National Archives Resource

One of the educational blogs I subscribe to sent me a link to an amazing site for History educators, DocsTeach.org. This site was created by the National Archives in conjunction with the National Council for the Social Studies. DocsTeach.org embeds the National History Standards in their lessons and the site is free to teachers. There is not only a digital vault with thousands of cataloged primary sources but also many tools for educators to use these sources to bring investigative activities to students. Classes will be able to, among other activities, weigh evidence and understand the main concepts and ideas in history. I have just briefly started to explore this site and am so excited by the possibilities! My students will be delving into these activities and lessons starting this week!
 Here is the link: http://docsteach.org/

Comments

  1. LVCMarch 13, 2012 at 7:08 PM

    WOW! This is really cool Mrs. Slaviero, I like how you can view all the different documents, and on the side there is a little summery.
    Cant wait to do this activities!!!

    Luke C.
    1st Hour

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mrs. SlavieroMarch 17, 2012 at 9:28 PM

    Hi Luke, I'm glad you thought this was interesting, too! We will use this in class soon!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Name That Executive Role!

Image
Students today learned about the many roles of the head of the Executive Branch, the President of the United States. I found several images of former Presidents in these roles--can you guess which is which? Post your answers below or email them to me. Choices: Commander-In-Chief Chief Executive Political Party Head Chief Diplomat 1.  President Eisenhower 2. President George HW Bush (on the right side of the picture) 3. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt  4. President Reagan meeting with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (this one's a bit of a giveaway!)
Read more

Historical Perspective and Peel the Fruit Thinking Routine

Image
Practicing historical perspective is an essential social studies skill. Historical perspective is being able to step into a historic situation and examine the motivations, biases, and beliefs of a person or group of people. Students have to revert to the beliefs of a group of people even if those beliefs completely contradict the views we have today. They must weigh decisions based on the situation of the time, not necessarily how situations are viewed today. The C3 Framework for Social Studies states that "Historical understanding requires recognizing this multiplicity of points of view in the past, which makes it important to seek out a range of sources on any historical question rather than simply use those that are easiest to find. It also requires recognizing that perspectives change over time, so that historical understanding requires developing a sense of empathy with people in the past whose perspectives might be very different from those of today." http://www.so...
Read more

Industrial Revolution Haiku

Students have been learning about the Industrial Revolution in the mid1800s and how it changed life in New England. Today students processed their learning by creating haiku poems on the subject. They were challenged to think about and evaluate this topic within the structure of a haiku, a 3 line poem with 17 total syllables--5 in the 1st and 3rd lines and 7 in the second line. The poems have been impressive and some will be posted here soon.
Read more