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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 This included information about historical documents, branches of the government and the election process.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 a WEALTH of information on the history of the United States. It includes letters, documents, photos, audio and video that are all in the public domain (and there fore also legal to use) since they are all owned by the U.S. government. Using the search box will yield many results. My favorite search on this site is to find primary sources about the great depression. A search tip: be sure to click "gallery view" when you look at your search results. It helps you know what type of source you are looking at.

search: Oregon Trail first person accounts and maps that help to explain trails and settlements Lincoln Public - grade 4 - Social Studies * Major rivers and terrain determined trail paths and settlement sites * Motivation varied (Oregon = land, California = gold, Mormon = religious freedom)

There are some great sites at this source. Their topics run from Women's history to Native American history. There are even maps. This would be a big help for upper elementary to 12th grade.

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.

This site includes government documents maintained by the U.S. Department of State about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, and foreign relations of independent states, some dependencies, and areas of special sovereignty around the world. These documents are part of the Diplomacy in Action webpage maintained by the U.S. Department of State. If you search out other links on this site, you will find a vast resource of information about countries around the world.

This site is s group of newspaper and magazine articles from African American issues to cartoon historical articles. It includes magazines for fashion in the 30's and earlier. It has movie reviews and music history. In other words, just about anything in history that one would like to look up in the newspaper or magazines. These sites are very good for students to see first hand information about a particular time in history. These kinds of sites can be used for almost any kind of project the teacher can think up. The teacher librarian needs to be aware of at least a few of these different kinds of sites.

This site is joint venture between the U.S. Institute of Museum & Library Services, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and National History Day. The site offers thousands of pages detailed eyewitness accounts from a number of different groups of people. The documents record the first encounters of the Native Americans and those coming into contact with them for the first time.

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 may be a valuable resource for information related to United Nations day held on October 24th. The Office of the Historian is found on the U.S. Department of state website. It has historical government documents, information on key milestones in history, and important biographical information on all Secretary of State officeholders in U.S. history. On the site, a link will take you to a guide to all countries that provides historical reference information on all aspects of the United States' relations with the countries of the world dating back to 1776 to the present time.

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)

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 hosted by the Library of Virginia contains a number of transcriptions of primary documents. The documents (most of which are excerpts from larger texts) are related to Virginia and are organized for time period, for example "A Nation in the Making" or "Virginia and the New South". This site would be useful in a number of American History Units as it contains texts from before the Revolution as well as from the Civil War.

This website for kids is develped by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It is an award winning website with the character Energy Ant. Learn all about energy, its sources, uses, how to save energy, history with information rich timeline, calculators and tools for converting energy, measuring etc., games and activities, glossary and teacher section. Text formatted.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration provides this "Energy Kids" site. It defines energy in lots of different ways. It compares renewable and nonrenewable sources as well as potential and kinetic energy. It talks about different types of energy sources, the history of energy and even provides games and activities for kids.

This website, created by the US Dept of Energy's Information Administration, answers students' questions about energy -- from what is energy to the history of energy to saving energy. Website provides teachers with lesson plans, teacher guides, virtual field trips, energy career information. All teacher information is categorized by student age group.

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.

The World Factbook was produced for U.S. policy makers. The information is fairly easy to read and comprehend, therefore, students can use the documents, especially on the middle and secondary level. The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities. The government documents they have are maps of the major world regions, Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.

This website is a portal for many other websites that would be very useful for teaching. I haven't looked at all of the links, but there are links to major websites like the Smithsonian and Library of Congress, both of which I know have primary documents available on them. Not all of these sites have government documents on them, but many of them do.

This is another portal with a ton of great links. There is a page full of links for educators and then drop down menus that separate K-6 and 7-12. In these drop-down menus are links to entire pages of websites devoted to topics like the government, history, the military, math, and science. Not all of these sites have government documents, but many of them do.

This site is presented by the Virginia Center for Digital History and the University of Virginia Library. It showcases two communities during the Civil War. One count was in the north, and one was in the south. It provides an interesting case study of life on both sides of the war. Students and teachers can use this site to compare maps, letters, diaries, newspaper articles, speeches and records in both communities. It also organizes the war into three eras: the eve of war, the war years, and the aftermath.

This site would be a great addition to a civil war unit because it uses documents from Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. It would help to present both sides of the war to students. Often in teaching the civil war, we neglect to explain some of the ways that the South felt slighted and it would make for a good analysis for students to be able to view and examine the papers of Jefferson Davis.

A primary source site concerning the Nazi's murder of the mentally ill during World War II. I would use these primary documents during the study of WWII so students become more aware of Hitler's view of those who are disabled.

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.