Social Studies Resources
For Elementary Teachers

 

Annenberg Social Studies in Action: A Methodology Workshop
Social Studies in Action: A Methodology Workshop, K-5 captures innovative teaching practices, learning theories, and classroom activities designed to stimulate your teaching and enhance your curriculum. This eight-part workshop provides a methodology framework for teaching social studies, with a focus on creating effective citizens. Individual workshop sessions explore social studies themes, strategies for planning and teaching, and ways to connect social studies to the world beyond the classroom.

Awesome Stories
"AwesomeStories.com takes the stories of history, biographies, movies, religion, and trials and links them to the actual manuscripts, paintings, historical maps, illustrations, data, and graphics that make them come alive for users. Each of the eight channels offers the stories behind the events or people. Users are encouraged to read the stories, examine the primary source material, and draw their own conclusions." Schools are allowed a free academic membership to access the site.

Ben's Guide to Government
Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids is brought to the World Wide Web as a service of the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). This site provides learning tools for K-12 students, parents, and teachers. These resources will teach how our government works, the use of the primary source materials of GPO Access, and how one can use GPO Access to carry out their civic responsibilities. A cartoon version of Ben Franklin serves as the guide through the site.

The Big Wide World WebQuest
This site contains a challenging WebQuest activity for K-4 students on how science, math, language arts, and social studies frame our comprehension of the world. Students explore preselected web sites to answer the big questions from the WebQuest like "How does it all work?"

Crayon: Create Your Own Newspaper
This site allows students to create their own online newspaper. This free resource can be an individual or whole class activity. There are also no advertisements.

Cyberschoolbus: United Nations
This site provides teachers and students with information and teaching materials pertaining to international issues. There are four main sections of which teachers will find Curriculum most useful. It contains thematic units with interactive exercises.

Education Place: Social Studies Center
This site provided by Houghton Mifflin contains textbook support in the form of extension activities and web sites. There are also resources not directly connected to particular textbooks. There is a search feature for activity topics as well as 35 downloadable graphic organizers.

History/Social Studies for K-12 Teachers
This site is contains resources which are divided into 28 different categories to encourage social studies teachers to use the Internet as a tool for teaching and learning. Highlighted sections include Diversity, New, and Creative Applications.

HistoryWired
This site sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute provides a guided tour of 450 objects from the National Museum of American History. Students can select the object and receive an explanation of its significance. Be sure to disable the pop up blocker in Windows XP Service Pack 2 to view descriptions.

iEarn
This site contains more than 160 projects to encourage students to "engage in responsible social activism and grow in their knowledge of important issues in the world community." There are more than 15,000 schools participating in this project. Teachers can select specific projects to fit classroom needs, curriculum, and schedule.

Kids Next Door
Kids Next Door is HUD's site "where kids can learn more about being good citizens." It focuses on three major areas - Cool People, Awesome Places, and Neat Things. The section Meet Cool People explores volunteerism, homelessness, and community workers and the jobs they do. Students can Visit Awesome Places through online field trips to parks, libraries, and city hall. See Neat Things offers ideas for a hometown scavenger hunt, a chance to catch the Scrambler who scrambles easy-to-decipher words relating to communities, and an opportunity to build a community.

Kidspace @ The Internet Public Library
This site provides basic facts on all 50 states and Washington, DC. Information includes population, cities, symbols, historical sites, and official state links.

The Learning Page...Especially for Teachers
This is the teacher's guide to the American Memory section of the Library of Congress. There are over 100 collections of items important to American Heritage. There are lesson plans, features & activities, and professional development guides to encourage classroom use of this excellent resource.

National Atlas
Nationalatlas.gov is a primary source of U.S. maps and geographic information. Zoom in on your state and make your own map by selecting features to display: cities and counties, roads and rivers, population and 109th congressional districts, crops and livestock, amphibians and butterflies, air and water quality, earthquakes and land cover, forest types, and more. Print a U.S. map (with or without names of states and capitals). Find an aerial photo of your neighborhood.

National Geographic Education Guide
This site is a collection of National Geographic's educational sites. The main topics include lesson plans, Maps & Photos, Professional Development Opportunities, and Current Events. There are two methods to search the resources, keyword and Find Resources. Highlights include the Map Machine in Maps and Geography located on the Maps & Photos page, the Xpeditions site, and links to all four National Geographic magazines.

Primary Games: Social Studies
This site provides interactive educational games for K-3 students on topics such as presidents, states, flags, and U.S. symbols. There is a curriculum guide to indicate grade level.

SCORE: History/Social Science
This site from the Schools of California Online Resources for Education provides resources and activities applicable to any school curriculum. There are over 3500 web resource links and over 1200 lessons and activities. Highlights include the virtual projects and field trips and the easy to use grade level search feature.

Social Studies for Kids
This site provides web resources on history, geography, economics, cultures, current events, holidays, religions, languages, and archaeology. There are numerous useful links in the menu down the left hand side. Three important sections are: Articles, which gives a list of articles written by the Expert so kids of all ages can understand; Glossaries, which refers to Who/What/When/Where, a massive history glossary; and Fun Facts, a list of pages describing things you might not know, such as how the Days of the Week were named.

Suggested Web Sites for Constitution Day and Citizenship Day
These sites are excellent resources for teaching about the consitution, a required topic on September 17 in all schools that receive federal funds.