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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.

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.

Ellis Island is an extremely important part of American History because our nation is founded on immigrants.  This site allows users to search the Ellis Island records for people who entered the country and discover more information about our own families.  Genealogy is something that isn't discussed much with students, but it is imperative for students to know our history.  Because we are a nation if immigrants, we all have relations to other countries and making that connection can be very important.  I would love to see high schoolers use this site to help investigate family origins.  Even if there were no connections to Ellis Island, they could choose from the list of more famous people to arrive.  The original documents that are captured on this site are a definite piece of our history that is worth investigating and sharing with others.

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.   

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.

This section of America's Story helps learners gain a brief insight into each state.  There is a summary of how the state entered statehood, as well as some key information.  The image that appears when a state is clicked on is the state flag, state capital, state flower, and another image associated with the state.  There are also links to other stories about the state at the bottom and on the side of the page.  Students begin learning about their own state in 4th grade and more of the country in 5th grade.  This site provides a good overview of the state with primary source images and documents.

This site has over 1.8 million searchable images collected from archives, libraries, galleries, and museums in Australia and overseas. This site would be good for social studies, animal, geography, the arts, and countries research. For example, one of the things found when searching "Nebraska" was a picture postcard from 1908 with a battleship and a short history of the USS Nebraska.

This is an archive of political cartoons printed in Britain. It would be great for a lesson that showed multiple viewpoints and perspectives on issues and moments in history. Students can analyze them to find out the cartoonist's perspective on an idea, and what the public's reaction was to an event. I use these in class to have my students see how one country can react to the events in another, and how different areas view each other.

This site list British cartoons from 1904 to the 1990's.  Cartoons are often a mirror of the culture which they portray.  This site is excellent source for social and political history of Great Britain. This site also allows registered users to create groups of cartoons for education purposes and users can access other previously created groups. The site also provides teaching and learning tools and lessons.

One hundred documents which reflect important events in American history. This site reflects the diversity and unity within our culture and its focus is highlighting, celebrating, and creating discussion that diversity and unity. It is not simply an archive of a broad collection of documents, but rather an archive which represents a vast range of American experiences.

Our documents includes 100 Milestone American historical documents compiled to span United States historical events from 1776-1965. Documents can be accessed by listing/year or visual/digital scroll bar. This resource would be valuable for intermediate elementary students through high school students as well as educators. Primary sources would be beneficial in U.S./American history and government education.

This website has many primary and government documents relating to the history of the United States.  One area that I really enjoyed exploring was the tools for educators.  Under that section, they had many tips for librarians such as creating book displays, bulletin board ideas, and a link to a poster so staff and students can vote on the most important American history documents.

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.

This site has many features including podcasts, audio, and video as well as photo, print, and other primary source documents arranged by era. Users can search from the beginning our country to the present. One of the most unique features of the site was the collection Battle Lines: Letters from America's Wars. This section has 5 different categories of letters from soldiers, one from each era. There is a digital copy of the letter as well as an audio recording of the letter. This would be great to use with second language learners or struggling readers since the text is read to the user. Next to the picture there is also a photograph or print from the same era as the letter. A description of the letter's author is also printed next to the letter. A transcript which is easier to read than the original is also available.

This site focuses on original letters and contains audio files from the battlelines starting at the Revolutionary War to the Iraq War. Through these correspondences, a student will be able to have a better understanding of what war is like for the soldiers and their families from daily happenings to major events. Grades 6 +. Photos, print documents, a teachers guide, and a section called "teachable documents" help makes this a great site to help learn about different eras in our nation's history.

LOVE this website.  Letters from most American wars from Revolutionary War to Iraq.   Each letter appears on the screen and includes a recording of the letter read aloud.  Very powerful to hear the types of details soldiers wrote.  Each page also includes information about the solder. 5 categories to choose from with many letters in each.  The categories are enlisting, comforts of home, love, combat, and the end of the war.