Highlights of numerous seasons of the popular PBS: Finding Your Roots program with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. In this collection you will find: Video (55), Document (9), Webpage (1), Lesson Plan (9), Media Gallery (18) for Grades 5-13+
Author: edselect
I am a retired teacher-librarian, mother, and grandmother who values learning for all ages. I want to support learning in schools and homes with my edSelect website. I hope you find it useful.
PBS has a collection of a variety of media to introduce your students to George Washington and the American Revolution. Included this Collection are: Image (2), Interactive (3), Video (3), Document (1), Media Gallery (1) for Grades 5-12
See the progress of the war through the actions and decisions of General George Washington, such as direct confrontation, military strategy, disease prevention, and spy techniques.
- Yorktown Now or Never
- Yorktown: The French Alliance
- Yorktown: The Siege Begins
- Spy Techniques of the Revolutionary War: Culper Code Book
- Smallpox Inoculation Letter
- Washington Crossing the Delaware Painting- Interactive
- Interactive Map of the Battle of Trenton
A Middle School Teacher and Principal discuss the use of picture books in the Middle School classroom do introduce complex literary techniques and reading strategies.
“Charlie Anderson by Barbara Abercrombie, is about a cat who spends the days in the woods and comes home to sleep with his owner, only to leave again the next morning.”
“It is a parallel story and requires quite a bit of inferring on the part of the reader, ” says teacher Jason DeHart.
14 Simple Tips for Teaching Online
Practical ideas to help teachers with developing their online teaching lessons and resources.
Also great links to integrate technology in your class
Task-Oriented Question Construction Wheel Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy
Print this page to have it by your side when you are building tiered activities for your students.
❇️ My Cute Graphics: Free for personals and educational use.
❇️Pixabay: Free image and royalty free stock. Search for images- photos, vector graphics, illustrations, and also videos.
❇️ Emojipedia: Lots of free emojis to add to your google classroom documents. A tip– Use selected emojis on sections of your Google Classroom subjects and documents to help your students stay organized.
Wizardly World is the official Site of the Harry Potter world. You can register for free and investigate everything Harry Potter.
J.K. Rawling has granted open licence to read aloud her books during the Covid-19 outbreak. This means that teachers can post themselves reading to their students. Some teachers never got to finish reading the book they started before the outbreak. Now is your chance to read to your students.
❇️ Daniel Radcliffe reads the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone/Sorcerer’s Stone, ‘The Boy Who Lived’.
❇️ Noma Dumezweni reads Chapter Two: ‘The Vanishing Glass’.
❇️ Eddie Redmayne reads Chapter Three: ‘The Letters from No One’.
❇️ Stephen Fry reads Chapter Four: ‘The Keeper of the Keys”.
❇️ Simon Callow, Bonnie Wright, and Evanna Lynch read Chapter Five: ‘‘Diagon Alley’.
❇️ Jamie Parker and the Broadway cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child read Chapter Six: ‘The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters’. Have a watch and listen. This chapter is read as a script with a wonderful casting of characters reading the parts. Enjoy this read.
❇️ Olivia Colman, Jonathan Van Ness, and Kate McKinnon read Chapter Seven: ‘The Sorting Hat’.
❇️ Alia Bhatt, Alec Baldwin and his daughter Carmen, introduce us to Professor Snape, the Potions teacher at Hogwarts.reads Chapter Eight: ‘The Potions Master’.
❇️ Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol read Chapter Nine: ‘The Midnight Duel”. Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol narrate Harry’s first flying lesson, as well as a midnight adventure in the castle, where he meets a rather unusual dog.
❇️ Whoopi Goldberg reads Chapter Ten: ‘Hallowe’en’.
❇️ David Tennant and David Beckham read Chapter Eleven: “Quidditch”.
❇️ Matthew Lewis, Helen Howard and Imelda Staunton read Chapter Twelve: “The Mirror of Erised’.
❇️ Hugh Bonneville reads Chapter Thirteen: ‘Nicolas Flamel’
❇️ simpleK12 – Just-in-time teacher training
During this time of isolation teachers have the opportunity for self-directed professional development.
Many districts are having their teachers reach out to their students using Google Classroom. If you need technology support to learn how to use Google Classroom to your advantage, look no further. You can sign up for free and then view 30-minute webinars to get you on your way to an online classroom for your students.
❇️ simpleK12 offers lots of free webinars. Sign-up to their site for free to have access to a lot of free webinars and resources.
