Social Studies... A new way of testing

So I am going a little "out of the box" for social studies this year and am having some fun with how to test the kids. Basically, I want them to be able to show me they understand the BIG idea without putting a traditional test in front of them. So... for Unit 2 our BIG idea was 'How communities change over time?'. Their projects had to show me just that, how a community changed over time.

However, my class took it a little further and we had some groups take the main ideas from the unit and show their knowledge through other projects. Most of our groups created 2 posters, one showing a community from the past and then one showing a community from the present. They were so creative (you might have been wondering why "toys" had been coming to school). We had groups use Legos, Barbies, play horses and cars. We also had a group report on inventions and how they can help us. We had a group create 4 posters and put it together as a timeline. We also had an individual who reported on Louis and Clark and why they were so important to history.

My class always amazes me with their abilities. Our communities were SO great. They did such a nice job showing what they learned and they thought this was WAY better than an actual test. :-)