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The Online Guide to Traditional Games - James Masters
Grades
8 to 12In the Classroom
Have students design gameboards or cards, game pieces, and rules to play variations of the games on the site. In your world cultures class, have students play and compare games from different cultures. Use game-creation as the culminating project at the end of a content or research unit or simply as a way to teach writing: both informational (directions) and creative. Have students role-play characters who might play original or historic games by writing character sketches and then performing them. Let the games begin!You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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National Women's History Museum - National Women's History Museum
Grades
K to 12tag(s): jamestown (6), women (147), womenchangemaker (34), womens suffrage (52), world war 2 (160)
In the Classroom
Of course, the site would be useful to students doing research on the women's movement in general, or on the role of women during several important historical eras. In the "educational resources" section, there is a collection of quotations from women that would be great for creating displays for women's history month. Challenge students to create a poster for one of the women quoted using a tool such as Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, reviewed here. There is also a group of quizzes that could be adapted for classroom use. The section focused on the women of Jamestown includes the stories of Native American women as well as the role of early European settler women and could supplement the usual Thanksgiving lessons on the new American colonies. There are also free lesson plans and classroom activities that teachers should take advantage of!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Time of Remembrance - Elk Grove Unified School District
Grades
9 to 12tag(s): california (16), japan (57), japanese (47), world war 2 (160)
In the Classroom
There are lesson plans (tied to California standards) and good resource lists for students and teachers. Skip the "guided tour" of the website, however, unless you are very new at using the Internet. Share this resource as one of several when studying civil rights, discrimination, and the U.S. Constitution in theory and practice. Have students create products to compare the internment camps to similar acts in history or create a presentation on the constitutional violations of such camps. Or include this as part of a study of the decades of the twentieth century.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Object of History - Smithsonian National Museum of American History
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): museums (51)
In the Classroom
Use this site as a mini lesson for yourself in the use of artifacts in the classroom. We are often called to make education more "hands on," and this is a prime example of how to do this effectively with history. Use the specific artifacts featured on this site (and project the 360 views on an interactive white board or screen for maximum punch), but consider how you could also bring artifacts into the classroom using the suggestions provided. They need not be priceless museum pieces; in fact, an academic discussion of the cultural impact of a familiar object like the iPod or the cell phone could be quite effective. Extend the activity by having students in small groups create an artifact collection on a wiki using digital pictures they take themselves. Document a local landmark, an era in your school, or even today's teen lifestyle through artifacts.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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in Our Own Backyard: The Hidden Problem of Child Farmworkers - AFT
Grades
8 to 12tag(s): immigration (68), migration (45)
In the Classroom
Use this site as a launch point for debates, class discussion, or student projects on the history of labor, the contributions of minorities in American life, and the hot current events discussions of border control. Consider this topic for possible social action projects or political letter-writing and more. Examples of projects other classrooms have created are available on the website as well as teacher testimonials on teaching about child labor.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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HippoCampus - Monterey Institute for Technology and Education
Grades
9 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): environment (247), OER (43)
In the Classroom
Explore the curriculum topics for your subject area and select some options for students to use in class or for review. This is also an excellent option for leaving plans for a substitute who may have no expertise in your subject area! Many of the multimedia modules are well-suited for interactive whiteboard or projector (or for students to navigate at an individual pace on laptops). Have gifted students? Allow them to "compact" new content and extend into higher levels using this site. Be sure to share a link from your teacher web page for students who need an alternate presentation of material or for absentees. Share this site at the beginning of the school year for students wanting more of a challenge.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Opensecrets.org - Open Secrets
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
Put this site on your TeachersFirst favorites list or teacher web page so students can use it for research on political candidates and issues. Civics teachers will find it useful in demonstrating the importance of lobbying and campaign finance in the political arena. Economics teachers can use these data to illustrate the connection between wealth and political power. Teachers doing lessons focused on the upcoming elections can track current Presidential candidates and their major contributors.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Home Front - Snaith Primary School
Grades
6 to 9tag(s): england (52), world war 2 (160)
In the Classroom
Assign students to navigate the site with a partner on laptops or in a lab, making a list of things that changed for the people at home in Britain during the war. Have them orally share "surprises" they discovered about the experience or write a "blog entry" from the point of view of a Brit during the war.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Way Back: Stand Up For Your Rights - WGBH for PBS
