California History Social Studies Framework used often in conjunction w/Common Core Standards for Language Arts and Literacy for History/Social Sciences, Science, Technical Subjects (.pdf)
Resources for Teaching about Racism, Racial Injustice, and Human Rights
Compiled by the National Society of the Social Studies, very comprehensive!
Books about America List of books, all age levels
Library of Congress Images, lesson plans, primary sources
National Association for Media Literacy in Education - Resources: Race, Equity and Social Justice
Docs Teach
From the National Archives, online tool for teaching with primary resources, including activities Their Document Analysis with Students page gives good guidelines and resources (downloads) for analyzing a variety of primary sources, for ex, a photo, a map. Constitution activities are available here (older students). There is an iPad app available. If you register you can share activities you create with your students.
17 DBQ & Constructed Response Questions for Elementary Students DBQ=Document Based Questions
Brainpop Social Studies Brainpop websites require subscription, ask if your school has one.
Teaching History.org Tons of materials here...K-12. Here are a few examples:
Teaching Guides Searchable by grade level, guides for teaching history in the classroom
Adapting Documents for the Classroom: Equity and Access
From TeachingHistory.org, this website helps you in "Preparing and modifying primary source documents so that all students can read and analyze them in their history classrooms."
Hyperdocs History/Geography
These are samples shared by other teachers, edit them, make them your own, or just use the resources & links! Share back any improvements you've made, or how you've tweaked them.
6 Techniques for Building Reading Skills--in Any Subject from Edutopia
Can you Tell Fake News from Real News?
Best Resources for Teaching "What If" History Lessons
"In many of our classes, I think, students tend to look at history as just the learning of facts that are set in stone and almost as destined to be…Through a “What if?” project, I think students can gain a greater grasp of the fragility, interconnections and imponderables that we confronted in our past and will face in our future." -Larry Ferlazzo
Google Arts and Culture-Themes
American Democracy, Black History and Culture, Made in Japan, Preserving Maya Heritage, Day of the Dead to name a few...
Google MyMaps
Have students create their own maps tracing routes, discoveries, landmarks, whatever you can imagine! Saved in Google Drive. Easy to learn! Ss can also explore with Google Maps Treks and Google Street View (great for geographic features)
Social Studies Apps from Common Sense Media
ScribbleMaps Same idea as GoogleMyMaps
5 Effective Note Taking Techniques
Your students from 3rd to 8th need to learn to take notes. Here are a few of the most common techniques. It's good to teach them a variety of methods, then eventually they can pick the one most effective for themselves.
Cornell Notes and Visual Note Taking
Sutori
This is a timeline tool where you can add text, images and videos and even mini quizzes to check for understanding. Easy to use. Tutorial here.
Use Reader View on your browser to eliminate distracting ads. See this page, scroll down to "Reader View."
Peaks and Valleys A 3D tour of the world’s highest and lowest points.
National Geographic Society Teacher Resources
NGS Map Resources You can create and print maps, use map games, see current events and more.
PBS Making North America Lesson plans and Interactive Map, looks gorgeous
Also: Google Earth - Folktales from around the world Lesson plans, neat stuff!
Map games similar to Wordle:
Teaching California Free lesson plans and resources, click the download symbol to get the complete lesson.
California Native Americans Facts about different tribes in California
El Pueblo de Los Angeles Website, w/video about multicultural roots of Los Angeles
California Missions List A nice list of facts for each mission.
CA Parks Online Resources Science and history resources K-12
Lesson plan resource Missions
The Colombian Exchange from PBS
An interactive that includes text, videos & activities. "Students develop their literacy skills through a social studies focus on how the the Columbian Exchange impacted life on both sides of the Atlantic."
The Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois Confederacy)
These resources correspond with gr. 5 "The Land and People Before Columbus" standards. Tribes in the Confederacy: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora nations. Lesson plans, poster, stories, connections to the US Constitution. Also includes way of life, lodging, wampum. From the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.
A Race of Discovery
A good intro to exploration...Description from Richard Byrne: "A Race of Discovery does a nice job of showing visitors the significant stops on historical journeys. Unfortunately, the maps are light on details within those stops...I'd use these maps as a model that students could follow to create their own historical journey comparison maps in Google's My Maps. My Maps lets students create maps with multiple layers. I'd have students use that function to create one layer for the historical journey with detailed placemarks then one layer for the current journey."
Living Maya Time
(gr 4-8, English or Spanish) "Join us in an exploration of the Maya Calendar system and its intricate cycles. Hear the voices of contemporary Maya people as they weave their past and present together, and share with us their living traditions of Maya time." Activities to download, including math & social studies, and resources as well (videos, images, calendar resources & more). From the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.
Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
Includes journal excerpts, images, maps & audio/video recordings of the journals.
For background information:
The Transatlantic Slave Trade from Crash Course on Black American History
Part of this video explains how exploration brought slaves to the Spanish & English colonies.
PBS- Revolution and a New Nation The Corps of Discovery... 2 resources
DocsTeach - American Revolution - Primary sources and activities around the American Revolution
For background information--
From Crash Course on Black American History
Books that Explore the Refugee Experience (all ages)
NewsELA (awesome! can also change Lexile level of article) free, or you can pay if you want more features
ProCon
Free, articles that offer argumentative writing, article pro and con different issues. Good for mentor text as well as seeing both sides of an issue
The NY Times Learning Network
Lesson plans linked to current events for upper elementary to high school students
Facing History and Ourselves
"We help students learn about hatred and bigotry so they can stop them from happening in the future." More upper grade, there are free lesson plans, ideas, downloadable files and books, links to current events and history.
CNN Student News
You can scaffold these stories, watch the video, discuss. Current events.