|
|
Teacher
Resources
Social Studies
Current Events Resources
Current Event Resources for Teachers
Resources
Special Education Resources
Texas Resources
Lesson Plans & Activities
Resources & Lesson Plans
Games
Current Events Resources
ABCNEWS4KIDS.com: If you have difficulty getting your upper elementary or middle school students interested in current events, introduce them to this site. Each news article has an interactive, animated presentation. New stories are posted every Tuesday and Thursday. Very educational and engaging! (3-8)
CNNfyi: News for students and resources for teachers. This site provides lesson-related news and information. (3+)
Teen Newsweek: A Newsweek site just for teens in grades 6-9 with current news articles and a variety of special features. Students are encouraged to participate in the news debate by emailing their essays to Teen Newsweek.
USA TODAY for Educators: Featuring lesson plans, this site offers daily, interactive activities using compelling news stories from the USA Today's newspaper. (9-12)
PencilNews - News for Kids: MSNBC's website offers these news stories written for kids. (Based on current events) (3-8)
back to top
Current Event Resources for Teachers
Teacher Connections: Each school day the New York Times provides a lesson plan based on the day's news. Other features of this site include a schedule to help you integrate the newspaper into your curriculum, an archive full of the Daily lesson plans, lesson plan units, and a web explorer. (3-12)
HeadlineSpot.com: A free, educational guide to the best U.S and International news resources organized by topic, media type and location. (2-12)
Newspaper Links: The ultimate "newspaper portal," a comprehensive gateway to U.S. daily and weekly newspapers on the Web. Newspapers are leading providers of local information online, including news, classifieds, arts and entertainment guides, community information, sports, and much more. If you need information about a local community in the United States, this is the place to start. (1-12)
Why Teach Current Events?: An article about how teachers are recognizing the usefulness and importance of "using the news" -- and of developing students who have good newsreading skills and an awareness of current events. (1-12)
Twenty-Five Great Ideas for Teaching Current Events: Education World offers 25 activities intended to help teachers make use of newspapers and to help students make sense of the news. Also includes a list of additional activities and Internet resources. (2-12)
back to top
Resources
Xpeditions at National Geographic: The home of geography standards on the Internet, this unprecedented array of resources makes teaching and learning about our world easier than ever before. (K-12)
Blue Ribbon Links: National Geographic offers a list of links that were selected as the best destinations online for teaching and learning Geography. Sites were chosen by a team of educators based on the quality and depth of their geographic information, usefulness to teachers, and overall ease of navigation. List is updated twice a year. (K-12)
Outline Maps: Downloadable and printable outline maps. A tremendous resource for those hard-to-find maps for projects. (1-9)
Mr. President: A brief synopsis about each American President. (K-12)
The American Presidency: An exclusive history of presidents, the presidency, politics and related subjects. (2-12)
Who is Your Favorite President?: Created by 5th graders, this site provides brief biographies of all the Presidents, Presidential firsts and quotes, White House information, activities, and students can vote for their favorite President. (4-6)
The Hall of Forgotten Presidents: This website is devoted to Presidents Arthur, Tyler, and Polk. These three presidents have received little or no recognition and their achievements are barely remembered. Each page provides a picture and background information. (6-9)
50 States: Links to information about all of the 50 states. Also contains states and state capitals maps. (K-12)
United States Website Directory: Pick a state on the map to access any of the fifty official state websites. (1-12)
Constitution for the United States: This site contains an on-line copy of the U.S. Constitution. (K-12)
Core Documents of US Democracy: An electronic depository collection that provides direct online access to essential current and historical government documents. Includes Bill of Rights, Emancipation Proclamation, and U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates. (3-12)
Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids: Created by the Government Printing Office, this site teaches children about how the government works. It covers the U.S. Constitution, how laws are made, the branches of government, and citizenship, and also includes games, activities, and links to government sites. (Separate sections are geared for K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12.)