Grades
4 to 8tag(s): civil rights (203), women (147)
In the Classroom
Students will enjoy competition from the interactive games when presented on the whiteboard. This site is a great starting place for reports or in-class investigations on the featured civil rights leaders. Start a "What's Right is Rights" wiki for students to share their new knowledge and connect it to their study of the Constitution.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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September 11, 2001 Documentary Project - Library of Congress
Grades
7 to 12In the Classroom
This site would be most useful to students doing research on the 9/11 attacks, but also could provide teachers with supplemental material for a lesson on the events of that date. Although teachers will remember the day vividly, most students were either not born yet, or young enough when it occurred that their memories will be clouded. Another use for this site is as an example of the power and necessity of primary sources in documenting any event. Compare these resources to accounts we have of Pearl Harbor and other major events as you ask students to conduct an interviewing project of their own, perhaps of local history. As an introduction and for students to get a feeling for the drama of the event you may want to use the video posted with live footage of an ABC broadcast as the events of 9/11 were unfolding. You can access the Encyclopdeia Britanica's version of the video on YouTube here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Alphabet Organizer - Read Write Think (Iron Monkey Interactive)
Grades
K to 12tag(s): alphabet (53), vocabulary (238)
In the Classroom
Think outside the 'box' when considering this application. Teachers may opt to teach the elements of the story through entering character traits, setting, plot events, etc., then printing a chart to teach those concepts. Special Ed or ESL/ELL teachers and teachers will love using this organizer to help students organize new words they must learn. If students use a three-ring notebook, new words can be added over time. Mark this tool as a favorite on your classroom computer for students to access as needed.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Social Studies for Kids
Grades
1 to 8Note: an annoying audio ad plays when you first enter the site. Turn OFF your sound!
tag(s): holidays (187), maps (218), presidents (135), renaissance (38), timelines (55)
In the Classroom
Use the current events segment as weekly discussion starter or assignment in your social studies class. Share this link on your teacher web page for students to access outside of class. To really build a stronger sense of current events, start a class year-long current events "log" on a wiki and have a differnet student write a "week in review" each week throughout the year, based on the current events provided here or others he/she may know about. Reading teachers may also want to use the articles on this site to teach informational text reading skills on an interactive whiteboard. Reading levels are challenging for grades 1-3. Teachers will need to provide help by reading aloud or partnering readers.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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American Centuries - Memorial Hall Museum Online
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): colonial america (95), england (52), slavery (78)
In the Classroom
Browse the collection for images and descriptions of specific artifacts. Explore themes like Shay's Rebellion, the lives of African-Americans in early rural New England, or the Civil War era in New England. Interactive activities allow you to look at Early American tools, examine artifacts using a 360 degree view or see what clothing was worn (down to the underwear!) by people of the time. If you plan to share objects as part of a lesson "collect" them in a personal collection so you can pull them up easily. Challenge secondary students to use the activity labeled "Create a chronology" to group artifacts from the collections to illustrate a concept, such as slavery, clothing, or background of an author, artist, or historical event. With younger students, use one or more of the activities on an interactive whiteboard or projector or design a simple scavenger hunt within YOUR collection of objects for students to find out about colonial life and times. If you turn them loose on the entire site, you will never get them back.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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World News - WN Network
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): news (229)
In the Classroom
Share this site with your school's foreign language teachers. Have students do comparisons between English and foreign language versions of the news. If you teach writing, you can find controversial topics as writing prompts for persuasive writing among the articles, as well, and have students find facts to support their positions. Make this site available from your teacher web page for current events assignments. Reading teachers will want to use the articles on an interactive whiteboard to teach main idea and summarizing: highlight key words to use in a main idea or summary sentence you write together below the article.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Hyper History Online - The World History Project
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): biographies (94), politics (118)
In the Classroom
Use this site for context regarding what was going on all over the world at any given time, especially as you launch class discussion of a new topic or time period. Help students see relationships between what they know and what else was occurring at the same time. Use it to pose questions about how events and people may be related, as well. This site will work very well on a projector or interactive whiteboard.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Essay Exchange Unit - George Cassutto
Grades
9 to 12While this site does give a template of lessons for students to follow as a guide, teachers have a wide range of flexibility with it. Topics can be about anything of your choosing; the length of time given to the lesson and the type and amount of feedback is controlled. While this project started within the subject of Social Studies, this unit can be used in conjunction with any subject.
