History Discussion Prompts for All 50 States
This morning I discovered a new-to-me U.S. History resource created by C-SPAN Classroom. That resource is a collection of video clips and “bell ringers” for every state in the United States. Bell Ringers are short video clips that are accompanied by discussion questions to start a lesson. In looking at C-SPAN Classroom’s collection of state […]
A Virtual Tour of Washington With Dr. Jill Biden
Tomorrow at 1pm ET Discovery Education is hosting a free virtual field trip to Washington, D.C. for elementary school and middle school classrooms. The virtual field trip will take students to six landmarks in Washington, D.C. Along the way students will hear from Dr. Jill Biden, Yolanda King (granddaughter of Martin Luther King, Jr. ) […]
New Map-based History Lessons from DocsTeach
DocsTeach is one of my go-to resources for history teachers. I like it so much that I feature it in my Teaching History With Technology course. DocsTeach provides thousands of primary sources that teachers can use to build online and in-person history lessons for middle school and high school students. Additionally, DocsTeach hosts hundreds of pre-made […]
Three Good Resources for Teaching With Primary Sources
I’m currently developing a new version of my popular online course, Teaching History With Technology (you can see a preview last year’s course here). Part of that process has been revisiting collections of primary sources and some of the tools that I recommend for teaching lessons based on primary sources. Here are three of the many […]
Research Starters from the National WWII Museum
Last week at the end of one of my classes we were talking about how everyone was adjusting to wearing masks all day and social distancing in school. A couple of my students grumbled about it. That grumbling was met by a reply from another student who said, “Guys, it’s not that big a deal! […]
Good Sets of Primary Source Documents About the American Revolution and More
The Massachusetts Historical Society has a great website that hosts collections of primary sources related to the American Revolution, founding families of the United States, abolition, and the Civil War. Additionally, on the MHS site you’ll find recordings of webinars about many of the topics related to the collections of primary sources. Music of the […]
Newspaper Navigator – A New Search Tool from the Library of Congress
This week the Library of Congress launched a new search tool called Newspaper Navigator. Newspaper Navigator is an index of 1.5 million images published in newspapers between 1900 and 1963. You can search Newspaper Navigator by keyword and then narrow your results by date and or the U.S. state in which the newspaper was published. […]
Using DocsTeach to Create Online Lessons – Free Webinar Next Week
DocsTeach is a favorite resource of mine for U.S. History teachers and students. I used it and it’s predecessor fairly regularly when I was teaching U.S. History. DocsTeach provides an online space where you can create primary source based lessons for your students to complete online or offline. Last fall I published a detailed tutorial […]
Searching the National Register of Historic Places
This morning I went down an Internet rabbit hole of looking for lesser-known historic places in Maine. That process started because I was looking for some geocaching activities to do in a coastal community about 60 miles from where I live. Before I knew it I was on the National Register of Historic Places hosted […]
Explore the Library of Congress on Your iPad
The Library of Congress Collections app is a free iPad app that offers a nice way for students and teachers to explore collections of artifacts housed by the Library of Congress. The collections available through the app are also available directly on the LOC website. The benefit of viewing them in the app is ability to […]
C-SPAN Classroom Offers New Lessons on the Economic Impact of COVID-19
C-SPAN Classroom is a free resource that anyone who teaches U.S. History or civics should have bookmarked. I’ve written about many of their great resources and programs over the years including their annual student video contest and annual summer workshops for teachers. C-SPAN Classroom recently published a new lesson plan that includes a set of […]
The History of Comic Art
The Library of Congress currently has an exhibit on display called Comic Art – 120 Years of Panels and Pages. The exhibit is both a physical exhibit and an online exhibit. Comic Art – 120 Years of Panels and Pages has five sections. Those sections are Early Years, Mid-Twentieth Century, Late Twentieth Century, Web Comics, […]
How to Find Historical Comics and Create Lessons With Them
A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Docs Teach that featured the idea of creating history lessons that incorporate historical comics. That email sent me to Docs Teach where there is a small collection of historical comics. Since Docs Teach is a project of the U.S. National Archives all of the comics […]
