306 history-culture-americas results | sort by:
return to subject listingDocs Teach - The National Archives
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
If you teach history or social studies, you know what a great emphasis is being placed on the use of primary documents in helping students develop an awareness of the perspectives of those who lived during a particular era. Use this site to develop sophisticated lessons using primary documents on US History with the activity builder. Use the ready-made activities (the majority of which are available once you've registered), on an interactive whiteboard or projector for the whole class or assign groups of students to work independently at a computer workstation or at home. These activities encourage higher order thinking among students rather than simply the memorization of facts.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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National Jukebox - Library of Congress
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Introduce a class novel, a unit in the 20th century, the Great Depression, or WWII by having the class listen to music from that time period. You can also couple this site with the Old Radio World site, reviewed here, to help students get an overview of what life and entertainment was like.Challenge students to create an interactive timeline of artists during a specific musical era. First, show them how to embed media transforming their findings and then challenge them to use a site such as Timeline JS, reviewed here. Timeline JS offers the option to upload and add photos, videos, audio, Tweets, and Google Maps making it interactive.
Have your students create an online "scrapbook" of a specific composer using Smilebox, (reviewed here.) Throw out the tests and have students demonstrate what they have learned by creating a scrapbook full of information!
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Lyrics Gaps - lyricsgaps.com
Grades
5 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
This is a wonderful find for ENL/ESL and world language teachers. Teachers may prefer to do a class registration and use the offerings of the site with the entire class. Challenge your students to create (and submit) their own songs/activities in a new language. If school policy does not allow students to share songs on a site, have students create their own in-class presentations of songs and similar exercises using one selection from this site as a model.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Keeping Score - San Francisco Symphony
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Allow students to explore specific composers on their own (or in cooperative learning groups). Have students make a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here. Some tool suggestions are (click on the tool name to access the review): Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, Animatron, Sway, and Microsoft PowerPoint Online.U.S. and world history teachers will love this site! (As well as music teachers) Use interactives to integrate music into history classes, math classes (for timing and fractions), and English classes (reading and writing about music). All teachers can check out the thematic links for their subject to music. Take advantage of the FREE lesson plans. Chances are good that you could incorporate music into every type of class. Simply check out the education link, and your imagination and educational wheels will start spinning!
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Sqworl - Caleb Brown
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
In the classroom use this site to combine url's of online class projects into one group. Create a group of resources for students or parents for different subjects and share the url through your classroom website or newsletter. Create a group with videos relating to classroom content. Create a classroom account and let students add resources they have found to groups to share with others. Show students how to follow other groups on Sqworl and share resources by creating their own groups. Share this site with others in your building or district as an easy way to save and share online resources.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Premium version (not free) includes additional features or storage
Products can be embedded
Products can be shared by URL
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Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon - Michael Shaughnessy & Jason Parkhill
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Language students can use these images to create online posters using a tool such as Poster Wizard (reviewed here or PicLits (reviewed here. Have students make a visual lexicon of new vocabulary words. Use interest in some of the pics here as a jumping off point for more cultural exploration. Talk about what items we would photograph in the U.S. that are culturally specific and rich in cultural meaning (for example, the Green Bay Packers stadium).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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ThatQuiz - ThatQuiz
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Assign quizzes to students to complete on classroom computers or in computer labs. Modify activities for different student levels. Create a teacher account and modify quizzes to meet your own needs. Challenge students to complete quizzes and then increase the difficulty level. Share this link on your classroom website for students to access (to practice skills) while both in and out of the classroom. Consider allowing students to create quizzes for each other using a class account during review times or in small groups. It is much more fun to "study" by creating a quiz!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Groundhog Day: (Punxsutawney) Phil Your Day With Fun - Education World
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
These FREE lesson plans are ready to go for you on Groundhog's Day. Connect your students with current events, science, research skill, math, and more using these fabulous lessons.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Regents Exam Prep Center - Oswego City School District Regents Exam Prep Center
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as a great review of information about various topics in the subject. This activity would work well for individual or pairs of students in a lab or on laptops. Make a shortcut to this site on classroom computers and use it as a center. Be sure to include this site on your class web page for students to access both in and outside of class for further practice.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Blog Divided - Dickinson College
Grades
7 to 12In the Classroom
While the site might be useful to students doing higher level research or working on a National History project, teachers are the principal audience. If this is a passion of yours, add it to your RSS feed or bookmark it and add to your own knowledge base on this important topic. Share relevant blog entries with your class on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Challenge cooperative learning groups to read one of the blogs and share the information with the class by creating online posters on paper using a tool such as Web Poster Wizard (reviewed here) or PicLits (reviewed here).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Kennedy Center Digital Resources - Formerly ArtsEdge - Kennedy Center
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Search this site for a topic that you are teaching in your class. Share the lesson on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Better yet, make the video or slideshow a learning station for students to watch in small groups. This site is so wonderful and HUGE, that after students are one with the resources you have for them, you may want to allow them to explore on independently or in small groups for a specific interest of theirs.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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A Colonial Tour from TeachersFirst - TeachersFirst
