The Social Studies FIELD Guide (book & resources)

WEBSITE ↬ The Social Studies FIELD Guide

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers

CONTENT ↬ history

GRADE LEVELS ↬ all grades

I am going to revert to being a social studies teacher for a little bit while I sing the praises of this book & it's accompanying website with resources. 

Amazing!

I've linked the website here, but it's really all about a book - The Social Studies FIELD Guide. The FIELD is an acronym for "Foundational Evidence, Inquiry, EdTech, and Lesson Design". This can help every history teacher ... and to top off the pedagogy, the website provides a lot of resources for you to explore.

HOW CAN TEACHERS USE THIS RESOURCE?

I can see teachers using this to improve their own teaching. Even a veteran can learn a thing or two. There's also the ability to join the community and connect with other like-minded educator's. 

Explore even more in an article written for Matt Miller's blog, Ditch That Textbook, from the book's authors --> "Ditch the lecture, dig into learning: Level up your Social Studies classroom with the FIELD Guide" 

*** Interested in more resources like this? Every Monday, I share a newsletter with a collection of Tech You Can Do resources. Interested? Sign up here!  ***

Untold History

WEBSITE ↬ Untold History

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers

CONTENT ↬ history

GRADE LEVELS ↬ 4-12

History isn't dead!

What an eye-catching statement?!  As a former history teacher, I just had to click on this one ... "Untold History".  It says it's a collection of short stories that don't always get told. Wow! What an amazing addition to your classroom. The videos are high quality and cover a wide range of content - from authors to monuments to art. 

HOW CAN TEACHERS USE THIS RESOURCE?

I can see teachers incorporating videos that match their content. The videos are relatively short, but pack a lot of information. At the end, they have a great question that can be used as a writing prompt, research topic, or simply a class discussion. 

*** Interested in more resources like this? Every Monday, I share a newsletter with a collection of Tech You Can Do resources. Interested? Sign up here!  ***

Digital Inquiry Group: Reading Like a Historian

WEBSITE ↬ Digital Inquiry Group: Reading Like a Historian

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers

CONTENT ↬ History, ELA

GRADE LEVELS ↬ all grades

I cannot tell you how I connected with this website, but am I glad I did! Wow!!! I had a conversation with a SS teacher in my school about teaching her students to read historical material and help them make sense of it and the very next day, I received an email highlighting this activity. (Ironic?) This site works on that very skill! I really wish I had this when I was teaching history! Amazing! The two big sections are US History and World History, and then you can dig in by era. 

HOW CAN TEACHERS USE THIS RESOURCE?

I can see teachers using this to teach students how to better read historical material. It will also allow teachers to introduce students to historical material and provide a better understanding of events of the past. This is a bookmark for sure!!! 

*** Interested in more resources like this? Every Monday, I share a newsletter with a collection of Tech You Can Do resources. Interested? Sign up here!  ***

Seterra - The Ultimate Map Quiz Site

WEBSITE ↬ Seterra - The Ultimate Map Quiz Site

AUDIENCE ↬ students

CONTENT ↬ history, geography

GRADE LEVELS ↬ 4-12

I am going to give the credit for this resource to my 7th grade daughter. She was recently telling me how she had to learn all the African countries and she showed me how she was studying for her test. Wow! There are so many different collections for students to study - maps, countries, capitals, bodies of water, and many more!  

HOW CAN TEACHERS USE THIS RESOURCE?

I can see teachers using this for students to learn countries, capitals, flags and more. One link for all of the games! 

*** Interested in more resources like this? Every Monday, I share a newsletter with a collection of Tech You Can Do resources. Interested? Sign up here!  ***

Lauren Tarshis: "I Survived" resources

WEBSITE ↬ Lauren Tarshis: "I Survived" resources

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers

CONTENT ↬ ELA & History

GRADE LEVELS ↬ grades 3+

I am not on social media as much as I have been, but one day I was scrolling through Twitter/X and I stopped and stared. The much beloved "I Survived" author, Lauren Tarshis shared a post stating she has classroom resources to support her books on her website. AND ... she provides it all free! Did you know this? I did not! I had to jump on and see it for myself.

