Group items tagged

This has online forms for analyzing primary sources. The forms can be completed online and then printed or printed out as a guide for students. They include links to written documents, artifact, cartoon, map. motion picture, photograph, poster, and sound recordings. These would be immensely helpful in teaching students how to think critically about documents from the past or the present.  

These primary documents are listed by date, which would make it a handy reference for teachers and students, especially in social studies classrooms. The documents can be downloaded in a printer friendly view with the citation on the bottom. There is a wide variety of topics of interest to students.

This site is interactive with options to research famous Americans, learn about events in the past, learn about the different states, and even listen to old songs and video clips. I watched a video of a gymnastic routine in 1894. They called it "Early Break Dancing". This site has appealing visuals and is easy to maneuver. There are also questions that engage the learner. I think this would be a fun site for students.

The Library of Congress: America's Story from America's Library is designed to allow students to have fun with history while learning at the same time. The site provides five specific categories that allow the user to search by people, era, American pastimes and celebrations, and music and entertainment. The site promotes learning through games, trivia questions, true/false quizzes, and links that spark curiosity. It is easy to navigate and designed for all level of learners in elementary school.

I LOVE this website for my younger students - and older kids can have fun with it also. It is bright and active - but has tons of information on American history that is a little off the beaten path.

The United States Department of Agriculture sponsors this informational site. Students can learn about the different food groups and what they should eat to have a healthy diet. There are tips about physical activity and food choices. There is even an interactive section in which students can personally plan their meals, investigate the different foods they eat using foodapedia, and they can assess their foods and physical activity. I think this is a valuable site because students learn about healthy choices.

This is a government web site that helps students find a job/career that will be of interest to them based on what they enjoy doing. On the first page a student can select what they like to do and then it will take them to a list of various jobs that are related to their interests. Once there, students can choose a particular job to investigate it further. They can find out what they need to do to get that type of job, the pay, the need for wokers in this area, etc. I think that this would be great for high school students who are trying to figure out what type of career they would like to pursue.

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.

This website is a great resource for students looking for information about the Holocaust. Besides their own archive of Holocaust material, they have links to several other sites which also have primary archival material. This would be a great palce for students to use for their senior Holocaust projects.

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.

shmoop claims to "speak student."  I think this is a great site for kids who are trying to understand their topic of choice.  There are some primary source links embedded within the text of each subject.  The high interest topics of study makes this site usable for students doing research.

"OPS A+ Career PREP in conjunction with Nebraska Career Connections offers students valuable on-line education & career planning resources. Log on to complete your student e-portfolio."

This site offers links to a number of different vocational assessments (some free and others not free) as well as a more specific understanding of how career clusters are devided and what falls into which category.

This is part of a site developed by the Nebraska Department of Education to help students learn more about careers and prepare them for finding careers that match their interests and strengths. Students can access this at different times - junior high, high school and college to help them develop and modify plans based on the current trends and their career interests. Within this site, students can develop their own e-portfolio and resume as well as look for information on specific careers.

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.

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.

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.

America's Story provides a great overview of American History in a simplified, easy-to-read manner.  The site is divided into five sections for easy navigation and to help users be able to identify what they need.  Students could use the See, Hear, and Sing section to understand the history of cartoons, children's songs, and various voice recordings.  The audio clips that are provided are directly from the Library of Congress and provide authentic learning experiences for students in second grade through 5th grade.

This site includes numerous science lesson plans, homework resources, and interactive games to assist students and teachers.

Promotes "government information in order to engage K-12 students in learning about history, culture, science, and government through games and other interactive activities; to assist teachers and school librarians with locating teaching aids, lesson plans, and exciting tools to enhance students' learning, and to provide librarians with a collection of free government resources to advance their reference interview and collection development decisions." http://govdocs4children.pbworks.com/w/page/8811722/FrontPage

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.

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.

This is another terrific resource for social studies, in our presidents unit and our unit on the Revolutionary War. I like that you can complete a search for a particular word or phrase in a given document. I also love that students are able to search his books and architectural drawings as well, making Jefferson seem more like an actual man who had hobbies and talents.