Watch the Evolution of Campaign Commercials on The Living Room Candidate
I did a lot of driving and sitting in traffic in snowy conditions today so I had a lot of time to listen to podcasts. The first that I listened to was Joe Rogan’s podcast with Tulsi Gabbard and Jocko Willink. The second was the Meat Eater Podcast with Steve Rinella. Both podcasts veered into […]
How to Find and Create Primary Source Lessons With DocsTeach
DocsTeach has been one of my go-to tools for social studies teachers for many years. Despite that recommendation I’ve never made a video on how it works, until now. DocsTeach is a free service offered by the National Archives through which you can find primary source lesson activities and create your own activities by using […]
7 TED-Ed Lessons for Constitution Day
Tomorrow is Constitution Day in the United States. As I shared last week, C-SPAN and DocsTeach have lots of free lesson plans and online activities. TED-Ed also has a bunch of lessons that are appropriate for Constitution Day. The Making of the American Constitution. Why is the US Constitution So Hard to Amend? Why Wasn’t […]
My Top 5 Google Tools for Social Studies Teachers and Students
As longtime readers of this blog know, my background is largely in social studies with a smattering of special education and corporate training thrown in for good measure. It’s teaching social studies that will always be my first professional love. That’s why I always get excited when readers send me questions like the one I […]
Dozens of Constitution Day Activities and Resources
Next Tuesday is Constitution Day in the United States. According to federal law all schools that receive federal funding have to teach some type of lesson about the Constitution on this day. C-SPAN, DocsTeach, and the National Constitution Center all offer either lesson plans or resources for building your own Constitution Day lesson plans. 25 […]
Camera and Locomotive – A Mapped Story About the Transcontinental Railroad
Camera and Locomotive is the title of a fantastic mapped story published by the Library of Congress. Camera and Locomotive tells the story of the building of the Transcontinental Railroad and the development of photography in the United States. As you scroll through the story you will find interactive maps that are loaded with photographs […]
DocsTeach Adds New Documents and Lessons About Suffrage
Earlier this week the Library of Congress launched a new crowdsourcing campaign to transcribe more than 20,000 primary source documents related to the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. The LOC isn’t the only organization to make primary sources related to suffrage available online. DocsTeach, produced by the National Archives, has a Women’s Rights […]
Lewis & Clark in Google Earth – And Lesson Plans for K-12
This morning while browsing through Google Earth looking for a resource about sharks for Shark Week (I found it) I came across a Google Earth voyage about Lewis and Clark. The Google Earth voyage titled Explorers: Lewis and Clark contains twelve multimedia placemarkers documenting the outbound and return journey of the Lewis and Clark expedition. […]
Crowdsourcing Civil War Document Transcription
Last fall the Library of Congress launched a new online initiative called Crowd. As the name implies, it’s a crowdsourcing project that anyone who registers on the LOC Crowd site can participate in. All of the documents in the Crowd project are documents in the LOC’s collection that need to be transcribed. The latest collection […]
Lee’s Map of Gettysburg – And Tools for Making It Interactive
Today’s featured document featured by the National Archives is a copy of General Robert E. Lee’s map of the Battle of Gettysburg. If you download a copy of the map (which you can do as it is in the public domain) and then zoom-in on it, you will be able to see the notations about […]
Three Short Lessons About American Independence Day
American Independence Day, the Fourth of July, is this week. I realize that most of you reading this aren’t in school right now, but I thought I’d share a few video lessons about the Declaration of Independence the celebration of Independence Day. Bookmark these for your lessons when school resumes in the fall. History offers […]
DocsTeach Adds Good Artifacts for Teaching About the Transcontinental Railroad
DocsTeach has long been one of my go-to recommendations for teachers of U.S. History. DocsTeach provides a wealth of digitized primary source artifacts that can be incorporated into lessons for elementary school, middle school, and high school students. You can search for those artifacts according to era in U.S. History, according to artifact type (text, […]
Pictures of the American Revolution – And Other Resources for Patriots’ Day
Tomorrow is Patriots’ Day in Maine and Massachusetts. The day commemorates the Battles of Lexington and Concord. As a New Englander this is a good day to review some good resources for teaching and learning about the American Revolution. History Animated has an entire section called Revolutionary War Animated. That is a great place to find […]
