My son is 12 and has always liked social studies. We use The Checklist by Cindy Downes in our homeschooling because my son doesn't like being tied down to studying one period of history and the checklist allows him to keep track of what he has studied. For each period of history there is a list of major events, people, places, terms, and discoveries/accomplishments to look up. He usually uses Wikipedia first and follows all of the convenient links so that he learns even more than just the original thing he was looking up. He also reads biographies and historical fiction and plays role playing video games set in the time period he is studying and looks up every unfamiliar word that he comes across so he continually adds to his vocabulary. It works really well for him.