Teen Gov: Designed to teach teenagers about the branches of government and how they work together, TeenGOV gives teenagers an understanding of how they can be involved in the workings of government. (6-12)
Votelink: A voting site for secondary students allowing them to vote on a variety of current event issues. (Due to constantly changing current event issues, teachers should preview this site for appropriateness before letting students access it.) (8-12)
STAWRS Kids Home Page: This interactive website takes information about taxes and money and makes it very accessible to younger kids. Here they will learn about the tax process, what the government does with the money and what it takes to start a business. (3-9)
CongressLink: A site committed to exploring new ways to learn about Congress, how it works, its Constitutional underpinnings, its leaders and members, and the public policies it produces. (7-12)
America's Story: Brought to you by the Library of Congress, this site was designed for young children but is good for all grades. The idea is to have fun with history while learning. Included are stories and information that aren't usually taught in the classroom. (1-12)
Archiving Early America: A wealth of informative, instructive and entertaining resources. The main focus is primary source material from 18th Century America-all displayed digitally. A unique array of original newspapers, maps and writings come to life on your screen just as they appeared to our forebears more than 200 years ago. (K-12)
Canku Ota: An e-zine for youth that celebrates Native America, its traditions and cultures. Includes archives, coloring book, activities, and guest writers. (PK+)
Native Americans: This site, specifically designed for young students, contains a collection of information on four Native American groups: the Cheyenne, the Navajo, the Kwakiutl, and the Inuit. (3-4)
Pioneers: 4th and 5th grade students in Texas share information and activities on Pioneers in this ThinkQuest Junior project. (3-6)
American Memory: A gateway to rich primary source materials (on-line collections, photos, sound recordings, maps and motions pictures, etc.) that portray the people and events that have made our nation what it is today. More than 5 million items from more than 90 historical collections. (K-12)
American Cultural History: When you need to do a report on an entire decade, here is a good place to start. Each decade's page (1920's to 1970's ) is full of quick facts, information and links to other web pages. (K-12)
Liberty! The American Revolution: Official online companion to the PBS series that features a potpourri of interactive information on the war, timelines, a revolutionary game, and video clips from the series. (5-8)
The Civil War for Kids: Created by a class of 5th grade students, this site provides information about the Civil War. Read the timeline and learn about the leaders of the North and South. Find out about the battles, flags and uniforms of the Civil War. (3-6)
World War I: Comprehensive coverage of World War I with a wide range of primary content. The Special Features section is not to be missed with theme-based tours and other user contributed articles. (5+)
Atlapedia: Atlapedia Online contains profiles of every country of the world, organized alphabetically. Information includes facts and data on geography, climate, people, religion, language, history and economy. (K-12)
WorldFactBook2000: Country profiles which are fairly brief and include: geography, people, government, economy and more; also has maps. (1-12)
Countries of the World: Click on any country from the extensive list to see a map, information about the government and economy, the people and even the national anthem of that country. (K-12)
AFRO-Americ@: Kid's Zone by Afro America has lots of fun stories, myths and fables, as well as games, brain teasers and facts about Africa. (K-6)
Mexico's History and Tradition: An outline of Mexican history is provided here and is broken down into time periods. Embedded in the outline are links to further investigate the history of this country. Also includes facts and resources about Mexico's culture. (6-9+)
World Weather: Click on any country from the list to see the current weather conditions at that location. (K-12)
Flags of the World: A list of world countries with links to their flags. (K-12)
Biographical Dictionary: This searchable database contains more than 28,000 biographies of major figures from world history. Although results produce only the basic facts about each personality, the information is helpful for beginning research or for corroborating facts found in other sources. (K-12)
Lives: A biography site featuring an alphabetical list of thousands of web sites including biographies, autobiographies, journal, letters, and more. This site does not include biographies of living people. (K-12)
This Day in History: This History Channel site tells what happened this date in history. Can be searched for key terms, years or events. Good for a daily class starter. (K-12)
EyeWitness: Short essays on important historical events from the perspective of people who were actually there. This site covers events from 64 A.D. to the 1970's and includes photographs, pictures, sound files, additional resources, and bibliographic citations. (K-12)
History and Politics Out Loud: A collection of invaluable audio materials capturing significant political and historical events and personalities of the twentieth century. (1-12)
History Net: "Where history lives on the web" - An expansive site with categorized history articles, weekly features, thumbnailed picture gallery, discussion board, and special events and exhibits. Full of comprehensive information on national and international history. (9-12)
The WWW-VL History Index: A very large, but very easy to use collection of links to web resources. First click on a geographic area, then click on a time period. This is a great place to start if you are looking for information about the history of countries other than the United States. (K-12)
History's Happening!: This site is geared for middle school students and is divided into sub-topics that include: Ancient History, Medieval History, Modern History, United States History, and Teacher Stuff. Each main topic is further divided by time periods. (7-9)
The Middle Ages: Comprehensive view of all aspects of life in the Middle Ages. Provides a solid, fascinating look at medieval life, including religion, the feudal system, daily living, women's roles, and housing. (6+)
History/Social Studies for K-12 Teachers: The major purpose of this site is to encourage the use of the World Wide Web as a tool for learning and teaching and to provide some help for K-12 classroom teachers in locating and using the resources of the Internet in the classroom. Very thorough site!
