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 appealing site offers an interactive online art zone for projects in painting, photography and collage. Exploration games guide observations of masterpieces in painting and sculpture. Link to NGA exhibitions.
This is the home page of the USA executive branch of government. Use this page to link to biographical data on the leaders, The White House 101 (site for kids), The White House Blog, policies & issues, the constitution, executive/legislative/judicial branches.
This site introduces students to the Secretary of State and the job of diplomacy. There are news links for important international events. Resources are available for parents and educators and a passport game for K-6.
This is the web site for FDA's campaign to help people become aware of the Nutrition Facts Label on food products. There are games, projects and specialized pages for children, parents and educators.
This site allows students to explore land & water management, national parks, minerals, fish & wildlife in the US. Check out the Astrogeology link for exploring our planetary system.
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.
In this site students can learn about energy. There are sections that talk about energy basics, sources of energy, the history of energy and energy conservation. It even includes a link to games and activities that can be used when teaching kids about energy.
This Library of Congress site would be fun to use as a bell work activity in upper elementary school. Each day a student could pick one event from "today in history" to share with the class. Informative with pictures!
Today in History is part of the Library of Congress' American Memory project. As the title implies, the site pulls a signicant event in history, reports about it and shows primary sources -- photos and documents -- attached to the event. The writers generally pick one or two topics for the day and elaborate on those. Excellent for upper grades.
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.
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.
Fun animation with font style related to kids. Included are games and activities with options to print for classroom use. Stories to read aloud, help tips, levels of playing games. I enjoyed playing SORT MANIA and so will kids.
This site is filled with information about the environment. Although it appears to be geared for younger children there is a link for middle school and high school students, too. This site can be used by science and art teachers alike. There is something for everyone here.
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.
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 site uses resources housed by the New York State Library. It is a lesson plan using newspaper articles from two New York newspapers from the late 1800s. The lesson plan includes the documents as well as activities using them. In addition to being a useful lesson plan for the Gilded Age and labor movements, it also serves a model for those wondering how to set up a unit using primary documents.
This site draws from a number of collections (University of California Berkeley, The California Historical Society, and hosted by the Library of Congress). It includes photos, artwork, letters, diaries, and legal documents. The documents touch on the Immigration experience for people coming to the West Coast from China as well as document many of the contributions made by Chinese Immigrants.
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 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.
This site covers historical topics, contains historical images and has a special teacher page with lessons and materials that are ready to use in the classroom. I love this site and use it often especially when I need some extra material for historical holiday celebrations in the classroom.
This website has loads of links to primary sources on US history. I like the flexibility of the "more browse options" to find collections by time period, place or source format in addition to the browse by topic option. Source formats include books, periodicals, photos and film, some dating back to the 1400's. The "today in history" link is a good place to find daily tidbits to throw into lessons.
This site from the Library of Congress provides a vast collection of primary sources for educators. I like the way the site is organized so you can browse the collections by topic. One of the collection highlights is the Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Abraham Lincoln. This is a collection of more than 11,100 items donated to the Library of Congress in 1953. This collections includes Lincoln's life, Presidency, slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Primary sources available from the Lincoln era include newspapers, Lincoln's law papers, sheet music, broadsides, prints, cartoons, maps, drawings, letters, and campaign tickets.
There is a lot on this website for students to search for primary and government documents. They are organized by topic or you can search for specifically what you need. This site is a great resource . There are many different ways you could use the documents found here.
This site provides information that teachers from many different disciplines could use in their classrooms. There's information about literature, the environment, immigration, as well as culture and sports. There's also a link specifically for teachers where they can get lesson plans and ideas for their classroom.
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.
