Social Studies in the classroom

In the two weeks that I have been at my practicum school I have noticed the wide variety of social studies games and activities that are available to the second graders. Since this is a Montessori classroom, the students are not traditionally taught much social studies. However, they do independent work containing worksheets about other continents. For example, right now the students are learning about South America, so they read articles on South America and then answer questions about the stuff they just read. While this does not seem very exciting to me, my cooperating teacher does have many other enticing social studies related materials around her room. Some of the things the students love doing are puzzles of the United States, trivia games, and other hands on games. I think it is really neat to see the students voluntarily put together the puzzles of the United States during recess. They seem to enjoy the puzzles and they are discovering geography in a fun way. This has given me ideas about the types of games and resources that I will want to include in my own classroom one day.