The Story of the United States Told in 141 Interactive Maps
Manifest Destiny – The Story of The U.S. Told in 141 Maps is a great website developed by Michael Porath. As you probably guessed from the title of this blog post, the site features 141 interactive maps chronicling the expansion of the United States from March 1789 to August 1959. When you click on any of the […]
The Spanish-American War Animated
This post is a long overdue shout-out to MrBettsClass. Mr. Betts produces engaging animated history videos for students. In contrast to the deep-dives that Tom Richey does for AP history students, the videos on MrBettsClass are more general overviews of topics in U.S. History. Take a look at the recent Spanish-American War animated video from […]
Ten Resources for Teaching and Learning About Pearl Harbor
This week is the 77th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. That wasn’t the first military action of the Japanese during WWII. It’s just the event that finally got the U.S. to join the war. If you’re looking from some resources to use in lessons about Pearl Harbor, take a look at the […]
Federal Land vs. State Land
As I write this What is Federal Land? is the #49 trending video on YouTube. It’s nice to see an educational video trending that high on YouTube. The video was produced by CGP Grey who has produced some other fantastic educational videos over the years. Through What is Federal Land? viewers can learn how land in […]
Teaching the Constitution With Political Cartoons – Webinar Recording
DocsTeach is one of my favorite tools for building history lessons centered around primary source documents, pictures, maps, and drawings. DocsTeach contains an integrated search tool for finding artifacts from the U.S. National Archives. You can use that search tool to find political cartoons. That was focus of a recent professional development webinar that was […]
An Interactive Timeline of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade
Watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade is a tradition that millions of Americans share. This year will be the 92nd edition of the parade. What started out as a relatively simple affair has grown into an hours-long production. You and your students can see how the parade has evolved through the decades by exploring the interactive […]
17 Lessons in Teaching History With Technology
This coming Monday evening (7pm ET) I am hosting Teaching History With Technology on PracticalEdTech.com. This course meets five times (once per week). There are seventeen concepts that are covered in the course. Each concept can be applied to the creation of technology-infused history lessons. The concepts covered in the course are listed below. Using […]
A New LOC Online Collection – Theodore Roosevelt’s Papers
I have always found Theodore Roosevelt to be one of the most fascinating characters in U.S. History. That is why I was excited this morning when I saw an email from the Library of Congress announcing the online publication of Theodore Roosevelt’s papers. The LOC’s collection of Theodore Roosevelt’s papers is divided into sixteen sections. […]
A Science, Math, and History Lesson in One Short Video
Reactions is a YouTube channel produced by the American Chemical Society and PBS Digital Studios. The videos in the channel focus on explaining how chemistry concepts as they relate to things we see every day or to interesting “what if” scenarios. Recently, Reactions published a video to explain how much tea it would take to […]
The LOC Launches the National Screening Room Online
The Library of Congress has a new online collection called the National Screening Room. The National Screening Room currently contains 287 videos. The videos are digital copies of films made in the 19th and 20th centuries. You can browse the collection by date, location of the filming, and subject. You can also search for videos […]
51 More Constitution Day Resources
Earlier this week I shared some videos and a couple of interactive resources for teaching lessons about the U.S. Constitution on Constitution Day. Constitution Day is this coming Monday and by law all schools receiving federal funds have to offer some kind of instruction on the U.S. Constitution. If you’re still looking for some resources […]
Video Resources for Constitution Day
Constitution Day in the United States is on this coming Monday. By law all schools receiving federal funds have to offer some type of instruction about the Constitution. Yesterday, I shared a couple of interactive resources that can help students learn about the U.S. Constitution. Here are a couple of video resources for teaching and […]
Two Interactive Copies of the Constitution for Constitution Day
Next Monday is Constitution Day in the United States. By law all schools that receive federal funds have to offer some instruction on on the Constitution. If you’re looking for some activities to do with your students on Constitution Day, consider having your students explore one of the following interactive displays of the Constitution. The […]
