Trends is one of my favorite concepts to teach. I personally am fascinated by Trends. There have been many rabbit holes that I have traveled down after having a question. Trends in Baby Names fascinate me-the way old-fashioned names are coming back or the way culture plays a part-have actually had Sansa's and Arya's in Kindergarten.
Here are some ways you can incorporate it into your lessons. What I do is make into a unit. We review how to do research, how we can trust certain sites over others. So for example:
1) What have been the number 1 Halloween costumes over the years? The students can illustrate what they think costumes in the past looked like and then we can analyze the data. They can also predict what future costume trends might be.
2) Number 1 toys sold at Christmastime.
3) Top baby names-are any of their names on the lists? Would they name their child a popular name or go more unique?
4) Fashion-we do a whole unit on shoes-how have they changed over time? I am a wear a dress with sneakers to work kind of gal-does practicality trump style?
5) Trends in TV and movies-the students are shocked to learn about silent movies and how we grew up with only 3 channels.
6) Trends in weather-tie it into science. Now in Texas this is hard because most days it's 90 degrees and sunny. But we can analyze trends for the whole US or compare it to trends in weather in other countries.
7) Trends in art-what made certain artists popular?
8) Trends in foods-I watched the documentary on Netflix called Rotten and was shocked to learn the history of the avocado-I had no idea there were trends involved in making that so popular today (and who knew the drama involved).
9) Trends in our city-we look at the development projects in the works and compare it to what the city used to look like.
10) Trends in trends-what is cool? From pet rocks to tamagochi's to fidget spinners. Analyze the trends over the years.
11) Trends in fairy tales-from the horror of Grimm to the "woke" tales of today where Cinderella doesn't need a man. Brings a depth to my fairy tale unit.
Analyzing is rigorous but it's also important to me to give them an opportunity to predict what will happen in the future. That way they are also applying what they learned.
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