This isn't too good to be true. It's true. Amazing! Thank you, Lauren! Thank you for supporting teachers! Not only are your books amazing, so are you!!!

HOW CAN TEACHERS USE THIS RESOURCE?

I can see teachers using this whenever they use an "I Survived" book in their classroom, or if they have small groups, or even individual students reading these books. From related books and videos to book club activities and resources, you can find them all on the "I Survived" resources pages. 

... and several of the books are in Spanish! They, too, have a resource page. Awesome!

*** Every Monday, I share a newsletter with a collection of Tech You Can Do resources. Interested? Sign up here!  ***

KQED Learn

WEBSITE ↬ KQED Learn: Discussions

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers

CONTENT ↬ ELA, history, current events, digital citizenship

GRADE LEVELS ↬ grades 6 & up

This resource is definitely for older grades, but it is one that contains quite a bit of lesson starters. The discussions on KQED Learn are timely and impactful. Each discussion has a short video to lead the lesson, a lesson plan, and the ability to push it through Google Classroom. The Google Classroom integration is nice, but using these lessons certainly do NOT hinge on using it.

Topics can be filtered by grade level and content area. They state that they add new discussions each week. 

I would suggest being mindful of your community before launching into any of these - to the point I'd recommend having a conversation with your principal first.  

HOW CAN TEACHERS USE THIS RESOURCE?

I can see teachers using this in an ELA class as a verbal discussion starter OR for written purposes. There are many topics that would be of high interest to older students in order to promote higher level thinking.

In a history class, this is a definite win because many of the topics deal with current events AND civic responsibilities. Any of these could be expanded as bigger research projects.

*** Every Monday, I share a newsletter with a collection of Tech You Can Do resources. Interested? Sign up here!  ***

Virtual Field Trips

WEBSITE ↬ Virtual Field Trips

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers & students

CONTENT ↬ SS, Science, Geography, Ancient Civilization, Language & Expedition

GRADE LEVELS ↬ grades K-9

The past few years have taught us that we are not alone and that we can make connections around the world. It has also taught us we cannot always physically "go" to places - yet opportunities are readily available for us to virtually go.

This site provides one example of these kinds of adventures - and it packs a bigger punch than just the field trip. Each trip comes with activities that further support the trip and allows for a richer experience. The filtering ability also makes it super easy to discover which trips will support specific content.

*** This is a paid site - I know costs can be a struggle - but the cost for this site is more than reasonable.

*** Every Monday, I share a newsletter with a collection of Tech You Can Do resources. Interested? Sign up here!  ***

Infographics

WEBSITE ↬ Infographics

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers & students

CONTENT ↬ all contents

GRADE LEVELS ↬ grades 3 & up

This website is a goldmine! If you have a slight interest in using infographics in your classroom, be sure to bookmark this site. Kathy Schrock has done an amazing job of collecting overviews, examples, resources on how to teach AND create, tutorials, and so much more! When she titles this her "Guide to Everything" ... wow!

Our students all need to know how to read and interpret data but it's also important for them to know how to display data in a way that is meaningful. 

DocsTeach

WEBSITE ↬ DocsTeach

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers & students

CONTENT ↬ ELA & history

GRADE LEVELS ↬ junior high & up

I was cleaning out an email inbox and I stumbled on this gem ... and the history teacher in me jumped for joy! I couldn't believe that I hadn't paid more attention to DocsTeach.org . Wow!

This website is from one of my favorite places in Washington, DC - the National Archives. Built to "Bring History to Life", "Engage Students", "Access Primary Sources", "Teach with Documents", & "Explore Popular Topics", you won't be at a loss for finding primary sources and creating activities you can use with your students. Be sure to check out their library of activities other educators have created and shared.