The Online Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States
The Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond hosts the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States. This online atlas contains more than 700 historical maps of the United States. The maps within the atlas are arranged into eighteen sections. As a student and teacher of history I was drawn to the sections […]
Find & Read Old Newspapers Through the Google Newspaper Archive
Yesterday’s blog post about the Chronicling America collection of digitized newspapers prompted Daniel Bassill to ask me about options for newspapers printed after 1963. My suggestion was to try the Google Newspaper Archive. In that archive you will find hundreds of digitized copies of newspapers printed around the world. In the archive you fill find […]
Chronicling America – An Archive of 2,600+ Digitized Newspapers
Chronicling America is a great resource provided by the Library of Congress. On Chronicling America you can find more than 2,600 digitized copies of newspapers printed in the United States between 1789 and 1963. You can search through the collection according to date, state in which the newspaper was published, and keyword. All of the […]
New Artifact Collections Added to DocsTeach
DocsTeach is one of my go-to recommendations for anyone who teaches U.S. History at a middle school or high school level. The site offers a dozen tools that you can use to create interactive history lessons based on primary and secondary sources. To help you build those lessons DocsTeach provides thousands of primary and secondary […]
A Free Presidential Timeline Poster for Your Classroom
For the last few years C-SPAN Classroom has offered a free poster depicting a timeline of American presidents. That offer is back for the 2018-19 school year. The poster shows each President’s time in office, a short biography, the era of American history in which each President served, and a couple of major events that […]
A Crash Course on Independence Day
Tomorrow, July 4th, is Independence Day in the U.S. In the video below John Green offers a short overview of the history of Independence Day and the ways in which Americans have celebrated the holiday since 1776. As always, Green includes plenty of sarcastic comments throughout the video so if your students have trouble recognizing […]
Photo Roulette – A Library of Congress Game
Photo Roulette is a fun little game from Library of Congress. The game shows you a randomly selected pictures from the LOC’s digital collections and you have to guess the year in which the picture was taken. You have ten guesses before you’re out of luck. After the submission of each guess you’re given a […]
A Timeline JS Timeline of Wall Street
Timeline JS is one of my favorite tools for social studies teachers and students. It’s one of six excellent storytelling tools produced by Knight Lab at Northwestern University. Timeline JS lets anyone create a multimedia timeline by entering data into a Google Sheets template. It’s used by teachers, by students, and by media companies like […]
Discover Primary Sources by Browsing the World Digital Library Maps
The World Digital Library hosts more than 19,000 primary documents and images from dozens of libraries around the world. Hosted by the Library of Congress and sponsored in part by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the mission of the World Digital Library is to promote the study and understanding of cultures. The WDL can be searched by date, […]
A Few Good Videos for Learning About Memorial Day
Memorial Day in the United States is ten days away. Many students associate the day with with barbecues, parades, and a day off from school. But that’s not what Memorial Day is about. As we know it’s a day to honor those who died in service to our country. Some students may confuse the day […]
Docs Teach Adds New Primary Sources About WWI
Docs Teach is a fantastic resource for US History teachers that I have shared many times over the years. I like it so much that I include it in my Teaching History With Technology course. Docs Teach provides teachers with access tools for creating online lessons based on collections of primary source documents. Docs Teach […]
Echoes of the Great War – Online WWI Exhibition
Echoes of the Great War is a fantastic collection of videos, audio recordings, and pictures about WWI. This online exhibition created by the Library of Congress. Echoes of the Great War is arranged thematically. Those four themes are Arguing Over War, Over Here, Over There, and World Overturned. Within each of those themes you will […]
Eight Lessons in Teaching History With Technology
A couple of month ago I launched an on-demand version of my popular Teaching History With Technology course. So far more than 50 people have completed the course. The question that almost everyone asks before they enroll in the course is, “what’s covered in the course?” That’s a fair question to ask so I published […]
A Multimedia Timeline of WWII in Europe
