Elementary Social Studies Apps, Tools, and Resources That We Love

Are you looking for elementary school social studies, apps, tools, and resources that you can use with your students? If so, we have you covered. Check out our list below. Let us know if there are any that we missed.

Stack the States– With information about state capitals, flags, shapes, and more, Stack the States teaches students about the United States in a fun and engaging way. The app includes 50 state fact cards, an interactive map, high-resolution images of state landmarks, and hundreds of state questions. As students successfully complete levels, they collect random states to unlock hidden content, including four additional games: MapIt!, Pile Up!, Puzzler, and Capital Drop. Stack the States is an interactive addition to the elementary or middle school social studies classroom.

Political Animals – This is an election simulation games, which features animal candidates and different constituencies. The goal of the game is to choose a candidate and work towards winning the election. It is a turn-based strategy game that can be used in multiplayer mode. Students play as candidates and can make use of a variety of strategies to win the election, each affecting the election in different ways.

Win the White House – This is a game that lets young Americans experience a presidential campaign firsthand and understand the process it takes to run a campaign successfully. The game starts with the user choosing a political party and five issues they will represent. Users get to manage elements of a presidential campaign such as winning their party’s nomination, selecting a running mate, raising funds, polling voters, launching media campaigns, and making personal appearances. Meticulous planning and wise spending are encouraged.

Brain POP: Featured Movie– Learn something new every day from animation movies. Test yourself after every lesson with intensive free tests. The in-app purchases unlock over 750 science, math, art, and music subjects that you can access from your smartphone. All movies come with closed captions for people who might need them.

GeographyDrive USA– Geographycomes alive with this app as students learn as they use it. Textbook geography becomes a delightful cross-country adventure in this fact-packed game. Staying in the game requires you to answer questions correctly to unlock fuel stations and airports.

PopGeo USA Geography– This geography app about the United States is designed for elementary school students. It teaches students to recognize states, capitals, and much more. The beautiful images help students acquaint themselves with the map. Top performers make it to the leaderboard, and this motivates students to perform better. 

Geo Trainer– Geo Trainer, is a fast-paced game app used by geography students to prepare for their tests. It comes with multiple choice questions about flags, capitals, and various information about different countries. Students can focus on one continent at a time or the entire world.

KidzLearn Countries– Kids Learn Countries not only helps children become more knowledgeable about the countries of the world, but it also gives them many fun facts and hours of fun. This app provides descriptions of key aspects of various countries—their flags, forms of government, sports, and cultures—using high-resolution photographs. It helps children learn the alphabet and fractions. There are no advertisements or in-app purchases, making it a great app to download on a child’s mobile device.

Freckle Education– Students can easily fall in love with schooling again as this app enables them to work in various subjects at their pace. Teachers can monitor students’ progress across various subjects such as science, social studies, math, and English language arts.

iLearn: US States– iLearn US States comes with two modes in the Lite Version from which you will learn the names and locations of the 50 states in the US. It enables you to tap and highlight every state to check its name. You can also start the information panel to see more facts such as a nickname, the capital city, and more about each state. The game is fun and addictive which enables you to learn all the states within a few hours

Interactive Sites for Education– Select an interesting, interactive, and educational game and simulation for ELA, math, social studies, holidays, brainteasers, music, art, and science with Interactive Sites for Education. This app can be used at home for individual learning or in the computer lab or with your interactive whiteboard for a group of students. Many of the activities are flash-based and, as such, will not work on iPads unless you are running an app that let’s Flash play on iPads.

Sites in VR– Sites in VR allows students to explore famous landmarks from the classroom or their own home. This app primarily focuses on Islamic temples, tombs, and ancient cities; however, there is also an outer space component. Landmarks from Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Morocco, Kuwait, Yemen, Macedonia, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy, and Greece are included. If you’ve always imagined your history or social studies students touring through the pyramids of Egypt or the Colosseum in Rome, this app can fulfill that wish. Sites in VR includes more than 1,000 high-quality panoramic images and promises that “you will feel as if you are there…”

Smarty Pins– Well suited for history, geography, or social studies courses, Smarty Pins, was created by Google engineers as a fun way to brush up on map skills and review trivia. There are six main categories that students can choose from: March Madness, Arts & Culture, Science & Geography, Sports & Games, Entertainment, and History & Current Events. Once a category is selected, the student is asked a trivia question and prompted to find the location on the map that provides the answer. Bonus points are awarded for quick thinking! If a student finds themselves stumped, hints are provided as the remaining time to submit an answer runs out.

Study Island– Study Island is an all-in-one practice website for students to work on literacy, math, science, and social studies skills. It is built specifically around state standards, so regardless of your school’s location, you can rest assured that the content and practice provided on the website will align with your classroom teaching. Study Island is a great tool to use for high stakes testing preparation and provides real-time progress monitoring for teachers and parents. Beyond simple practice, Study Island can also be incorporated into classroom lessons for formative assessment and differentiation. It even allows teachers to import NWEA MAPassessment information for individual students and calculates a targeted learning path to fill in knowledge gaps!

TapQuiz Maps World Edition– Perfect for the geography or social studies classroom, TapQuiz Maps World Edition lets students learn the countries of the world in a game show environment. Simply tap the correct answer for each country on the map and track your progress mastering country names through the statistics page. Regions included in this app: U.S. States, Canadian Provinces, Mexico and Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Australia and Oceania. There are two modes: Tap And Type and Discovery Mode. In Tapand Type, students are prompted to type in the name of the country, state, or province.

The Hidden World of Our National Parks– Using 360° video, students can virtually follow park rangers into National Parks around the country and explore. From kayaking through icebergs to see a receding glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park to flying with thousands of bats through a cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, students can explore and discover fascinating corners of the U.S. National Parks system. Rangers provide facts and figures about each National Park as students move through the videos, so the website is both educational and engaging. It would be a good fit for any social studies or science class.

King Tut VR – King Tut VR provides a virtual reality experience of the tomb of King Tutankhamun. This app requires a virtual reality headset. King Tut was a great Egyptian pharaoh in the 18th dynasty. He was buried in a legendary tomb, which you can explore virtually while learning about the art, treasures, and hieroglyphics of the time. This app takes you back in time with a fully immersive environment, which makes you feel like you are in King Tut’s tomb.

Stack the Countries – A valuable addition to social studies, geography, and world history classes, Stack the Countries is a stacking and collecting game that teaches students about capitals, landmarks, major cities, and more. For each successfully completed level, students earn a random country to add to their world map with the goal of collecting all 193. With more than 1,000 questions and 193 fact cards, Stack the Countries is a wealth of information. Students have the option to play with the entire world or selected continents depending on prior knowledge or as required by the assignment. Stack the Countries also comes with two bonus games: Map It! and Pile Up!

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