Group items tagged

This site is hosted by the Alabama Department of Archives and History. It contains lesson plans and primary documents to be used in the lessons about the Civil Rights Movement. Primary documents included are letters, newspaper articles, legal documents, and links to photographs.

Ben's guide is a gov doc that teaches about the US government. I accessed the section for 3-5 grades. This included information about historical documents, branches of the government and the election process. There is a glossary of terms and a list of other government websites. It is "narrated" by Ben Franklin

Resource to learn more about branches of government and the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Lincoln Public Schools - Social studies - 5th grade * The Constitution became and is still the supreme law of the land * The Constitution established separation of powers between the branches of government * The Bill of Rights was added to protect individual freedoms (for some people)

This site is part of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. It would be extremely useful for civil rights units. This is a nice collection of some of Eisenhower's most important correspondence during the Little Rock High School integration crisis. It is also neat to read them because they are scans of the actual typed documents and not just transcriptions. It seems more authentic when students can see the real thing. His notes, diaries, telegrams, letters and press releases really help to show how Eisenhower handled the situation. (Note: There is even an exchange of letters between Jackie Robinson and the president in which they discuss how blacks need to be patient for civil rights)

This gov doc outlines the Charters of Freedom, the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights. It describes the process leading up the the document and the impacts of the documents once they became law.

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 is a small collection within the American Memory Project website created by the Library of Congress. What makes it nice, is that it easily brings together many important documents that help provide insights into the African American experience from the slave trade to the Civil Rights era. Sometimes the larger American Memory site can be hard to navigate. This smaller sub-collection has nicely collected the highlights of the African American collection.

This site I found interesting because it contains of wealth of first-hand information such as speeches, testimonies, cases, and briefs on all sorts of topics. Some of the topics I found were H1N1 and the 9/11 backlash.

The Newseum is an actual brick and mortar museum located in Washington, D.C. Its website contains an eye-opening feature called "Today's Front Pages," which publishes front pages from newspapers around the world (see link on the right sidebar). Excellent source for teaching Media Literacy by demonstrating how differences in societies and cultures frame news stories differently. Especially fitting for journalism and social studies classes. Varies from many of my chosen sites because it displays current primary sources.

To find original historical documents this is the site to visit. It contains the most famous Bill of Rights and US Constitution as well as famous letters such as one written by Elvis to President Nixon and speeches like the WWII Infamy speech given by FDR. Students viewing these actual documents will help bring reality to the people and events in history.

This great site allows teachers to visit work of famous artists right in their classrooms. One of my favorite exhibits is that of artist Norman Rockwell showing a slideshow of his most popular pieces of work.

This website focuses on the study of geology, geography, our natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten us. I believe this site is best suited for secondary level students. Government documents include photos, maps, news releases, and videos about all topics in the earth science area. I especially found the "Science In Your Backyard" tab on the right margin interesting. You select a state and a link will allow you to access real time data, statistics, and new releases related to geology and natural resources in that state.

This site is a wonderful one for studying women in history. It details everywhere around the world. It is not just about the United States, but all around the world. It does not just talk about the queens and leaders but other women who were important to history such as the leaders in getting women the right to vote in the United States. It covers all areas of the world.

This website is another portal with many links that are organized very well. This website has 2 links that I would use most often and they are the Ben's Guide to the Government link, which is a very kid-friendly website that talks about the U.S. government, and it has a link to primary early government documents like the Constitution and Bill of Rights, etc. This site may not be as useful in the elementary grades as it would in high school, but the links I mentioned above would be good for 5th and 6th grade students.

I find Eleanor Roosevelt to be a fascinating person. I was excited to find this resource for primary sources written by Eleanor herself. She wrote the "My Day" column from 1936 to 1962. This site also contains a variety of speeches and writings of Mrs. Roosevelt. This site also has lesson plans for grades k-12 on Eleanor Roosevelt, Human Rights, and the 1960 John Kennedy presidental election.

This site is full of over 1200 history web sites. There are links to hundreds of K-12 history lesson plans, teacher guides, activities, games, quizzes, and much more.

Thousands of narrative excerpts giving first person accounts of slavery and the individuals it affected. These are accounts of the cruelty and plantation life. There are also hundreds of photos of former slaves.

This site contains narratives of past slaves that were created in the late 1930's. This site, which is a part of the Library of Congress, provides excellent primary sources that respresent a group of people whose voice was often not heard. Teachers and students could use this site when studying the Civil War and slavery, the Civil Rights movement, writing using dialect, to partner with an historical fiction novel that touches on the subject of slavery, and more.

This site is a service of the U.S. Government Printing Office has hundreds of U.S governmental documents sorted into the following categories: cornerstone documents, Congressional, presidential, judicial, regulatory, demographic, economic and miscellaneous. This site would be great for social studies students who are studying U.S. history, or those who are comparing our government to other countries.

This website has a list of the "cornerstone documents" from our government. Many of these documents like the Bill of Rights, Constitution, and declaration of independence are the documents our country's laws were founded on. Very easy for students to access the most important documents.

From the Government Printing office... a fabulous and most interesting collection of links to primary and "Core" government documents -- the Declaration of Independence, Presidential Papers, Supreme Court decisions, and more! Great basic resource to help you "GET TO THE SOURCE!"

This site was developed by educators working with the National Archives. It is an incredible site where you can design your own interactive activity with primary sources. There are seven kinds of activities you can build based on the type of learning you want student to achieve: finding a sequence, focusing on details, making connections, mapping history, seeing the big picture, weighing the evidence, and interpreting data. There are also a lot of really insightful pre-made activities that would work with many different grade levels. This site is just extraordinary! I plan to start using it right away!

This is a wonderful site to help "bring history to life". I love how there are thumb nail images of each photo/drawing and written documents to give you a quick preview. My favorite feature is the interactive activities. This is something worth using with students and sharing with all staff!

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.

NOAA has primary resource collections on the Gulf oil spill, hurricanes, El Nino, tides and sea turtles. I really like the way they feature current topics of importance in the news right now. This would be a great way to teach media literacy to our students. They also have a feature activity section called "Data in the Classroom" where students can make real world connections with real data related to El Nino, sea level, and water quality.

This site is an excellent weather website with resource collections divided into the following areas: ocean and coasts, climate, weather and atmosphere, marine life (sea turtles), freshwater (water cycle), and special topics. There data visualizations for weather events, lots of maps and charts for middle/high school students to analyze weather events, water cycle lessons, and a section with activities for teachers to bring real world data into the classroom.