Textbook Links
If you look to the side of this post you can see some textbook links I found in the past two years, but here are more. Even if you don't have the books, they are worth a visit for short topical videos, quizzes, primary source documents and more. I found them all here.

Social Studies

Glencoe	Holt Reinhart Winston Online Learning	Houghton Mifflin	Macmillian McGraw Hill
Harcourt	Holt Reinhart Winston	Houghton Mifflin We the People	Scott Foresman

History of the American Revolution
It is amazing how many of these short videos there are out there. Of course, one has to know where to find them and that is not always easy.

History of Colonial America, 1497-1763
A fairly comprehensive overview of our early history. A good review video.

Make Your Own Geography Games
This is a pretty creative geography game. It does take a little work, but you can save it for later and add or subtract to it. I found it from a Tweet (I can't say enough about great tweeting is as a teaching resource) from FreeTech4Teachers

This Traveler IQ challenge compares your geographical knowledge against the World's First Travel Journal's other 5,173,255 travelers who have taken this challenge as of Monday, February 22, 2010 at 02:42AM GMT. (TravelPod is part of the TripAdvisor Media Network) 

US Geography Challenge

QUALITY="high" bgcolor="#000000" WIDTH="450" HEIGHT="375"
NAME="TravelerIQ" ALIGN="middle" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash"
wmode="opaque" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
AllowScriptAccess="always"
FlashVars="gamexml=http://tiq.travelpod.com/cgi-bin/witw?SessionID=00-traveleriq-usa&gameswf=http://tiq.travelpod.com/bin/flash/witw-00.swf&lang=en" >

This Traveler IQ challenge compares your geographical knowledge against the World's First Travel Journal's other 5,173,255 travelers who have taken this challenge as of Monday, February 22, 2010 at 02:42AM GMT. (TravelPod is part of the TripAdvisor Media Network) 

US Geography Challenge

AP US History Website
This site has a ton of multiple choice questions and you can even sign up for a question of the day. It also has a lot of original DBQ questions.

Why You Should Use Google Apps - Google Does!
Yes, everyone working at Google "drinks the cool aid" and it's free. You can use it alone or for your classes or even your school. It includes items such as Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar and more. Look at the clip above for more reasons

Separating Religion and Gov't & Textbook Adoption

The NYTimes has a very interesting look at how the state of Texas adopts its social studies books. Since Texas purchases 48 million books a year, what their Board of Education decides are the core elements of study impact us all since the book companies cater to TX, CA and the other huge districts. This article is a fascinating look at the decision making process and the people behind the decisions.

Website Dedicated to Explorers

This is a great site and many of the explorers that one has to cover in US and World history. Each person has a biography, pictures, lots and lots of links and a webquest (and different levels of searching). I found the resource at the 2.0 Connected Classroom.

Enlarge this document in a new window
Publisher Software from Yudu

Industrial Revolution

So I have been snowbound for a week now and have spent some time on this first assignment back - whenever that will be.  This has a lot of links to period videos, as well as pictures not to mention that it has the highlights that we have to study in VA.  My students will be turning it in via Google Docs which is where I made the assignment and above you can see it on www.yudu.com. 

Too Late to Apologize

This is actually a catchy tune talking about why the US declared independence from England.  It does cover many important points and perhaps you can use it as a staging ground for your own students to write their songs. I got it from a tweet from "nathanwelborne."

The Transcontinental Railroad Video

Here is the first of a two part video on the Transcontinental Railroad.  It is quite good and has period age photos. 

Twenty Two Interesting Ways To Use Twitter In [1]

View more presentations from Jackson Bates.

I can't say enough for Twitter for a way to find teacher resources quickly. It will only take you a week or so to find (there is a search engine) resources and then you will be amazed how helpful it is.

Battle of Little Bighorn

Assuming I ever teach again (thanks to the storm we just weathered and the one that is coming tomorrow night), here will be a site that I will use when we get to westward expansion (yes I am still trying to get through Reconstruction!).  The site has pics and history and is maintained by the US Park Service. 

Fleur-de-Lis
Win or lose the Saints' log has some historical legacy that might be a nice way to start the week with your students as you can see in this article.

Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

New Book on Pulitzer
Five years ago when I was an AP Coordintor, Jamie Morris was one at a neighboring high school. He had previously written a WashPost 2004 book of the year and was offered the $ to write the book above. Read the author's note and I guarantee you will be hooked. Look for it next week when it comes out on the 9th. It includes many new documents and sheds light on Theodore Roosevelt's attempt to have Pulitizer jailed. Here is an essay written on how Morris found an unpublished manuscript written by Pulitzer's brother.

This Day in History - Video Website
There are plenty of sites that give you what happened in history, but the History Channel's one gives you a short video you could show your students as you can see from this link. One of the things it discusses is that Patty Hearst was kidnapped on February 4, 1974 - an event I well remember to this day. You could tie it into the Progressive era when her grandfather was one of the leading yellow journalists esp. regarding the USS Maine in Havana harbor.

CSPAN and Presidents

This CSPAN site has both a brief biography of all 44 US presidents as well as a number of useful links such as to their birthplace, museum/library, gravesite and more. But, it also includes any video that CSPAN has on each president and there is a surprising amount of information here.