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National History Day offers primary sources for world history. Students and educators from 5-12 grade can use this site to find information on many regions around the world. Teachers can use the Classroom Connection section to find information that fits into their standards, a repository can be used to find primary resources for specific regions and time periods.

I liked how when you first are on this site you are given a map of the world and can pick your documents from the various areas of the world. You can also search by time, topic or type of item. This site is very visual when searching which I enjoyed.

Smithsonian Folkways introduces cultures from around the world through the language of music.  Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian created to capture music "of the people, by the people, for the people".  The Tools for Teaching dropdown menu allows educators to find lessons, workshops, and more.  The lessons are pinpointed on a map and can be selected specifically by region.  The lessons vary for grade levels, but are primarily designed for 3rd and up.  Students begin learning about world history and specific countries in 6th grade.  Smithsonian Folkways would allow students to understand the culture in which they are studying through another viewpoint and language - music.

The British Museum provides a section specifically designed for children to help explore countries of the world and showcase actual museum artifacts that go with those continents.  The Museum Explorer shows a map from which users can highlight a country or region of the world and topic for that country to see artifacts from the museum and a brief explanation.  Students can choose the topics: birds and beasts, tools and technology, death, gods and spirits, daily life, leaders and rulers, dress and ornament, and warfare.   6th graders learning about the continent of Africa could access Museum Explorer, select leaders and rulers and discover that African leaders mainly consisted of elders and chiefs of tribes, but Egypt made leadership in Africa well known.  There are five artifacts shown on the African Leaders and Rulers page.  The Story of King Solomon and Queen Sheba is a Ethiopian painting from AD 1971 that shows the reign of the king and queen.  I can see students investing their time in this site to see actual artifacts from the specified regions.

"The Labyrinth provides free, organized access to electronic resources in medieval studies through a World Wide Web server at Georgetown University. The Labyrinth's easy-to-use menus and links provide connections to databases, services, texts, and images on other servers around the world. Each user will be able to find an Ariadne's thread through the maze of information on the Web. This project not only provides an organizational structure for electronic resources in medieval studies, but also serves as a model for similar, collaborative projects in other fields of study. The Labyrinth project is open-ended and is designed to grow and change with new developments in technology and in medieval studies." http://labyrinth.georgetown.edu/

Worldpress is imporant because I believe that its healthy to look outside of our own news and see a different take on the world. Its an important resource that I think is under used when students are looking for good articles to write about.

I love the way this site is arranged by continents.  When doing research on countries with elementary students (3rd grade), they need information that is authentic, but also easy to grab.  One of our 3rd grade standards in Elkhorn is to learn the continents and land forms.  We expand this into a research project where each child chooses a country.  I believe 3rd grade students would be able to navigate this site.

This is a good site with lots of world history documents. You can search by region or time period. This site also has a guide for how to analyze the various types of primary sources, each of the guides include an introduction, questions to ask and some additonal resources.

This website's main focus is centered on the history and culture of California and the role it played in national and world history. Calisphere includes photographs, diaries, recorded oral history, cultural artifacts, documents, etc. I feel this is a great resource, even for teachers not living in California, because of the variety of information presented and the prevalence of primary and secondary sources of our nation's history. 

This website has many different topics.  I like that they include topics like assembly lines and other important pieces of history that are not always featured on other sites.  Most topics that I look at included many images which students will love.

This website allows students to search images and information related to a theme, such as the Civil Rights Movement, or of a specific subject, such as Rosa Parks.

This site has over 5000 websites with archives all over the world. I can see that this would be useful for social studies classes to locate primary sources from other countries. Even though many of the sources are in the foreign language, many of the images could be used to support and springboard the content. There is a translator embedded into the site.   

First hand accounts, illustrated with vintage photos, original radio broadcasts. Ancient world through the 20th century accounts to include history in motion. All accounts are bookmarked and easily accessed. Citation information is located at the end of each article.

This site is INCREDIBLE! The format is student-friendly and easy to navigate. There are numerous 1st-hand accounts of memorable moments in history, from a transcript of a dinner with Attila the Hun, to video of the Hindenburg explosion. Students can search through events from many countries, centuries, and eras, including the Civil War era and the Old West. Photos and radio broadcasts are also available. I especially enjoy the format of the homepage, which includes interesting tabs such as "Spotlight On" (i.e., Spotlight on History's Bad Guys) and "Notable Quotes."

This site had a lot of great information and first hand accounts of events in history. Included various sources, photos, videos, radio broadcasts, maps and many more. The index was detailed and well organized, I liked how it highlighted topics that were interactive. The photo of the week was also a nice feature, this could be used to start a discussion with students on the photo and get their reactions to it.

For students studying World War II, this website offers cartoons from the 1940's created by Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. Copies of his original drawings or clippings from the newspapers help paint a portrait of happenings at the time in the political, military, and civilian realms. Good for students grades 5-12 for extrapolating meaning for illustrations.

National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's photo library is a primary source for ocean and nature photographs. It is arranged by topic collections. Some of my favorites include: National Severe Storms Laboratory Collection (severe weather), It's a Small World Collection (around the world in alphabetical order), and Coral Kingdom Collection (vertebrates/invertebrates,plants). Excellent examples are provided for use with student lessons (i.e. coral kingdom for living vs. nonliving organisms) as well as student research materials.

Time For Kids is a great source of information for kids to keep up on current news stories.  They cover the US and around the world.  They feature kid reporters and have a homework helper section.

I have used this web site with 9th grade honors world history students. They really enjoyed exploring the site. "Learn about the 1994 discovery of Paleolithic cave paintings in France and view photographs of the paintings." http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/

"Advance freedom for the benefit of the American people and the international community by helping to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and prosperous world composed of well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people, reduce widespread poverty, and act responsibly within the international system." --From the FY 2010 Agency Financial Report, released November 2010

A database of several trials in key points of American and world history are found here. High school students can explore transcripts, photos, indictments, and other documents of several famous trials. Instead of just reading about a famous trial, students can explore several angles of a trial.

Grade level 1- 3 grade. Students may research plants and animals, people, places, history and government, world religions, science and math, sports and hobbies and arts. Science projects, games and activities engage students learning.

I thought this site was unique because the documents focused on children throughout the world. You can browse by region or do a specific search. I think children would really like this site because it would be interesting to learn about children in history and see how they could relate it to their life.

Grouped by region, this website provides a variety of topics.  Although it looks like the website was last updated in 2008, I thought it would be another resource to use with children.  Many of the topics I looked at were not typical documents you would find on most websites.

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.