Social Studies

Inspiring Middle School Literacy (Social Studies) - This site features online self-paced lessons for blended learning. Lessons are designed to enhance the literacy skills of struggling readers in grades 5–8. Each lesson uses videos, interactive activities, note taking, reading, and writing to present students with an engaging social studies topic. This resource is free (funded by the Walmart Foundation), but teachers must set up classes and enroll students to allow them to use the lessons.

National Archives: Docs Teach - Thousands of primary sources selected from the national archives and ready-to-use tools for teaching with documents in the classroom.

Share My Lesson: Resources for Middle Grades Social Studies - An online community for teacher collaboration that contains lessons, presentations, student handouts, and assessments aligned to standards for grades 7 and 8.

Social Studies Interactives for Grades 7-12 - Simulations and games help students learn about history, geography, ancient civilizations, and current events.

Teaching History - Teaching materials, history content, and articles highlight best practices in teaching social studies.

World History Matters - A portal to world history websites developed by the Center for History and New Media.

Smithsonian Education - Click on Educators to search for lesson plans and activities. Student resources, such as My Wonderful World, allow learners to explore history and culture by selecting a continent.

Discovery Education - From the Teacher menu, select 6-8 Social Studies to see more than 500 resources for teaching middle grades social studies topics and concepts.

National Constitution Center - Under the Learn menu, you'll find lesson plans, activities, games, videos and historical documents. The site also includes a library of podcasts on contemporary issues and topics of historical/political interest.

National Geographic - A wealth of ideas, activities, interactives, maps, lessons and units for teaching social studies.

Watch, Know, Learn - WatchKnowLearn has indexed approximately 50,000 educational videos, placing them into a directory of over 5,000 categories. The videos are available without any registration or fees to teachers in the classroom. Select the subject from the directory; then set the age filter. Refine your search by including a key word. Educators are invited to rate videos and to submit additional resources for consideration.