Since I've recently given a set of my curated plans for math teachers, English teachers and general common core standards (see end of this post), I thought I'd share some lessons for history teachers. If you're a history teacher and not following #sschat on Twitter, you should.
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This is a set of 12 lessons about what it was like for children to live in the second world war. I love this set of lessons because it builds empathy and helps teach the story of world war 2 from a child's perspective.
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September 11 is coming up. While it is still very hard for many of us to even talk about this day, we have a whole 11+ years of our students who have no memory of this event. As teachers, we must get ourselves together to discuss and teach this event. As I've been reviewing the content on the share my lesson website, I've found a piece that I may consider in my own classroom, the world trade center film review piece. It has several films including "Saving Private Ryan" but also the film "World Trade Center" which would make for a good piece to use in the classroom.
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The first handout on this page is a good overview of the timeline of 9/11.
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June 28 is the anniversary of the outbreak of World War 1. As you discuss this topic, here are some activitiesa and lessons to help you. There are some "causes" activities to introduce World War 1 that may interest some social studies teachers.
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The woodmen of the world had a "if I were president" competition sometime back, but I think since this is an election year, it is time to bring back some sort of competition like this to our students. You can see the recording of this student's speech on this news media page.This might be a great activity for the fall or even as a summer assignment to begin researching and writing speeches.
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If you want to teach about the Olympics, the TES forum out of the UK is where the great content is being uploaded daily. There are two activities of note, one is Olympic Games: Now and then and another is about Greek Ideas and what has been passed down. Many interesting lessons by grade level.
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Topical studies are great. The London Marathon just happened and marathons are increasing in popularity here in the United states. Here is a video about the marathon, but also lesson plans about the Battle of Marathon, information on training to improve fitness and just what it takes physically to train for a marathon. Health and history lessons here.
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I have to bookmark this site just for me. This Steampunk emporium has such great period clothing (had to buy some for a project for my child) that I just had to bookmark and share it. It took a good 30 minutes of searching before I found it. Great costumes and cool things to use if you're talking pioneer or early 1900's.
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This is a lesson plan for younger students (grades 1-4) for discussing World War 2. There are lesson plans here. One is "how has life in britain changed since 1948" which could be used for any age in the US because often our documents focus on a US centric view. The other is "what was it like for children in world War 2" which is a fascinating way to approach this with any children.
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Using the Simpson's teach about bias and history in this middle school activity that includes interactive whiteboard resources, movies, and a handout.
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A website that lets you find and create timelines. Powerful tool for history teachers.
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This pitch for the project Perspective Detectives by Cynthia Sandler, one of our current class of Flat Classroom certified teachers completely left me awe struck and excited. Wow! What do you think? What a history project!
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Dare we do such a thing? 100 years in 10 minutes. Yes. It is on YouTube. This video is going viral. If you had to compile your last 20 years in 2 minutes or your 80 year life span in 8 - what would make it? This is one to watch and share. It is a bit upsetting as you see the war and devastation but I have to wonder if those are the things we remember.
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In the UK, Holocaust Memorial Day is the 27th of January. This is something that we should all discuss and cover in an age appropriate way. Actually, I have permission and show Hotel Rwanda to my class. I want the students to understand and know what happens in the world and that all it takes for bad things to happen is for good people to do nothing.
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Dyslexic friendly resources for teaching about the Holocaust.Notes and handouts.
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Talk about the McCarthy trials using archived film from the 1950's.
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Lesson plans about the vietnam war. This is a UK document and may give you different perspectives in your studies. Worksheets, powerpoints, and documents to use with this 3 lesson. It includes a lesson on military tactics.
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This is a lesson plan that you can use as a starting point if you choose to involve your classrooms in the movement to end slavery in the world. Could you imagine if we could leave a legacy of this one thing. Our job is to speak for the helpless and to encourage empathy and understanding for others in this generation of children. It isn't all about what you can get, but about what you can give. This booklet is out of the UK. "The antislavery movement was the first major campaign in Britain to involve ordinary citizens across all classes (as well as the slaves themselves) in the struggle to end the practice. As such it is a good example of how change can come about when people work together for a just cause. This booklet More…intends inspire and equip young people to take a stand against the continuation of slavery and injustice in the world today."
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As you think about next year, it is great to plan deep projects with historical meaning. As I was looking up things that happened 100 years a go in 1912, one jumped out at me. The Titanic Sunk on April 11, 1912. There are a ton of resources already available on this topic but it would make for an interesting project of some sort as the fascination with the event doesn't seem to have waned much.
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This is an excellent set of world war 2 resources from the UK including videos and lesson plans. For elementary school.
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I have a blog post about this going up on Sunday, but this Virginia Tech professor, John Boyer, used a youtube video to request a skype meeting with Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and on Monday they will be skyping at 7pm EAstern. Wow.
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Dr. James Beeghley (Jim as most of us know him) has a presentation on Wednesday at K12 online about how history and social studies should be taught using technology. He talks about early photography and a lot of other very cool thoughts that will certainly challenge the thinking and teaching of history teachers.
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Discussions of propaganda are great ones to have. Here you can see quite an assortment of World War 2 propaganda. Right now in the UK they are observing remembrance day so a lot of resources are being shared that we can use on this topic. It would be interesting to have students look for modern day propaganda? How about looking at US elections - do we have propaganda there? Just discussing that topic would be interesting.
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Taxation without representation lesson from history teacher Christina Lambard had parents calling the school to complain. A letter was sent home that said kids would be charged 25 cents a page and if unpaid they would get a zero. Usually the kids figure out the note is false. This year parents started calling the school before talking to the teacher. This lesson has been taught before without the hubbub . I think a bigger point here is that parents should learn to call the teacher first.
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Trailmeme has a tool to let you "walk" through resources that have to do with a particular event in history. I haven't learned how this works yet, but thought you history teachers might take a look at it.
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A student on netgened shared this with me based upon his topic "visual data analysis." This is an amazing repository of statistics shown in very cool ways. Great for social sciences.
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EAch week the news of the week is posted in rap style format in a classroom-friendly format to this website. For government or current events - maybe this will help.
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Veterans History Project Home page -- GREAT PROJECT!!!!
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For history teachers and others - a new online history museum for those who love history and want to share it.
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Fascinating link for social studies and some samples. I LOVE how some web pages were inserted using bitty browser. What a cool tool. This site also features several dipity timelines. This is a GREAT site for history teachers to see.
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Government organizations like the smithsonian are reaching out to educators and others with an online presence. This cool site has lesson plans and lots of great information for arts, science and technology, history and culture, and language arts.
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Learn how to use Google maps and research to explore any point in history. This is a great lesson for history teachers from Cheryl Davis.
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Australia's culture portal with tons of information about the culture of australia. Great for those living in Australia or studying about Australia. From Jo McLeay
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