Last week I shared National Geographic’s excellent multimedia timeline of the Pacific Theater of WWII. National Geographic offers a similar timeline of the European Theater. While the title of the timeline is World War II in Europe, it does include include events that happened in Africa and some events in the United States. The timeline […]
8 Good Resources for Learning About Pearl Harbor
Tomorrow is the 76th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course, that wasn’t the first military action of the Japanese during WWII. It’s just the event that finally got the U.S. to declare war. The 1941 Project is an interactive map of Pearl Harbor. The map features the stories of survivors of the […]
Intro to U.S. Involvement in WWI – And What Kids Say About Tom Richey’s Videos
Tom Richey recently released a new video for students in U.S. history courses. The United States in World War I is a video in which Tom provides students with an overview of why the United States got involved in the war, why U.S. involvement was significant, and Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points. It’s hard to provide […]
Resources for Teaching about Veterans Day
Veterans Day is next weekend which means this upcoming week will be a great opportunity to visit with students about the meaning of this federal holiday. These resources have suggestions for how students of all ages can honor veterans as well as some activities that can be done schoolwide. Veterans Day Teacher Guide– This 35 […]
Implied Powers – American Government Review
Keith Hughes recently published a new video for students of U.S. History and U.S. Government. The video is titled What Are Implied Powers? The video features an overview of the debate between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson over the interpretation of the Elastic Clause and General Welfare Clause. Check out the video as embedded below. […]
Teaching History With Technology – On-demand PD
Teaching History With Technology is my most popular Practical Ed Tech course after Getting Going With G Suite. In the last year more than 100 people participated in the course. Previously, I have only offered it as a live course that required participants to join weekly webinars. This fall I’m going to offer it in […]
Historical Patterns Animated
Some of my favorite social studies lesson plans include having students use maps to analyze data and identify patterns in history. Over the years I’ve done this with paper maps and digital maps. Mapping History, produced by the University of Oregon, features lots of animated maps illustrating problems, patterns, and events throughout history. Mapping History […]
How to Create a Simple Timeline-based Game
ClassTools.net has many great online game templates for history teachers to use. Play Your Dates Right is one of the templates that I like to use to create a game that is focused on helping students recall the sequence of historical events. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to create a simple timeline-based […]
Beyond Words – A Library of Congress Lab Experiment
The Library of Congress Labs is a website that hosts online experiments based on collections of digital artifacts housed by the Library of Congress. One of the experiments that should be of interest to US History teachers is the Beyond Words project. Beyond Words is an online project designed to identify illustrations in WWI-era newspapers. […]
Play Your Dates Right – A Fun History Game
Play Your Dates Right is another great game template developed by Russel Tarr at ClassTools.net. The concept of Play Your Dates Right is that students have to pick the correct sequence of three historical events. The event in the middle of the game template is always the event that actually did come second. Students have […]
51 Resources for Constitution Day
This coming Sunday is Constitution Day in the United States. That means that schools have to include some type of lesson related to the Constitution either today or Monday. Last week I shared a few resources for Constitution Day lessons. If you’re still looking for some Constitution Day resources, take a look at the collection […]
Constitution Day Virtual Field Trip to the U.S. Senate
Constitution Day in the United States is this coming Sunday. On Friday, Discovery Education is hosting a virtual field trip to the U.S. Senate. The half hour event features a “behind the scenes” look at how the Senate works. The virtual event will include appearances from Senate Historian Dr. Betty Koed, U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee […]
20th Century World History Declassified
The Wilson Center Digital Archive offers many collections of declassified historical documents. The documents contain memos and transcripts of communications between diplomats and country leaders. The collections are arranged into topics and themes. You’ll find collections of documents related to the construction of the Berlin Wall, the origins of the Cold War, Sino-Soviet relations, and diplomatic efforts […]
Good Resources for Constitution Day Lessons