A to Z History: Explore history, ancient, US, and world with this history dictionary. (K-12)
A to Z Geography: Find information about regions, countries and cities around the world in A - Z Geography. (K-12)
The Great Idea Finder: This site provides a showcase for new ideas and inventions, profiles of inventors, invention facts and trivia, and resources for the inventor. Anyone interested in inventions and inventors will find a wealth of information here. (3-12)
Discovery School's Social Studies for Students: Social Studies information geared toward students. (K-12)
Social Studies Resources: This site is run by a professional Guide that has been a Secondary teacher. Resources include: Ask an expert services for Social Studies teachers, biographies about important historical figures, daily warm ups, lesson plans, history and economics resources, and more. (K-12)
back to top
Special Education Resources
Teaching Geography to Special Needs students: An article listing methods, sites and resources that can assist teachers with special needs students learning geography in their classroom. (K-12)
back to top
Texas Resources
Texas State Symbols: Information links on practically everything to know about Texas. (K-12)
The Handbook of Texas Online: A multidisciplinary encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and culture. It comprises more than 23,000 articles on people, places, events, historical themes, and a host of other topic categories. The scope is broad and inclusive, designed to provide readers with concise, authoritative, and accessible articles that provide factual, nonpartisan accounts on virtually every aspect of Texas history and culture. (K-12)
Texas Lone Star Junction: This site provides information on important events, people and documents in Texas history in addition to a genealogy database and links to other Texas-related sites. (K-12)
Texas History: From the Fort Worth flood of '49 to veterans' personal war stories, Virtual Texan can fill you in on how Texas got where it is today. (K-12)
Texas Culture: Virtual Texas brings you this site about everything that makes Texas what it is, from rodeo to the writings of Larry McMurtry. (K-12)
Documents of Early Texas: The most referenced of early Texas documents. They include the Texas Declaration of Independence and the Texas Ordinance of Succession. (K-12)
Texas Constitutions Digitalized: A presentation of twelve historic constitutions of Texas spanning 1824-1836. Users can read the digitized text, search it using Boolean logic, or view the original pages. (K-12)
The Lone Star Dilemma: A webquest where students research the history of Texas by exploring several websites and organizing information onto a variety of on-line formats. (3-6)
back to top
Lesson Plans & Activities
NARA Primary Sources and Activities for the Classroom: The National Archives and Records Administration offers this collection of reproducible facsimiles of important events in our nation's history, related to slavery, woman suffrage, constitutional issues, and much more, which come alive through primary-source documents provided for student use. Lessons are aligned with the national standards for social studies. (K-12)
Xpeditions Lesson Plans: Numerous Geography lesson plans correlated to the national standards are provided by National Geographic's Xpeditions site. (K-12)
Xpeditions Activities: National Geographic offers young and old Xpeditioners the opportunity to use geography to complete a variety of missions. Xpeditioners are encouraged to use the "X-tras"-maps, games, stories, Web sites, and interactive features. All activities are based on the national geography standards. (K-12)
Teacher's Guide for the Professional Cartoonist Index: Lesson plans using constantly updated newspaper editorial cartoons as a teaching tool in Social Studies from elementary through high school. This site includes current cartoons from 24 editorial cartoonists. (K-12)
back to top
Resources & Lesson Plans
National Geographic for Educators: A searchable database and links to over 100 online educational adventures, maps and geography, lesson plans, software programs and each of the National Geographic magazines. (K-12)
Social Science: Encarta offers these resources, articles and lesson plans on Social Science. (K-12)
ProTeacher Social Studies: Pick from specific Social Studies subcategories to access a list of K-6 Social Studies lesson plans, ideas and resources.