Bookmark this one and come back often!

National Geographic: Learn at Home

WEBSITE #1 ↬ National Geographic: Learn at Home 

WEBSITE #2 ↬  National Geographic: Education

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers, parents, students

CONTENT ↬ any/all

GRADE LEVELS ↬ all grades

National Geographic is an amazing resource ... and it's not all strictly Science related content. (Can I say my heart skipped a beat when I saw the map resources they have???) 

I was browsing around their curated collections for the different grade levels and I was impressed with what I found. If you are a math teacher, might I suggest taking a look at the "Interpreting Data" collection? What about an ELA teacher - there is a Storytelling & Photography collection? Science teachers? So many good ones to check out - Infectious Disease, Earth Day, the Age of the Earth? History/SS teachers - yep, good stuff here for you, too - maps & finding out about explorers, might be 2 spots to start. And all of that from the Learn at Home page!

The 2nd link I've included is their Education page. Here you will find a great filtering system (type of activity, grade, and subject) to better guide you in finding something you'd like to use. There's even a decent number of professional learning activities, too!

And here's an even better piece to both of these sites ... you can click and navigate and get lost finding some pretty amazing "stuff". This is a site where being curious and willing to click around will prove beneficial and fun. You are sure to find some real treasures here.

Chromebook App Hub

WEBSITE ↬ Chromebook App Hub
AUDIENCE ↬ teachers

CONTENT ↬ any/all

GRADE LEVELS ↬ all grades

This is a new-er resource Google has created & shared. If you use chromebooks in your classroom, this is definitely a website you will want to bookmark and come back to over and over.

The basic idea is Google has begun curating lessons and activities teachers have done using chromebooks.  You can go to the site and find ideas for your own classroom.


Check out the filtering capabilities:

I'd be shocked if you can't find at least one lesson that works for you & your classroom. And once you get going, you might even decide to submit a lesson or two for others ... and how cool would that be?

BBC Earth: Your Life on Earth

WEBSITE ↬ BBC Earth: Your Life on Earth
AUDIENCE ↬ teachers, students

CONTENT ↬ science, history, writing

GRADE LEVELS ↬ all grades

My sister, Monica, gets the credit for this one. She shared this website awhile back figuring I'd enjoy it. She was right!

On the main page, it states "Our planet has been around for 4.5 billion years. But how has it changed in your lifetime?" Now, how on earth!?!? Right there, I was intrigued. I entered the minimum required information (my birthdate), clicked enter, and voila! A whole page devoted to changes in the earth since I was born. How cool is that? Customized just for me :)

Here is an overview of some of the cool tidbits I found:

• "How the world has changed" ↬ there have been 218 major eruptions, 88 solar eclipses, the Golden-crowned sifaka was discovered 4 years before I was born ... & more!
• "How we have changed the world" ↬ the sea level has risen by 10 cm, on average, and extra 11 cups of coffee is available, CO2 emissions have doubled, the Mountain gorilla is no longer extinct ... and more!
• "How you have changed" ↬ my heart has beaten 2 billion times (but a blue whale's heart the same age would only have beaten 128 million times), if I lived on Mercury I'd be 166 years old, but on Neptune I'd still be waiting another 45,367 days to turn ONE!!!!, a mouse my age would have 270 generations by now ... and more!!!!

My brain is going in a bunch of different directions with all this info! These are really awesome tidbits but I can 100% see using this page to do some writing or further investigating. The more I clicked around, I noticed I could change some of the comparisons. Example, rather than comparing my heart beats to a blue whale, I could swap it out with a hummingbird. I am WAY older on Mercury than I am on Neptune. As a student, I could investigate the differences and write about it. So much here! And it's personal to me ... it could be personal to each of your students. Super cool!!!

