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The National Archives' digital classroom for using primary sources. Activities and training for students and teachers. Link to another site for using primary sources, Docs Teach.

The exhibits on this site were awesome! From the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence to the Deadly Influenza Virus or Electing a President and Democracy; these were just a few among many that met indicators on my specific grade level, so I'm sure others would work for different elementary grades. My favorite part was the Eyewitness exhibit. It has links to all important moments in US History and has video, songs, and voice recordings to bring students into that very moment in time.

This site has links to information on some of the states. Nebraska is one of the states with a link and there is a wide variety of information included about the state.

While I directed my search to Nebraska once on this site, many of the other state sites that I checked out were really cool. I imagine upper elementary would benefit from this site for projects, but I could utilize this site in my Flat Stanley project. Flat Stanley is sent to my student's families in other states (countries) and we compare and contrast the physical geography, natural resources and climate. This site would allow me to do that while showing the students some specific historical/cultural aspects not experienced through typical research.

This is a great source that has a list of artists/musicians from the Harlem Renaissance. It has direct links to the poems and audio links to the music. I would use this site in the study of History or literature during the Harlem Renaisaance.

This site contains a wealth of resources for teachers. They have primary source sets that include teacher resource booklets and lesson plans. One of the sets I found useful was one on the Constitution that included newspaper articles and original documents that trace the drafting and adoption of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. This set would be useful for all grade levels for Constitution day materials in September. There was also an interesting primary source set on Thanksgiving that had paintings and photographs showing historical perspectives on American Thanksgiving traditions.

While the Library of Congress website is vast, I found the Classroom Resources section under the Teachers heading to be beneficial for my current position as a third grade classroom teacher; although many of the items I saw could be used at any elementary grade level. I found the Primary Sources by State and Immigration Challenges to be beneficial to my current unit in my district's SS program. The Thanksgiving link would be interesting for the students to see and discover things they didn't know before celebrating this holiday. I'll definitely use this site with my students, because it goes so well with what we're studying. Plus, it creates a more 'real' experience than their textbook allows.

This site provided a simple method called SOAP in introducing students to primary sources as well as some explicit and direct instruction examples. (S=What kind of source? O=What's the occasion? A=Who's the audience? P=What's the purpose?) Additionally, it had 10-45 minute lesson plans for implementing primary documents in topics like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Sugar in the Modern World. It provided a variety of extra resources: children's trade books, websites, standards and skills addressed, as well as how to get students to think critically about history.

Over 133 links to sites with primary documents covering a variety of topics including American journeys and exploration (Lewis and Clark), Tracking Buffalo, Salem Witchcraft Trials and even some modern topics like Bob Hope and American Variety, and Immigration Today. About a dozen of these 133 links were directed towards teacher and lesson plans, so I liked that this site had so many others wrapped into one. This site also had primary documents for all subject areas: Art, Music, Math, S.S., Science, Writing, Reading, and even Physical Education. There's something for everyone here!