TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Mar 31, 2019
Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive
Ford's Theatre Abraham Lincoln Teaching Resources - Ford's Theatre
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Use the materials found on this site to supplement your lessons on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Find additional Lincoln and Civil War materials at Actively Learn, reviewed here. Lessons on Actively Learn include embedded questions correlated to Common Core Standards for developing reading and comprehension skills. Organize your entire Lincoln unit and share materials (including videos with embedded questions) with students using Canvas Free LMS, reviewed here. Create an entire learning path with all of your materials using Symbaloo Learning Paths, reviewed here. Symbaloo Learning Paths includes options for embedding videos, texts, quizzes, and more. In addition, Symbaloo Learning Paths allows the creator to create optional paths for participants to follow allowing for differentiation of activities. Modify older students learning by having them create their own Learning Path as an alternative to a research project to share information they learned and create quizzes for fellow students.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
Use the form at the top of the page to log in, or click here to join TeachersFirst (it's free!).
Lincoln's Assassination - Ford's Theatre
Grades
5 to 12In the Classroom
Include this website with your Civil War unit, President's Day, or Abraham Lincoln lessons. Instead of gathering information from textbooks to learn about Lincoln's death, ask students to be the investigators and gather and analyze facts on their own. Begin by sharing the questions found on this site using Padlet, reviewed here. Create a column for each question in your Padlet, then have students add evidence found on this site and others to support their answer. To enhance learning and help students organize their thinking, use a timeline creator from ReadWriteThink, reviewed here, to understand the order of events. Transform student learning as a final activity, by asking students to share their findings including evidence in an explainer video created with Typito, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
Use the form at the top of the page to log in, or click here to join TeachersFirst (it's free!).
Civil Rights Timeline - NewseumED
Grades
8 to 12In the Classroom
Civil Rights is about more than a movement that took place forty plus years ago. Americans have fought for their civil rights going back to the late 1700s. We are still fighting for them today. Review the timeline with a projector and the whole class. Extend student learning by suggesting to students that some of the articles have parallel situations going on today. Have them choose an article and research the situation from back in the 1960s and then compare it to a similar situation that is ongoing in the 21st century. Challenge students to redefine their technology learning by presenting their findings to classmates with an interactive, multimedia infographic or interactive poster using Canva Infographic Maker, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
Use the form at the top of the page to log in, or click here to join TeachersFirst (it's free!).
Classroom Materials - Primary Source Sets - Library of Congress
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
When introducing a new unit, show students photos from the era (on the left menu) and have them describe what they see and what period they think it is. Find plenty of questions and activities (including a blank analysis organizer for students) in the Teacher's Guides. Also look at Library of Congress: for Teachers, reviewed here. Encourage your students to use this tool for projects. Challenge students to find a photo (legally permitted for reproduction), and then narrate the photo as if it is a news report. Have students create a multimedia presentation using Google Slides, reviewed here. Google Slides allows you to narrate a picture (choose Insert from the top menu, then audio) modifying student learning. Include this site on your class webpage for students and parents to access as a reference.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
Use the form at the top of the page to log in, or click here to join TeachersFirst (it's free!).
History on the Net - Heather Wheeler
Grades
7 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use this site as an anticipatory set or "activator" to introduce a unit or lesson on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Make a shortcut to this site on classroom computers and use it as a center. Use this site as the starting point for individual or group projects. This site is a perfect addition to use with President's Day activities, when learning about the Olympics, or as part of a Black History Month lesson. Be sure to include this site on your class web page for students to access both in and outside of class. Enhance students' learning by having them use Fakebook, reviewed here, to create a "fake" page similar in style to Facebook about a president, a passenger on the Titanic, a famous scientist, or another person learned about on this site. Have students modify their learning by creating an interactive, multimedia infographic sharing their findings using Venngage, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
Use the form at the top of the page to log in, or click here to join TeachersFirst (it's free!).
Ultimate Titanic - UltimateTitanic.com
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use this site as a resource for information and ideas for teaching the Titanic as part of an early 20th century history lesson or as enrichment when reading any novel about the Titanic. Use the materials available here to talk about the difference between primary and secondary sources. Use the site's timeline as a starting point and then redefine learning by challenging students create their own multimedia Titanic timeline (with music, photos, videos, and more) using Timeline JS, reviewed here. Create a newspaper using a site such as Printing Press, reviewed here, extending learning and telling the details of events of the Titanic.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
Use the form at the top of the page to log in, or click here to join TeachersFirst (it's free!).
CurriConnects Book List: Civil War and Slavery - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
As you study the Civil War and slavery, let students select books from this collection of fiction and historical fiction. As we honor and move beyond the 150th anniversary of many Civil War events, what better way for students to make a more personal connection to the people who lived during those tumultuous times.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
Use the form at the top of the page to log in, or click here to join TeachersFirst (it's free!).
A Class Divided - Frontline/PBS-WGBH Educational Foundation
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Help your students understand why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and raise their awareness of discrimination and the struggle for civil rights by involving them in active viewing of A Class Divided projected on your classroom interactive whiteboard or projector. You can view the film in its entirety, or in separate chapters followed by the Discussion Questions. You may want to give students a specific task to do during the film. For example, you might ask them to listen for a particular issue or the answers to a set of questions, or take notes in preparation for one of the post-viewing activities. As a way to accomplish this and enhance learning in your classroom use playposit, reviewed here. Replay the video or pause for discussion whenever you choose with playposit for focused, in depth exploration. Depending on your students' background knowledge and grade level, you may want to review or introduce some of the basic tenets of the United States Constitution that provide the legal grounding for equality and protection of individual rights. Explain that there are examples in American history when individuals' rights were denied and that many civil rights activists were arrested for either challenging, demonstrating, or breaking rules that they thought were unfair. Pose some of the questions for written assignments and discussion. This is a perfect lesson for Black History Month! Divide the class into groups to brainstorm situations that exist today within our own communities, and how they would feel and deal with it if they were the subjects. Students can easily create mind maps, replacing paper and pen, by using free tools from Teachersfirst, such as TUZZit, reviewed here. Have students choose words from songs to explore themes of freedom and equality, using Stories Behind the Songs, reviewed here. High school students could extend this to a reading and study of the final chapter of "One America in the 21st Century," the 1998 report of President Bill Clinton's Initiative on Race, which lists 10 things that every American should do to promote racial reconciliation. Ask students to add anything they think is missing and make a commitment to continue the crusade to end discrimination.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
Use the form at the top of the page to log in, or click here to join TeachersFirst (it's free!).
Citizen King - PBS Online
Grades
8 to 12In the Classroom
Share the interactive videos clips and timelines on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Extend learning by using a tool such as playposit, reviewed here, where you can insert questions for students to discuss. Use this site for research about the civil rights movement or the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Then show your students how to embed media transforming their work into a multimedia presentation with a tool like Marq (was Lucidpress), reviewed here, or Canva, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
Use the form at the top of the page to log in, or click here to join TeachersFirst (it's free!).
Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
Close comment form