The Newseum

WEBSITE ↬ NewseumEd
AUDIENCE ↬ teachers

CONTENT ↬ ELA & history

GRADE LEVELS ↬ grades 3 & up
*** Caution - some of the material is DEFINITELY for a mature audience; preview before using with students ***

I travel to Washington, DC each fall with our 8th graders and truly one of my favorite stops is the Newseum. The goal of this museum is "increase public understanding of the importance of a free press and the First Amendment. Visitors experience the story of news, the role of a free press in major events in history, and how the core freedoms of the First Amendment — religion, speech, press, assembly and petition — apply to their lives."

Until the last few months, I wasn't aware they had a website - it was a duh! moment - that had a section devoted to educators. Be sure to check it out and make a free account so you can access the copyright-protected material they have. 

Other things to be sure to check out on their site:

• Lesson plans 
• 155 lesson plans to choose from
• a filter is available to search by tool, topic, and grade
• Catlin Tucker shared out this great blog about one particular piece on the Newseum website. "NewseumED’s Foolproof Guide to Media Literacy"
• EDCollections 
• example: Free Speech, Media Literacy, Women's Suffrage, and more
• Artifacts
• example: photos, newspapers, and more
• Videos
• 100+ videos are available!

And be sure to scroll down on the NewseumEd site to search their available classes & trainings (if you are going to visit, this would be a GREAT idea!).


And don't forget to go up to the very top and go out on the outside balcony. You can get a great view of the Capitol! Here's a shot from my November, 2017 visit.

view from the outside of the Newseum (Nov 2017)

The True Size Of ...

WEBSITE ↬ The True Size of ...
AUDIENCE ↬ teachers & students

CONTENT ↬ Geography for sure! But can tie into all content

GRADE LEVELS ↬ all grades; independent use would be more in grades 3+

I absolutely love history and geography! Love, love, love.

I heard about this website recently on a podcast and was intrigued. When you go to the site, you can watch a short video demonstrating how the site works. Then ... get to work selecting a continent, country, state or other geographic region.

The region will automatically be outlined and when you move it around the map, it's size will change. Now, it's not magic, but it's designed to help students (and many adults) realize, that the "True Size" is can trick your eye. Example, Greenland looks large on the map but because the earth is a sphere, move it close to Mexico, and you find it's not that much larger!

That, by itself, is pretty awesome, but it doesn't end there. When you select a region and click on it, and some pretty cool info pops up. Here's where you can leverage some math when comparing the total size. It even tells you what a comparable country would be!

Now where could this adventure lead you and your students? Once you find a comparable country, dive in and compare populations, geography, climate, culture, etc! Super cool!

Photo Roulette

WEBSITE ↬ Photo Roulette: Random Historic Photos of the US

AUDIENCE ↬ students

CONTENT ↬ generates random historic US photos

GRADE LEVELS ↬ 4+

I heard about Photo Roulette while listening to the podcast "Check This Out Podcast:  Episode 87: ISTE a look back". Ryan & Brian share out numerous tools, resources, and activities in each podcast and this one really caught my attention. Random historical photos?! Whaaaaat??? Guess the year?!? It's a game?!?! LOVE IT!

You might be thinking - how do I use this at school? Stop and think ... these are primary sources about our history ... they are from the Library of Congress's digital collections ... students most likely won't be able to take one peek at it and guess the year. They will need to study it, read the caption, possible use their resources to do some research, and ultimately, guess the year it was taken within 10 guesses that provide a little feedback to help guide their next answer. And when the guess is correct, you can go TO the Library of Congress website and find out more information about the photo.

Now, you might feel these photos are too "tough" for your kiddos ... take the idea and modify it to fit your students. Take images about the topic you are currently studying and put them in a slidedeck. Or adjust the goal from guessing the year to guessing the person or the invention or the event ... allow students to research and work collaboratively. Wouldn't that be an awesome way to work in collaboration? And don't feel like YOU have to do all the work ... what if you challenge your students to find images to share out and challenge each other? 