There is a treasure trove of excellent learning opportunities for teachers here. When I was in the classroom I did pay for the low yearly fee to have access to my learning on-demand. It was worth every penny. I started with the free offerings for some time until I just couldn’t be without what they offered on my timeline. Have a look. You won’t be disappointed.
The webinars are always useful, time-efficient, and presented by teachers in the trenches who offer many practical ideas.
Ministry of Education, Social Studies, History, Geography Grades 1-8 Curriculum
People and Environments: Living and Working in Ontario – cursor down to page 92 of the curriculum to review the expectations for this strand.
Students can determine land use in cities. Then they can design and build their own city using the building templates provided by the British architect studio, Foster + Partners. The templates included are for skyscrapers and a variety of houses.
Have the students brainstorm what is found in a city. (Include: street names, traffic signs, roads, ponds, parks, government buildings, homes, etc)
Students can alternatively create their own city using boxes, Lego, other building blocks, or found material.
Printable Paper Buildings Design your own streetscape from the templates at KraftTrains.com
Ken Burns in the Classroom- PBS Learning Media
Known for a signature style that brings primary source documents, images, and archival video footage to life on screen, these films present the opportunity to pose thought-provoking questions for students, and introduce new ideas, perspectives, and primary sources.
You can search the resources available by Era or by Film. The target audience is for grades 4-12+.
Classroom support resources and National Standards are included with each topic.
There are links to share resources via Google classroom and other social media options.
Students and teachers can signup to the website to keep track of their learning using this resource.
UNUM Ken Burns: One Nation, Many Stories
Ken Burns and his team carefully curate topics for study from his media resources.
The topics are sorted by Themes, Events, People, AP US History Themes, Wars, and Time. You can signup to get new topics in your inbox.
The target audience is for grades 7-12+
Explore the The World War II Museum in New Orleans. The site has many things to offer teachers and students:
- Live Webinars using Zoom. Find presenters on the calendar
- Teachers can sign-up for free to access curated resources best suited for the classroom. Once you sign-up you can build your own document collection.
- Find documents.
- Teaching Toolkits includes:
- Guiding Questions for the topic as a whole, with criteria for good answers
- A curated list of 10 essential documents from our Library
- Relevant Webinars, Podcasts, and YouTube videos
- Other documents-based resources from around TAH.org
- Relevant Presidential Academy resources
- Lesson Plans that complement the documents and other resources
- Podcasts and Videos
- Homeschool Resources
- Presidential Academy: Extensive Online Resources that guide you through key historical issues of the United States.
Complete the booklet below. Use the following sites, books, and atlases to research a country.
Research Booklet for Student Use (Google Slides)
National Geography for Kids
A great site to find primary level reading about for 68 countries to choose from. You will find information about their:
- Geography
- People & Culture
- Nature
- Flag
- Government
- History
- A slide show is included for each country
Factmonster Countries of the World
Each Country Profile provides information on: Geography · Maps · Flag · History · Current ruler · Area · Population · Capital · Largest cities · Languages · Ethnicity/race · Religion · Literacy rate · Economy · Government
Duckster Geography- U.S. and by Continents
Click on a continent, then cursor down to select a country. Facts, maps, and flag can be found. (You might find too many advertisements on this site.)
World Flag Database
Click on the country’s flag to read some fast facts and see the different flags of the country.
Teachers and parents, signup to download free research lapbooks to guide student learning. You will see lots of activity ideas. Look for the Country Lapbook to support your student’s research.
Guggenheim Online Resources: Artists
Featuring over 1,700 artworks by more than 625 artists, the Collection Online presents a searchable database of selected artworks from the Guggenheim’s permanent collection of approximately 8,000 artworks.
- Artists
You then can use the menu across the top of the page to select by: - Venues
- Mediums
- Special Collections
- Dates
- Movements
- Take a Virtual Tour of the museum
Do you think that you could live in space? There are three short videos that show you how it is done. Watch the video to see how Astronaut Karen Nyberg washes her hair in space.
Then you will learn how Astronaut Chris Cassidy has a “close shave”.
I wonder how you would sleep in space? Astronaut Suni Williams shows you how it is done. Have you ever wondered how you go to the bathroom in space? Well, Suni tells you how that is done too!
❇️ Complete the viewing sheet as you watch the videos.
Take a visit to China through the Nature Labs video: China’s Great Forests: What the Giant Panda and Earth’s Climate Share. Complete the Viewers Guide as you watch the video.