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Use this colonial tour as a starting point for a virtual experience of colonial America. Assign different student groups to each colonial location, and have them create an extended virtual "tour" using a tool such as Google Earth, reviewed here, or (simpler) MapHub, reviewed here. Then have the groups take each other's tours to "discover" the colonies! If you don't have enough time for an extended project, share aspects of the tour and supplement by sharing photos from Google Earth's Panoramio layer on your projector or interactive whiteboard.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Important Dates and Events in History - Hisdates.com
Grades
6 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use this site to display an interesting "this day in history" on your interactive whiteboard or projector each day. Use as a resource for students to research events during historical time periods being studied in class. Create a scavenger hunt to review dates in history - give students a list of events and have students find them on the calendar. For a more in=depth experience, share Teachers First's Dates that Matter, then have students create their own set of Dates That Matter style question prompts and provide a "Why Does it Matter" response for one of the events found here. Share their student-created Dates That Matter in PowerPoint slides or using an online presentation tool.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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A Teacher's Guide to Folklife Resources for K-12 Classrooms - Library of Congress
Grades
1 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as a resource in a research project, or a webquest. Be sure help your weaker readers and ESL students by sharing the vocabulary words prior to reading, either on a handout or by projecting on an interactive whiteboard and highlighting them in the text as you come to them.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Vistas - Dr. Dana Leibsohn and Dr. Barbara Mundy
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
You could share this site with your students on your interactive whiteboard or projector and at the same time create a timeline for the Spanish Americas using a tool such as Timeline Infographic Template, reviewed here. What a wonderful resource for higher level students during Hispanic Heritage Month!There are several themes listed on the site and each theme starts with a video that is less than five minutes. You might want to put small groups of students in charge of a theme, and have them explore the site for what their theme is all about (be sure to go over the titles in the Library with them). Enhance learning by having the small groups use a tool such as Mindmeister, reviewed here, to create and share concept maps of the important ideas about their theme. They may want to use the images from the site, too, so be sure to remind your students that they must cite their source, and give credit to the people who created this site when they create a project on line.
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Cool Earth - Mark Ellingham
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Introduce this site by sharing photos on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Then have students explore this site independently or in small groups. Include this site on a list of hotlinks for students to access when researching the Rainforest, climate change, sustainability, or carbon footprints. Save this site in your favorites on classroom computers for students to view rainforest maps, ask questions, or read magazine articles. Enhance learning by asking students to visit the site and create an interactive multimedia presentation from the information they learn there using Sway, reviewed here. Register your school with Cool Earth and take advantage of the free lesson plans and resources they offer. The ultimate experience would be to personalize student learning and sponsor a tree or organize a fundraiser to purchase an acre of land. Ask students to research their tree, or the biome biodiversity characteristic of their acre. Include a link to this site on your class web page for students to access both in and out of class.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Anne Frank House - The Anne Frank Stichting
Grades
5 to 12In the Classroom
Use your interactive whiteboard or projector to take your class on a virtual field trip to Amsterdam to visit the Secret Annex where they can realize what it was actually like for Anne Frank's family and four others to live inside a hidden space, with the constant fear of being discovered by the Nazis. Help the words in Anne's diary come alive by showing what the outside and inside of the building looked like, by viewing the painstaking ways that were taken to keep them safe, and by looking at the space where Anne ate, slept, and hung her pictures. Students will be more likely to relate to Anne as a real person, instead of a fictional character, and admire her optimism, courage, and resiliency. Use this to initiate journal entries for students to reflect on how they would handle two years of hiding and sharing a small space with others, as well as what they would do to remain positive, or use the online exhibit to shed some light on a dark period in history and to strengthen the personal account of the hiding period and the deportation to the camps. Assign class members to read about one of the house members or helpers to research, then have them write a diary (or blog entry) from that person's point of view. Assign teams to debate who was the most important member of the household or if this situation could take place in today's society. Not comfortable with wikis? Have no wiki worries - check out the TeachersFirst's Wiki Walk-Through.Have groups compare two people they learned about using a tool such as the Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram (reviewed here). Create a class wiki for students to share their journal articles and respond to others.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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A Family Farm Album: The Photographs of Frank Sadorus - Illinois State Museum
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
This site is a good site to use if you want to introduce more primary sources into your teaching. There is an extensive activities and resource section that covers the topics of photography, history, farming and genealogy. In addition, the PDF entitled the Turning Point would be a good resource to use in a lesson on narrative writing. Share the photos in art (or photography) class on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Have students create blog entries from the perspective of Frank Sadorus. Use the pictures for creative writing exercises. Why not have a photo of the week and have students write a short piece on the class wiki about what they feel the picture represents, what is happening in the photo, what the animal or person was doing/thinking in the photo, or whatever else is applicable in your class. Do you want to learn more about wikis? Check out the TeachersFirst's Wiki Walk-Through.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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National Hispanic Heritage Month Resources - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use the resources in the collection to supplement classroom material during a unit on Hispanic Heritage. The resources listed here can be used for webquests, learning centers, lesson plans & the like!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Native American Nations - Lisa Mitten
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as a resource for research papers and projects. Students can search for information about specific tribes or for information that the tribes themselves have put forward. This would be a great resource for a US history class.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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