Constitution Day in the United States is just nine days away. By law, public schools are required to include a Constitution lesson during the day. Here are some resources that you might find useful in creating a Constitution Day lesson plan for your students. Keith Hughes, the face of Hip Hughes History, has a long playlist of […]
Why Americans and Canadians Celebrate Labor Day
Next Monday is Labor Day. For most of us in the U.S. and Canada this marks the unofficial end of summer. If your students are wondering why they don’t have school on Monday, consider having them complete the TED-Ed lesson Why do Americans and Canadians Celebrate Labor Day? Through this lesson students can learn about the […]
The Library of Congress Puts Hamilton’s Papers Online
The Library of Congress has put their collection of Alexander Hamilton’s papers online for the public. The collection of papers includes some of Hamilton’s letters to family and friends, a draft of Washington’s farewell address, and documents from Hamilton’s law practice. Additionally, the Library of Congress has put together a simple timeline of Hamilton’s life. […]
417 History and Civics Lessons In One Place
On Friday I featured Tom Richey’s YouTube channel which is full of great content for Advanced Placement U.S. and European History students. Today, I want to point out or remind you about the excellent videos that Keith Hughes produces. Keith has at least 417 video lessons about a wide range of topics in U.S. and […]
An Interactive Display of the Declaration of Independence
The Digital Declaration of Independence is a fantastic website on which students can learn about the Declaration of Independence and the men who signed it. The Digital Declaration of Independence is an interactive display of John Trumbull’s painting Declaration of Independence, a scan of the text of the Declaration of Independence, and a map of […]
DocsTeach Adds New Analysis Activities for Students
DocsTeach is a great resource for teachers of U.S. History. DocsTeach, produced by the National Archives Foundation, provides teachers with a free platform on which they can create online history lessons based on images, documents, audio recording, video recordings, and maps. The lessons that teachers create can be shared with their students through a free […]
5 Resources for Learning About Aviation – How Airplanes Fly
Today at the WWII Museum in New Orleans I took a bunch of pictures of My Gal Sal including some 3D images that I’ll use in VR headsets. Looking at My Gal Sal and some of the other planes in the museum was a treat for someone like me who is fascinated by aviation. When […]
5 Good Resources for Teaching and Learning About World War II
This morning I went to the World War II museum in New Orleans. It is a fantastic museum. The museum does a masterful job of mixing artifacts and oral histories into the greater context of World War II. And for folks like me who are fascinated by aircraft the Boeing center is a great place […]
5 Good Resources for Teaching and Learning About the American Revolution
Today is Patriots’ Day. Here in Maine as well as in Massachusetts and Wisconsin it’s an official state holiday. The day commemorates The Battles of Lexington and Concord. As a New Englander this is a good day to review some good resources for teaching and learning about the American Revolution. Teaching American History has a series […]
An Easy Way to Create and Play Jeopardy-style Games
Earlier this week I shared news about the updated Jeopardy Rocks platform that is now called Factile. Factile lets you create Jeopardy-style game boards to use in your classroom. Factile also has a gallery of games that you can use if you don’t have the time to build a game from scratch. In the following […]
Lighthouses and Designs for Democracy
Earlier this week the featured document from the U.S. National Archives was a drawing of the Matinicus Rock Lighthouse on the coast of Maine. The drawing is one of many in the Designs for Democracy series published by the National Archives. Designs for Democracy is an online exhibit created by the National Archives and Records Administration. The […]
McCarthyism Explained In a New TED-Ed Video
Earlier this week TED-Ed published a new video lesson that explains McCarthyism. In What is McCarthyism? And How Did It Happen? students can learn the origins of McCarthyism and the actions of HUAC. Students can also learn how some people were ensnared in the actions of McCarthy and HUAC. Take a look at this CommonLit […]
Nixon’s Visit to China – Documents and Video
Last week the National Archives Today’s Document feed featured two artifacts from President Nixon’s landmark visit to China in 1972. The first document was actually a photography of Air Force One arriving in China. The second document was the menu from one of the dinners in Peking. Looking at these documents reminded me of some […]
Get a Free Presidential Timeline Poster for Your Classroom
