Group items tagged

PrimaryAccess is a wonderful web 2.0 tool that allows students to search for primary documents, particularly images and audio, and input them into Moviemaker, Storyboard, or Rebus Poem.  All of the options are some form of digital storytelling that helps students understand pieces of our history and communicate the information in their own words.

Congress for Kids is designed for students to learn about American History and Government in an interactive way. Fifth graders focus on American Government, so this source fits right into their Social Studies standards. Students can learn about the branches of our government, citizenship, and elections. There is also a section of quizzes for students to test their knowledge of American Government.

NBC Learn provides a wealth of videos, primary source documents, and overall media from the past 80 years and now.  The content is divided into K-12 and Higher Ed.  It is a paid resource, but there is free content available.  This could easily be utilized in the classroom and help make newsworthy events of our past real for students today.

At this site you can find primary-source based activities for grades 1-12 already created or create you own for the teaching of history, historical comprehension, and critical thinking skills. Thousands of documents can also be found using the National History Standards categories.

This is the teacher site of the Library of Congress. Here you can locate primary sources by topic sets, topic, state, and theme. You can also access their web guide which contains extensive online resources for teachers and students of individuals, events, eras, and historical documents. This site is also a portal to using, citing, teaching, and analyzing primary sources, finding classroom materials to match state standards, lesson plans, activities, news & events, professional development, FAQs, and additional resources, like slide shows and handouts from past Library of Congress events.

Digital History:Explorations is a resource with time period/theme specific "webquests" for both students and teachers. Primary source documents (photos, documents, letters, etc.) along with teacher resources and lesson plans make this an excellent multiple literacies must for teachers and school librarians.

This site teaches far more than history to our students. The photos, documents, and first-hand accounts of the Holocaust and World War II are presented in a way that encourages students to see others as people; not by color, nationality, ability, etc. This is an ideal way to give students primary material to improve their social/cultural literacy as well as emotional literacy. It is powerful and poignant, a site that could benefit any student, intermediate age and higher.

The American Presidency Project has many documents of interest when researching our American presidents.  There are primary sources that may be of great value when studying a particular president at his time in history.  The conversations are invaluable because they give a completely true picture of what event was going on at the time.