Love it! Definitely something you should check out!

Here is a link to "Check this Out" podcast http://checkthisoutsite.weebly.com/

The Library of Congress website

WEBSITE ↬ Library of Congress

AUDIENCE ↬ mainly teachers, with some content appropriate for students

CONTENT ↬ great for history, but no need to limit this one

GRADE LEVELS ↬ ALL! including professional development!

We visit the Library of Congress on our 8th grade Washington, DC trip and I am always blown away by the architecture. It is highly impressive! Once you soak in the beauty, you can then begin to soak in the history and the beauty of what the Library of Congress contains ... the books, the resources, the collections, and more. 

W O W!

Now, we can't all go there in person. But we CAN visit their website! And they have a website packed with resources for teachers and students. Here are just a few things you can do/find on their site:

• search their catalogue
• search by historical topic
• listen to recordings - the one currently highlighted is titled "Voice Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories"
• check out their "Digital Collections" to find collections from ballroom dancing, to papers from Alexander Graham Bell, to African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, and more!

And if you are a teacher, YES! they have a section devoted to you! You can find materials to use in your classroom (hello primary sources!), professional development FOR teachers, search filters, and so much more.

Day 15: Templates for Teachers

Templates for Teachers [LINK]

My last share of these 15 days is a very personal one. My colleague & friend, Beth Kingsley  (@bethkingsley13) & I created this site. We very much enjoy creating templates for activities that can be used in any classroom. This site is built from a love of teaching and learning. Please feel free to click on any of our templates, preview them and then click the "Use Template" to make it your own. You are welcome to modify as needed. Our hope is that you find something here that can serve you and or your students soon!

We will be working over the next several weeks to provide a better organization to the site ... so for now, please scroll through. We look at this site as a work-in-progress for sure! There is even a place for you to submit a request for a template we can create & share. We 💖 this stuff!

We have templates for:

• newsletters
• class award certificates
• magazine covers
• "Who Was ...?" books
• holiday themed activities
• digital badges
• "Who Would Win?"
• social media
• lesson plans

. . . . and more!

Finally, we are excited to announce we will be presenting at OETC (the Ohio Educational Technology Conference) on February 14. We'd love to see you there! We will spend some time sharing our site and then dive into "how" we create what we do, then provide some time for you to create!


Please click HERE for the collection of all 15 resources.

Day 14: Book Creator for Chrome

Book Creator for Chrome [LINK]

My first interaction with Book Creator was their iPad app. Our 1st graders used it each year for a small project. It was pretty cool, but it's use was isolated to the iPads. It's a wonderful app - we really did 💖 it! But for it to be widely used, it was tough. We had one cart for the entire building. Fast forward a couple of years and Book Creator now has a web-based version ... for Chrome ... and it's FREE!!!

My district is lucky enough to be 1:1 with Chromebooks from 1st through 12th grade. Book Creator provides all of our students to allow their creative juices flow in an e-book format and it's great! Book Creator also continues to be more and more robust offering additional features like an easier way to include images and allowing you to embed videos and other media.

Recently, a 3rd grade teacher in one of my buildings asked me to help a few of her kiddos present their "passion projects". Three of them wanted to make books. It would be easy to encourage them to use Google Slides (which I 💖), but I wanted to give them a different option. I showed them Book Creator and after about 45 minutes, they are well on their way to some pretty amazing books! We started off with a discussion of which was the best layout for their topic -- they had great questions -- and were a little timid to make their selection! When we "presented" their cover and first 2 pages, they lit up! It feels a lot like a real book turning pages.

I encouraged them to look at the mountains of books in their classroom to help them make their decisions. I loved the seriousness in their eyes when they evaluated whether or not to include an inside title page or not. Shortly before my time with them was up, I 'teased' the idea of including a video in their books ... at first, disbelief, then excitement! Book Creator is a very user-friendly program and these 3rd graders were able to pick up on it quickly. 