Geography: Encarta offers these resources, articles and lesson plans on Geography. (K-12)
Odyssey Online: An interactive research source providing extensive and in depth information on four ancient civilizations: Egypt, the Near East, Greece and Rome. Target audiences are K-12 educators and, more specifically, their 6th grade students. This site is not intended to be a stand-alone learning application, but instead a class-based project and research resource.
United Nations CyberSchoolBus: The United Nations CyberSchoolBus brings global information and global expertise straight to your school and classroom. Project-packed, fun-filled, loaded with lessons and interactive activities, the CyberSchoolBus offers teachers and students an educational site with a global perspective. (2-12)
SS Resources and Lessons by Grade Level: This resource was designed by classroom teachers to provide teachers and students access to a variety of Social Studies resources on the World Wide Web to enrich their classrooms. (K-12)
Mr. Donn's Ancient History: This website has incredible amounts of activities, lesson plans, games, maps, and photos on just about everything dealing with K-12 social studies. Great site!
Daily Life in Ancient Civilizations: Students often get lost when they study Ancient Civilizations because it is hard for them to relate to the time period. At this site, the focus is on Daily Life in Ancient Civilizations: Ancient China, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Ancient India, and the Ancient North West Coast US Indians. (2-8)
SS worksheet Generator: Choose from a long list of teacher-created Social Studies worksheets. (K-12)
back to top
Games
Social Science Challenge: Encarta offers this jeopardy-style, online game about social science based on articles and current events. (7-12)
FunBrain.com - Where is That?: An interactive game in which students can test their geography skills. The game includes all sections of the world and different levels of complication. (There is also a two-player option) (4-12)
Xpedition Hall: A virtual museum filled with interactive exhibits designed to provoke reflection on how human beings shape and are shaped by the world in which we live. Built around the National Geographic standards, the hall contains one exhibit for each standard. (1-12)
Geography Challenge: Encarta offers this jeopardy-style online game about Geography based on articles and current events. (7-12)
iKnowthat.com Geography: Students can explore the world by filling in puzzle maps, using clues to pick puzzle pieces, and labeling places on maps with iKnowthat's state-of-the-art graphics, animation and sound delivering enriching educational web-based activities. (PK-6)
Geography: Interactive quizzes let you test your knowledge of the lands around the world. (3-8)
Funbrain.com - Who is That?: This game asks visitors to identify famous individuals in two categories (United States Presidents or Famous Scientists and Mathematicians) using pictures and historical clues. A great review for students! (7-12)
FunBrain.com - Double Fun Match Memory Game: A memory game for older students. Categories include: Periodic Table, European Flags (match European countries with their flags), Clocks & Time, and Fractions and Decimals. (3-10)
The Headbone Derby - Iz and Auggie Go To The Polls: With this on-line investigation game, students (grades 4-8) will learn the fundamentals of Internet research and apply their knowledge of key aspects of American government. Designed around National Content Standards for social studies, this game provides a Teacher's Guide including suggestions for use with each grade level and a host of age-appropriate classroom extensions and related off-line activities.
History Mystery: Improve students' research skills while they learn about history by playing one of these 30 History Mystery games. Topics range from Ancient History to Inventions to Government. Students can use online and offline reference sources to solve the mystery. Teacher's guide is included. (4-8)
Educational Web Adventures - History and Geography: Educational games, simulations, and learning modules designed to bring out the excitement of History. (Grades 4 and up)
back to top
For more information please contact
Stacy Avery Project Director, Project E-Teach, Education Service Center, Region XIII.
For technical support please contact Shaunda Guthrie Technical Program Assistant, Project E-Teach, Education Service Center, Region XIII.
|
home |
