Oldest Industry

A. The World’s Oldest Industry

B. The Largest Industries

C. Industry in Your Community

World Records of Warfare

16. The World’s Oldest Weapon

A. The World’s Oldest Weapon

B. Weapons of a War

C. A World of Weapons

17. The World’s Deadliest Battle

A. The World’s Deadliest Battle

B. Reading a Battle Map

C. Learning About a Battle

18. The World’s Greatest War

A. The World’s Greatest War

B. A History of Warfare

C. Interviewing a Veteran

World Records of Government

19. The World’s Oldest Country

A. The World’s Oldest Country

B. Countries of the World

C. Profiling a Country

20. The World’s Oldest Government

A. The World’s Oldest Government

B. Government in the World Today

C. Government in Your Community
The Weird, the Wonderful, and Emphatically Not the Everyday

Using WORLD RECORDS to Capture Student Interest and Provide Intellectual and Emotional Context

If you teach kids ages 8 to 15, you should know about Kieran Egan’s simple yet stunning ideas about using world records to reach them.

Kieran Egan is an educational philosopher and the author of The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding.

I. World Records Capture Student Interest

One of Egan’s key ideas is that children between the ages of 8 and 15 are hungry for what he calls “Romantic knowledge.” By providing appropriate instruction, teachers and parents can use this hunger to bring their instruction to a whole new level. Egan writes:

"Students in early adolescence seem most readily engaged...by material such as that compiled in the Guinness Book of Records. That is, they are attracted not to reality in its everyday aspects, but rather to its extremes, to exotica and the bizarre."

The student's imaginative grappling with reality emphasizes
who or what is the biggest, the smallest, the fastest, the slowest, the fattest, the thinnest, the hairiest, etc. It is the mysterious,
the strange, the weird, the wonderful, and emphatically not the everyday that engages the student's imagination.

Put simply, the extremes of the world are exactly what students at

this stage of cognitive development are naturally most interested in.

II. World Records Give Students Context for Knowledge and Self

Students love world records because the records form an outline of the world. As students learn, it is as though they are completing a jigsaw puzzle. Each bit of knowledge they acquire is a piece of the puzzle that needs to fit in somewhere. The world records are like the edge and corner pieces of a puzzle—they form the outline that all other knowledge fits within.

This is extremely intellectually satisfying to the young adolescent mind.

Moreover, its emotionally satisfying as well. Egan explains:

"By discovering the real limits of the world and of human experience, we form a context that enables us to establish some security and to establish proportionate meaning within it. Knowing about the biggest and smallest...allows us, on the one hand, to wonder at their extreme sizes, but, on the other hand, to be reassured about our own scale. Once we have some sense of context, we can begin to develop some sense of proportionate meaning of things."

Helping kids develop “some sense of proportionate meaning,” arguably, is the ultimate goal of every teacher and parent.

III. World Records Are Easy to Integrate into Your Teaching

To Egan, the young adolescents’ interest in world records is undeniable. Their “interest in these features of reality is,” he writes, “so obvious.” So he was troubled that this type of learning wasn’t being used by educators to reach and teach students. “It is a little odd,” he writes,” that the 8-to-15 year olds’ enjoyment of books, TV shows, and films that deal with the exotic and extreme has had so

little impact on curriculum....”

This “little impact on curriculum” has been unfortunate. Happily, however, integrating world records into your teaching is remarkably easy.

World Records are the perfect bellringer or launchpad for discussion. For geography, ask, “What is the world’s longest river?” In government, ask, “What is world’s oldest government?” In history, ask, “What was the world’s oldest city?” In economics, ask, “What was the world’s first industry?” In cultural studies ask, “What is the world’s most diverse country?”

And so on. By asking questions like these, you immediately reach the parts your students that are already intellectually and emotionally hungry. By basing further instruction on world records, you will provide your students with a “sense of context” so that they may “begin to develop some sense of proportionate meaning of things.”

And isn’t that why we teach?

Educational Books for Teachers, Parents, and Kids

Amazing World Records of History—20 Innovative, Easy-to-Integrate Lesson Plans

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