C-SPAN Classroom is currently offering a free timeline poster depicting all of the past Presidents of the United States. The poster shows each President’s time in office, a short biography, the era of American history in which each President served, and a couple of major events that happened during each President’s time in office. The […]
Tips for Setting Up AP History DBQ Essays
Tom Richey has a great YouTube channel for history students and teachers. In addition to lessons on a wide variety of topics in U.S. and World History, he also offers videos on strategies for studying and writing. One of his recent strategy videos is Setting Up Your AP History DBQ. Setting Up Your AP History […]
Storyboard That Offers Lesson Plans for Every Month
Creating a storyboard can be a good way to outline a story, to illustrate your own ideas, or to analyze problems. Storyboard That offers dozens of lesson plans for topics in language arts and history. You will find lesson plans developed around famous literary works like The Outsiders and The Red Badge of Courage. You […]
15 Tools for Teaching History With Technology – Best of 2016
As I usually do during this week, I’m taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. One of the things that teachers often ask me for is a set of tools to get them […]
Explore Maps of Historical Sites in Every U.S. State
The Traveling Salesman Problem is a website developed by William Cook at the University of Waterloo. The site features interactive maps that chart the short distance between a series of places. One of those maps is of all of the places in the United States National Register of Historic Places, all 49,603 of them.You can […]
Two Good Sets of Animated Maps for U.S. History Students
Creating my earlier post about resources for learning about Pearl Harbor prompted me to revisit a couple of animated maps of U.S. History. History Animated is a resource that I first started using with students in 2009. History Animated provides animations of battles of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the US Civil War, and US Campaign in […]
Resources for Teaching and Learning About Pearl Harbor
This coming Wednesday marks 75 years since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. That attack drew the United States into World War II. Here are some resources for teaching and learning about Pearl Harbor. Five Things You Don’t Know About Pearl Harbor, produced by Military.com, offers five interesting facts about and related to the bombing […]
Analyzing Word Choice in a Presidential Statement
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on this day in 1963. Later in the same day Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States. President Johnson took the oath of office on Air Force One. When the plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base he gave a short statement. His speech card […]
Resources for Teaching About Veterans Day
This coming Friday is Veterans Day and schools across the US will be closed. Try one or more of the following resources to help students understand the origins and meaning of Veterans Day. Bet You Didn’t Know: Veterans Day. The video explains the origins of the holiday and why its date of celebration has twice […]
A Lesson on the First U.S. Presidential Election
In my previous post I shared a video from Keith Hughes in which he explains the origins of the Electoral College. It’s a great explanation of the original arguments for and against the creation of the Electoral College which has chosen every President beginning with George Washington. Keith offers a lesson about that first election. In three […]
NATO on the Map – An Interactive Overview of NATO
NATO on the Map is an interactive map of information about about NATO. The map, viewable in 2D and 3D, displays information about NATO member countries, partner countries, NATO actions, and NATO security challenges and responses. When you visit NATO on the Map you can choose to display information from five categories. Selecting a category […]
The National Archives’ Today’s Document Offers Good Lesson Ideas
The US National Archives is a great resource for history teachers to keep in their books. I’ve written about some of their services in the past (here and here) and today I’d like to remind you of the National Archives Today’s Document feed. On a daily basis Today’s Document features a new image or document from the United […]
Harvest of History – The History of Farming in North America
Harvest of History is a website produced by the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, New York (also the site of the Baseball Hall of Fame). Harvest of History is designed to help students and teachers explore the origins and development of modern farming practices. The basis for Harvest of History is to explore the question, “where […]
A Brief History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
No unit of study about the Cold War is complete without including the Cuban Missile Crisis. The latest TED-Ed lesson provides students with a five minute overview of the moments of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The History of the Cuban Missile Crisis explains why the Soviet Union wanted to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, the […]
