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A PBS video about what happened to the founding fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence.  I think students would find this interesting so they can see how signing this document really did impact the lives of these men.  Would be a nice conclusion to teaching it as it is only 8:00 minutes long.

A short video that breaks down the Bill of Rights and makes the ten amendments comprehensible for English language learners.

Thanks for bringing your ELL world into this course.

Great TED talk videos that pertain to U.S. History and the Constitution. I used one of these in my class that discusses creating the Presidency. At the end of the video is asks students to think about what they would have included when creating the Presidency.

Here is a link to the video of the School House Rock Preamble song. In fifth grade, I had to memorize the preamble and this was really helpful. Even those these videos are old and a little cheesy, I've found elementary students love them.

One of the classics! Old, cheesy, but effective!

Tons of good things on this site - videos about government (which I find really hard to locate), interactive games, readings and information about federalism, rights and equality.  There are a lot of resources here, including an entire section for teachers.  I think it is mostly geared towards middle and high school teachers.

Great video on Creating a Constitution by the same Annenberg Foundation from my earlier post - I believe this has all the segments of the DVD series. Short and sweet segments for the classroom.

This is a resource my colleague and I use often. The ed portal U.S. History 1 course covers the first settlers to the end of the Civil War. This bookmark covers the creation of the U.S. government. Yes, the videos are "cutesy", however because there is a video to watch, a transcript and narration students can access the information on many levels.

Great 20 minute video on Gideon v. Wainwright created by the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands Seminars - The Judicial Branch. They try to "jazz" it up using graphics and music, but it's a great review of how one man can change the constitution. This is part of a 3 DVD series. Worth getting.

Albert, thanks for sharing this. It is totally appropriate for a high school classroom and shows how even the most common of people can influence the law of the land.

The 14th Amendment granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African-Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War. This simple overview of the 14th Amendment and Brown vs Board of Education would be appropriate for elementary students. It does have short advertisements.

This is a great video explanation of the Electoral College. I use this with my classes when teaching the Electoral College. It has a great way of explaining the process and why the Electoral College evolved the way it did.

About as clear an explanation as I have ever found. Thanks for sharing.

This is link to a PBS website called "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow". This particular page explores the ratification of the 14th Amendment. It also includes links to short videos and related documents.

"This relic from ancient Persia had a profound influence on the Founding Fathers" <br /> This might be a good short video to show middle school students when we try to connect US history to ancient history.... Thomas Jefferson apparently studied ancient Persia as a model for governing people with different religious practices.

Thank you so much. I am definitely going to check this out! We are always looking for ways to connect the ancient world to the modern one.

An expressive reading of the Declaration of Independence by celebrities which could be used as a read-along support or as an access point for auditory/visual learners.

Actually a very good museum to visit if you are in the Los Angeles area. This brings a different approach to the Civil Rights Movement by focusing on the music. It might be interesting for students to explore the power of music during the Civil Rights Movement and make it easier to engage in the constitutional and legal aspects. Some good videos and resources.

This chart shows how many electoral votes each state had between 1981-90, 91-2000, and 2001-10. Could be useful when teaching contemporary elections - and could be particularly helpful when looking at demographic patterns - inferences galore to be made!

Here is a nice opinion piece by the NYT regarding the Electoral College: http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000001821730/electoral-college-101.html?ref=electoralcollege

Albert, I loved this article and the trailer. The best quote from the trailer is the last line: Interviewer: What is democracy? Kid: It's a type of ... disease.

This short videoblog with Kenneth C. Davis sparks interest in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution by discussing the Loving case for interracial marriage.

Documentary from the American Social History Project. It looks at the American Revolution from a social history perspective. It follows the events of the 1770s from the perspective of a Boston shoemaker. Interesting take. I've found the documentaries produced by this organization to be excellent.

Excellent site in general. The video and audio are high quality and, I am sure, are quite accessible for students of all level.s

I was just doing the election of 1800 with my class and used this entertaining video to introduce a mini-project on the 1800 campaign. It used actual words that the mouthpieces of Adams and Jefferson used to produce a modern-day attack ad

I love this! High schools kids are sophisticated enough to read between these lines and I can imagine you have fun with this!

This website is a huge collection of U.S. history texts, documents and audio/video files. Everything is organized by year, which makes it easier to locate specific documents.

I love this game about the Constitutional Convention. It has lots of great videos for students to watch that are entertaining and clearly explain what was going on. Kids go through representing one state and vote on parts on the constitutional convention and then they see how each state actually voted. Some of the links are broken, but most work well. The game takes a while - at least 45 minutes (and is maybe a little too long), but I think kids would be engaged and would walk away with a great base understanding of how the Constitutional Convention went and what it was like to be there.