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Thomas Edison's Inventive Life - Smithsonian
Grades
3 to 8tag(s): inventors and inventions (80)
In the Classroom
Share this site at the beginning of a unit on inventors and inventions using your whiteboard or projector. Create a Padlet, reviewed here, with columns for students to list and describe Edison's inventions. Enhance learning by asking small groups of students students to look through the tag Legendary inventors to find another inventor to read about and research. Then challenge the groups to choose one of the following tools to create a presentation about what they learned to share with their peers: a multimedia presentation using Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, reviewed here, a video using Typito, reviewed here, a podcast using Buzzsprout, reviewed here, or a blog post using Edublog, reviewed here.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Google Maps - Google
Grades
1 to 12tag(s): DAT device agnostic tool (147), directions (11), maps (220)
In the Classroom
If you teach geography, this one's a must. It is also helpful for showing students WHERE a story or news event takes place. In lower grades, use it to show students basics of their community. Teach map skills by showing students their own community. Zoom in on their street or on the school. This site and its more sophisticated cousin, Google Earth, are great on an interactive whiteboard. Set up a class Google account (or use student accounts if permitted). Have students create their own custom route plans to tour historic sites. Challenge math students to plan the most economical route to visit several vacation destinations, including gas mileage and gas prices. Have students create placemarker files of the important places in the life of a famous person or the route traveled by a particular unit during the Civil War. Have student groups create placemarker files to show environmental sites, habitats, landforms, or anything you can place on a map. Embed projects in a class wiki using the handy embed code offered as a sharing option. Not comfortable with wikis? Check out TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Distant Cousins - EDSITEment
Grades
3 to 5tag(s): colonial america (95), massachusetts (8)
In the Classroom
Take advantage of the free lesson plan offered by EDSITEment! This would be a great lesson for an American HIstory course - there are even options to extend the lesson.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The First Amendment: What's Fair in a Free Country? - National Endowment for the Humanities
Grades
3 to 6tag(s): bill of rights (31), freedom of speech (14), speech (68)
In the Classroom
Take advantage of this free lesson plan about the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights! To help ELL students, consider using a guided reading activity and vocabulary tools found at Read Ahead, reviewed here, share the vocabulary with them beforehand, OR make and print out easy to understand definitions of words that these students may have trouble with. Be sure to save this site as a favorite to allow for easy retrieval later on.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Memorial Day Activities - David Merchant
Grades
3 to 10tag(s): holidays (187), memorial day (11), puzzles (149)
In the Classroom
Take advantage of the free lesson plans and activities on this site! There are also some practice quizzes and puzzles that would be fun ways to assess students, or have them use the tools to help review the content.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Civil War Lesson Plans: Elementary - American Battlefield Trust
Grades
3 to 7tag(s): civil war (139), Juneteenth (22), lincoln (66), slavery (78), states (124)
In the Classroom
Take advantage of the free lesson plan ideas and activities in this site. There are printables and PowerPoints to download. Refer to this site if ever looking for activity ideas in a Civil War unit.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Place the State - Sheppard Software
Grades
4 to 8tag(s): map skills (63), maps (220), states (124)
In the Classroom
What a great way to have students know American geography better than physically moving the states in their places? Introduce this site on the interactive whiteboard before allowing cooperative learning groups to complete the activity on classroom computers. Have a class challenge as students try and compete to see which group can get the lowest average error mileage. This would be a great refresher before a US history class (particularly before a unit on the Civil War where state geography is important) or during a Geography class first learning the basics!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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American Indian FAQs for Kids
Grades
4 to 7tag(s): cultures (180), native americans (111)
In the Classroom
There is so much information on this site that you may want to design a simple scavenger hunt using Goosechase.edu, reviewed hereor a Jigsaw activity, reviewed here around the site on a weekly basis to cover all or most of the questions. Another alternative would be to create a reading guide for every 5 o10 questions using Read Ahead, reviewed here. Or, use this site as a reference for student research. This is a very easy-to-navigate Q & A format.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Apollo 11 - NASA
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): moon (72)
In the Classroom
Use the video clips over the interactive whiteboard to supplement the text in discussing the Apollo missions. The clip of the first landing would be a great way to introduce the topic, putting all students at the same level of understanding before beginning a lecture or class discussion. Great resource for a US history classroom!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Separate is Not Equal - National Museum of American History
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): africa (147), african american (112), segregation (18)
In the Classroom
Access the section on the homesite entitled "resources." On that page there is a section entitled "Teacher Guide," which has an abundance of free lesson plans that range topics of segregation, racism, and the civil rights movement. Take advantage of the guides and use them to address the more difficult subjects of race in recent American History.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Civil War Through a Child's Eye - Library of Congress
