Hopping Fun Creations

Publishers: Contact Lorraine about creating stand-alone, durable print and interactive digital versions of these and dozens of other outstanding classroom games across the curriculum.

I teamed up with my sister Louise Hopping, a veteran middle school social studies teacher, to create and thoroughly test these American history games. All the games include easy–to–copy and assemble boards, cards, rules, and other components. There's also a two-sided poster with a colorful Courageous Colony game board and historical photo game. For grades 4 to 8.

Students keep asking to play these games:

• Passport to America Immigration Guessing Game


• Famous Quotation Bingo Game


• State Capitals Map Search Game


• West Quest A Timeline Game


• Hear Ye! A News Story Relay Race (American Revolution)


• North or South? A Civil War Fact Mastery Game


• Courageous Colony board game (early Virginia), including a poster-sized, full-color game board


• Muckrackers Board Game (Progressive Era), also including a poster-sized game board

Louise and I wrote this second activity–packed American history book by starting with primary sources—narratives, eyewitness accounts, photos, statistics, maps—and weaving them into 15 creative, ready-to-go activities, including plays, readings, a TV broadcast, movie story boards, graphing activities, and more.

A few of our favorite activities:

• Freedom in a Box News Broadcast (a script for small or large groups based on a slavery narrative by Henry "Box" Brown)


• Coming to America Dramatic Reading (true immigrant stories woven into a powerfully emotional stage reading)


• Boston Tea Party Story Boarding Activity (kids plot a comic book or movie story board of this event based on eyewitness accounts)


• Factories on Trial Industrial Revolution Plays (three plays for small or large groups, using actual transcripts from child labor hearings)
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• Connect the Depot Dots Map and Data Study (transcontinental railroad)


• Million Mile March (using data to map and calculate slavery escape routes)

This jam-packed, cross-curricular activity book explores inventors and inventions of the past and present, inventive thinking skills, and how inventions are made and marketed. I was thrilled when the book received a rave review from Scope, the social studies teacher magazine. For grades 4 to 8.

Kids love extremes! The top and bottom of the Earth are about as extreme as our world gets. These engaging activities cover history, geography, science, language arts, and math. For grades 3 to 6.