I look forward to continue this adventure with them and see what they create!

I can't say enough how rewarding it is to show students an idea, watch them make it their own, and then they dig in for more!!! From the very beginning, I could tell they were hooked! And I kept reminding them THEY are the authors so every decision is the right one 😊! 

Did I mention they are in 3rd grade???

Here are a few resources for Book Creator:

• Book Creator Teacher Resources [LINK]
• 50 ways to use Book Creator in your classroom [LINK]
• literally packed with ideas for use in ANY/EVERY classroom!
• Common Sense Media:
• review [LINK]
• lesson plan ideas [LINK]

Please click HERE for the collection of all 15 resources.

Day 13: The Kid Should See This

The Kid Should See This website [LINK]

I came across this website 100% by accident and boy am I excited!!! This is a curated website of random and AWESOME videos! The author of the site explains it like this:

The Kid Should See This connects busy teachers and parents to a growing library of smart, short, & super-cool, “not-made-for-kids, but perfect for them” videos that can be watched in the classroom or together at home. Enjoy 8-12 new vids each week, and search 4,000+ videos in the archives, curated by me, Rion Nakaya, with help from my 8 & 10 year olds.

To really understand today's share - please visit the site. There are endless ways to incorporate into your class. Give students the title of the video and let them predict the answer - or try to figure out what the video is going to show ... let them browse & find one that is interesting to them and let them investigate that topic further ... it might just spark them into making their own videos! [Hey! My Day 1 share could be perfect for this - Adobe Spark for Edu.] 


Here are some videos I've got to highlight for you:

• How does a cruciverbalist create crossword puzzles? [LINK]
• An accidental toy inventor’s shapeshifting designs [LINK]
• How can bananas make music? [LINK]
• How to make a flipbook [LINK]
• Revealing the true scale of the universe with VFX [LINK]

..... and SO many more!!!

Please click HERE for the collection of all 15 resources.

Day 11: Character Scrapbook by Scholastic

Character Scrapbook by Scholastic [LINK]

I have about a 20 minute drive to and from school. I began listening to podcasts about 2 years ago as a way to soak up more cool thoughts and do some of what I like to call #PDinthecar . One of my regular listens - Check this Out with Ryan and Brian - is a really good one. Episode #98 "New Connection" gave me today's resource.

Brian Briggs shared "Character Scrapbook" by Scholastic. I was highly intrigued! He described it as a site where students can go and create a character and then list out characteristics about that character. Sure enough - that's the gist! 

Ultimately, these can be printed, but another idea is to have students complete this and take a screenshot, then compile all into a Google Slide for the entire book. I can see that being a pretty cool class activity. 

Now - what if you don't teach ELA? I can see this easily being done in History class - historical figures rather than characters from a book. And 

I really like this site - especially to use for a quick activity. BUT .... I felt the options to build the character were somewhat limited. Sooooooo ... if you are looking for a bit more customization, I created this Google Slide you can copy [http://bit.ly/characterslide] for you/your students to use. 

Swap out the bear with the chosen character - or use Slide 2 to create your own version of the character and then insert on Slide 1. Collecting all the slide and creating a comprehensive slidedeck so all the students can see is a great way to share with all students (& don't forget about sharing the link to the parents!) so further discussions can happen. 

I also included a few "extension" ideas (you can find them on Slide 1). I love when I see students dive into an activity and I always try to think a few steps out by having something "extra" for students to chose from to push them a little further. I also try to balance allowing for FULL creation (Slide 2 where they can start their character from scratch) with a more guided piece (Slide 1) where everyone has a starting place, no matter the skill level.

I hope you enjoy BOTH of these activities! If you like the character slide I created, I encourage you to check out the website I co-created with Beth Kingsley called "Templates for Teachers" [http://bit.ly/templatesforteachers]. We have many more of these types of activities ready to go!

Please click HERE for the collection of all 15 resources.