Grades
4 to 8tag(s): civil war (139)
In the Classroom
Take advantage of this free lesson plan offered by the Library of Congress. The lesson plan has a nice interdisciplinary twist, so it could be utilized in either an English or History class.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Our Story in History - National Museum of American History
Grades
2 to 8tag(s): immigration (68), native americans (111), underground railroad (15), women (149), world war 2 (161)
In the Classroom
Save this site as a favorite and use it as a learning center or station during a US history class! Engage student learning by asking them to keep a blog about what they are learning. If you are teaching younger students and looking for an easy way to integrate technology and check for understanding, challenge your students to create a blog using Seesaw, reviewed here. Have older students create blogs sharing their learning and understanding using Telegra.ph, reviewed here. With Telegra.ph you just click on an icon to upload images from your computer, add a YouTube or Vimeo, or X (formerly Twitter) links. This blog creator requires no registration.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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White House Historical Association
Grades
1 to 12tag(s): 1800s (75), 1900s (72), presidents (135), virtual field trips (123), white house (16)
In the Classroom
Use this site to provide background information for a unit on 19th and 20th century American history, to form the basis of a lesson or unit on the American presidency, or as a stand-alone enrichment activity for your history classroom. Lesson plans in printable PDF formats are available for all grade levelsAdd your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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March Into Spring - Education World
Grades
1 to 6In the Classroom
Save this site as a favorite on your classroom computer to allow for easy retrieval of information. This is a really helpful resource for any elementary school teacher.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Gullah Net - South Carolina ETV
Grades
4 to 8tag(s): africa (147), african american (112), black history (133), georgia (3)
In the Classroom
Use the stories and materials on this site as a writing prompt. Open the site and introduce it on the interactive whiteboard or projector before allowing students to explore it individually. Allow students to listen to the stories in groups or individually on classroom computers. Once students have explored the Gullah Tales, have them create their own stories on the website. The stories students can create on the site have pre-determined story titles and themes, making them more appropriate for lower-level readers. However, if there are a lot of advanced students in your class, use a tool such as Bookemon, reviewed here. This allows them to be a little more creative and put more work into designing their books. An interesting site for English class!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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America on the Move - Smithsonian Institution
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): air (102), railroads (14), transportation (31)
In the Classroom
Take advantage of the free lesson plans and activities hosted on this site! Most detail specific ways to use the site itself in a lesson & would compliment a unit based on transportation and the effect of technologies such as railroads and the automobile.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Railroad Pictures
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): railroads (14)
In the Classroom
Use the images from this site to supplement a lecture on transportation and the railroads. They are extremely detailed images and can be searched to find those that meet the time period being studied.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Washington State Pioneer Life - University of Washington
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site to search for primary sources during a unit on the Gold Rush that brought so many people to the Alaskan frontier. Primary sources could be used to teach both the content and historical thinking skills in your classroom. Divide students into 5-6 groups, with each group assigned a different primary source to read and evaluate. (Sources should come from various perspectives to make the game more interesting) Have the groups present quick summaries of their source to the class, making sure to mention who the author is and whether or not there could be bias. After all have presented, have each team pick a representative to argue in front of the class as to why their source is the most reliable and valid. After all have made their argument, have the class vote off the least reliable "survivor style" until you are left with just one!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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National Park Photographs - National Park Service
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): air (102), images (261), national parks (29), photography (123)
In the Classroom
Use this site to search for images of a particular region being studied in a Physical geography class. These images can be incorporated into lectures, projects, displays etc. Just research before-hand what parks are in the specific area, and search away!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Art of the Stamp - National Postal Museum
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): africa (147), african american (112)
In the Classroom
Use this site as a learning center or station during a lesson on the evolution of mail services in the US, and how services such as the pony express was affected by Westward expansion. Allow students to explore the site on classroom computers, using the stamp template as a formative assessment of their understanding. To make the stamp activity more content-based, have students design their stamps to reflect what they learned rather than allowing them to draw anything they can think of. History teachers will like this one!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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