Social Studies/History/Geography ideas

I'm once again working on cleaning out my "idea" cards.  This post will have some ideas for social studies, history, and geography.

Use empty shallow boxes for a mini-environment.
Jungle Safari--line with brown paper, paint stream, cutout animals and trees, concepts of habitat, predator, and prey.
Model City--student creates a business or service, box becomes fully stocked store (bank with money, cafe with cut out food).
Ocean--lined with blue, design a yellow submersible vehicle.  Assortment of fish and under water creatures.

Use stamps.  Relate history of stamps of history of individuals or events.  Find out about other countries by the people or events on them. 

Cardinal directions.  After a demonstration using the compass, students work together to establish true north, then the other directions.  Encourage students to use landmarks to remember each direction.  Play a game in which you call out a specific direction.  Students then must quickly face in that directions.  Speed up the commands as the game progresses.

A Capital Game.
large map of US, states labeled only
numbered bottle caps or chips
Make a list of state capitals on paper and assign each a number.  Number each bottle cap.
1.  The map is the game board.
2.  Draw a bottle cap and read the number.
3.  Look up number in the key.  Read the name of the city.
4.  Decide which state the capital belongs.
5.  Place a cap on correct state on the map.
6.  Continue until all states are covered.