tag(s): writing (324)
In the Classroom
Teachers can adapt the assignment to use other genres of expression to evaluate student performance. All subject area teachers can integrate the procedures listed to develop on-line projects for their students. The ideal places to post papers for feedback and final publication would be on a blog (for comments) or wiki (for collaborative editing and additions).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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U.S. Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud - Chirag Mehta
Grades
9 to 12tag(s): debate (42), elections (82), politics (118), speech (68), speeches (23)
In the Classroom
Share the tag cloud on a projector-- or ideally interactive whiteboard-- as you ask students to hypothesize about the words that appear at key times: the start of a war, after Sept 11, etc. Then include the link on your teacher web page so you can assign them (in or out of class) to write an essay or prepare a visual presentation explaining why certain terms were vital in the political and policy landscape of the times. Using primary sources from the Library of Congress American Memory Collection, students can create multimedia (PowerPoint or video) shows "portraying" a year, decade, or era and the importance of its tagged words (Word art would make a great way to show the words on screen).With the 2008 presidential election quickly approaching, have students analyze presidential speeches and create their own Speech Tag Clouds about the message. Or have students create a "mock" candidate and then design a "tag cloud" about the candidate.
Note that this tag cloud site DOES identify its sources-- something you want to be sure to highlight to your students. Then ask if students think the choice of sources is the best possible--should it include others?
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Paper Toys - PaperToys.com
Grades
3 to 10tag(s): architecture (76), paper folding (3)
In the Classroom
The paper folding activities would work well with cooperative learning groups. For example, during a unit on architecture or structures, have each group recreate a different monument or architectural design. Then teach about the various concepts of architecture by using the groups' models. Ask gifted/talented students to analyze how the paper fold-ups work then design a model of your school. Some of the options are purely entertainment oriented. You may want to print the paper patterns yourself instead of sending students to the site.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Radio Days: A Webquest - Tori Kenel
Grades
6 to 10tag(s): 1930s (20), 1940s (14), decades (7), radio (20), writing (324)
In the Classroom
Although this was written for 6-8th graders, it is a lesson easily adaptable to older students. The list of resources is very good, and the kinds of embellishments you can make on the tasks are limitless. It is a great project for students to work on in small groups, allowing students of all abilities an opportunity for success.If you ever considered podcasting, this webquest is the perfect lead-in. Your social studies(or language arts) students will love actually producing their scripts for "broadcast" on the web. Bring the 1930s to life in your classroom!
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Mayflower History - Caleb Johnson
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): genealogy (8), pilgrims (12), primary sources (117), thanksgiving (24)
In the Classroom
Only a visit to a far away museum could get any better than having the full-text primary sources which are available with a click on the left menu. Enhance student learning and bring the Mayflower experience to life with Fakebook, reviewed here. Have students set up fictitious Fakebook page and become one of the voyagers. Perhaps students could adopt a Mayflower 'ancestor' and write how they are alike or unlike by setting up two Fakebook pages. Around Thanksgiving, teachers may want to try some of the original recipes for an authentic Mayflower 'flavor' to their lesson plans.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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