The Evolution of Presidential Campaign Commercials
As the campaign for the White House continues to heat up, tonight’s debate should make that clear, it might be a good idea to take a look back at how campaigns have evolved over the last sixty years. The Living Room Candidate is a great website shows visitors how political campaigns have evolved. The Living […]
Collect, Customize, and Share Resources from Smithsonian Learning Labs
Late last year I wrote a post about The Smithsonian Learning Lab which is a fantastic tool for organizing the thousands of digital resources available through the various Smithsonian museums. The Smithsonian Learning Lab allows teachers to create and search for documents, images, videos, interactive animations, and lesson plans. In June the Smithsonian put forth a revamped version […]
A TED-Ed Lesson on the Bill of Rights
The latest lesson published by TED-Ed explains to students why the Bill of Rights was added to the US Constitution. In the lesson students learn about the positions of Federalists and Anti-Federalists, which states pushed for a Bill of Rights, and why the Bill of Rights was added as a set of amendments to the […]
A Great Journal for History Teachers
The Library of Congress has quite a number of great resources for teachers and students. The Student Discovery Sets are favorite amongst my favorite resources that I’ve featured in the past. That collection of resources was recently updated by the LOC. The recent additions to the Student Discovery Sets include iBooks about the New Deal, scientific […]
The Origin and Meaning of Memorial Day
Memorial Day is on Monday. Here are a couple of quick resources that you may want to include in a lesson about Memorial Day. The Meaning of Memorial Day is a two minute video covering the origins of the holiday in the United States. The video is embedded below. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers […]
More Than 100 Sets of Primary Source Documents for Students
A few years ago I wrote a post about searching through the Digital Public Library of America to locate primary source documents to use with students. At that point the DPLA had relatively few, loosely organized collections. Yesterday, I received an email from DPLA informing me that they now have more than 100 primary source […]
Resources for Reviewing for AP US History Exam
The AP exam for US History is just a week away now. Tom Richey has put together a great page of resources for students who are reviewing for that exam. Tom’s AP US History review page includes short strategy guides for each part of the exam. Those guides include PDFs and videos with strategy hints. […]
10 Educational Resources About the American Revolution
Today is Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts and Maine. The day commemorates the anniversary of the first battles of the American Revolutionary War, The Battles of Lexington and Concord. As a New Englander this is a good day to review some good resources for teaching and learning about the American Revolution. Revolutionary War Animated is a great place to […]
A Mapped & Searchable Archive of American Newspapers
The U.S. News Map is a great resource produced by Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia. The U.S. New Map is an archive of American newspapers printed between 1836 and 1925. You can search the archive by entering a keyword or phrase. The results of your search will be displayed on an interactive map. […]
The First Presidential Election – A Hip Hughes History Lesson
A few weeks ago in my post about the Electoral College I included a list of lessons about Presidential Elections from 1900 through 2012. Those lessons were created by Keith Hughes. This week he released another lesson. Keith’s latest lesson is about the first Presidential election. In three minutes Keith runs-down what made the first […]
ReadWorks Offers Articles, Question Sets, and Videos About Martin Luther King, Jr.
Next Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. ReadWorks has put together a collection of articles, videos, and question sets for teaching about Martin Luther King, Jr. Like all articles and question sets found on ReadWorks this one is indexed by reading ability. The videos in the collection were provided by History. Applications for Education […]
10 Good Video Sources for Social Studies Teachers and Students
Last week I shared a list of good sources for mathematics videos. That post was one of the most popular posts of the month despite being published during a school vacation week. Seeing the results of that list has prompted me to share lists for other subject areas. Here is my list of good video […]
Dozens of Great PowerPoints for AP History Students & Teachers
As I do every year, I am taking this week to relax, recharge, and ski with friends. While I’m away I will be re-running the most popular posts of the year. This was one of the most popular posts in November, 2015. As I’ve mentioned in the past, Tom Richey produces great instructional videos for […]