North Korean Museum Guide Lesson on the Korean War

This amazing lesson utilizes incredibly RARE, hard-to-find documents from a North Korean museum guidebook to analyze the Korean War from North Korea's viewpoint!

These documents give a fascinating insight into the hyper-propagandistic perspective of North Korea and why the current regime is so antagonistic toward the United States. With the current tension over Kim Jong-un's threats and missile tests, this is a wonderful resource for you to use in your classes!

Have your students analyze the wonderfully communist writing style of North Korea, such as:

"Long live peerless Patriot General Kim II Sung!"

"In Defence of Azure Sky of Fatherland"

"What awaits US imperialist aggressors is only defeat and death!"

Included in this download is a 2 page worksheet, 1 page of directions and suggested lesson extensions, and 20 pages of documents from the "Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum" in Pyongyang, North Korea (DPRK)!

You can download this entire resource here. It is truly a fascinating lesson that can be adapted for AP or IB classes down through traditional middle school students based on the suggested extensions and included resources!

     

Flash Freebie on Modern Ethnic & Religious Conflicts

I've had a great week and wanted to celebrate and thank everyone out there who has supported me, the blog, and my store! I just posted a new worksheet reading on modern ethnic and religious conflicts around the world that will be free to download for the next 24 hours!

  

I use it for my 10th grade World History II students to cover recently added standards on conflicts around the modern world. Please head here and download yours! After 24 hours, this will go up to its regular price $1.49

Thanks so much for all your support!

Great Video Resource - The Cloud Biography

As my classes are finishing up our content before state assessments begin and moving toward more reviews. A great resource for short video biographies is the Youtube channel of The Cloud Biography.

Each of their videos are between 2-4 minutes and highlight the essential things students need to know. They seemingly have hundreds of videos on almost every major person from World and US History - including some that are hard to find good information for.

For example, here's one on Robespierre for my World History II students:

Or Susan B. Anthony for US History:

I posted a bunch of them to my class' Blackboard site for students to view at home and will show a couple on the most important people in class. Fantastic because they take up very little class time, but are focused on good content!

EVERY Resource to Review US History!

This amazing set of review materials is everything you need to get your American or US History students ready for a final exam or state assessment!

Included in this bundle is:

1. The Ultimate American History Review Packet and Notes - a 17 page packet and 34 slide Powerpoint that covers ALL essential information students need to know about ALL of American History!
2. The Complete US History Outline Review Guide - 15 pages of fill-in outline notes from all of US History
3. The Snoop Dogg Review Guide Bundle - all 4 Snoop Dogg American History cloze review guides.
4. The Early American History Vocabulary Word Search Review - to cover early vocabulary. 

Plus 2 bonus review guides on important quotes from US History AND 2 bonus 50 Question practice exams! Both exams could serve as amazing final exams for your class!

 All of these have helped me to have among the highest pass rates in the county on our state assessment! Each is fantastic for visual learners, ELL, and special education students because it breaks down complex topics in US History in simple ways students can understand.

I promise you these are fantastic review materials that will DEFINITELY help your students prepare for an exam!

Space Race Newspaper and Timeline Lesson Plan

This is a fantastic, visual lesson on America and the Soviet Union's Space Race during the Cold War! It includes 11 one-page readings on key events in the space race that students use to create newspaper pages.

Students then present their newspapers and create timelines to see how the Soviets and Americans progressed. Everything you need for this lesson is included: easy to follow directions, a great newspaper template, all the readings, samples, and an answer key.

The events include: Sputnik, Laika the Dog, John Glenn, Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, the Voyager, Hubble, and more. This can be differentiated in your classes by having students work in pairs, groups, or individually.

I love it because it captures the artists, writers, visual and kinesthetic learners all in one lesson!

You can find more pictures of this lesson here on Facebook. While there, you can "Like" my page on for updates, free giveaways, links, and more! Thanks!

How Technology & BYOD can Transform Education

Here is a great clip about the Katy school system and how they moved to a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in order to increase student engagement. It's from Cisco so obviously there's a bias there, but it doesn't take away from the points made by the educators. Lots of good points here:

America's Founding Fathers Magic Motion PowerPoint Lesson

This amazing lesson features a PowerPoint on America's Founding Fathers filled with Harry Potter-style "magical portraits" that move, blink, smile, and look around your classroom!

Turn a boring PowerPoint into a dynamic activity that will engage your visual learners and have your students gasping when they see Thomas Jefferson smile and wink at them! I promise they will be howling with delight!

The PowerPoint includes a warm up, notes for each founding father, and 7 moving video portraits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Mason!

The videos are also separate files that you can insert anywhere or use in any other resource. You can download this lesson as a zipped folder by clicking here.

Take Your Students on a Civil Rights Roadtrip!

A great activity for engaging kinesthetic learners and students who have a hard time focusing is to get them up and moving around the classroom. For this new lesson on major events of the Civil Rights Movement, this theory is paired with the famous Freedom Riders who traveled the South registering voters.

Included are 7 one page readings on major events of the Civil Rights Movement (Brown Vs. The Board of Ed., The Little Rock 9, The Montgomery Bus Boycott, etc) that students read as they travel around the room.

As your students stop and read about each event, they complete a graphic organizer and map each event. This is a great activity to get students moving around the room. It can also be completed in groups, or used for student presentations.

A completed example is included as well as several additional ideas on how to present the lesson. You can download this lesson for use in your class by clicking here.

New Dinner Party Seating Lessons!

One of the most difficult things about planning a wedding is the seating arrangements. My wedding had tables of 8 and we struggled to put together groups with things in common who would enjoy each other's company.

This process got me thinking that this would make for a great lesson plan! Students have to think critically about various figures in history to seat them at a table with things they have in common. It makes for a great review after presenting information on a lot of people.

Here are a few that I have used in both World and US History:

Cold War Dinner Party

In this one, students seat 8 Cold War figures in down to dinner to help ease Cold War tension. Your students will have to think critically about the ideas that each shared in common and who would not get along and turn the dinner "frosty".

Age of Enlightenment Salon Party

One of the most difficult units for my World History II students is the Enlightenment. There are a lot of very similar people they need to know, all with difficult names. This Enlightenment Salon Party is a fantastic way for students to process their learning. I first present the important figures of the Enlightenment in this powerpoint you can download for free here. Here are some sample images from the powerpoint:

     

French Revolution Dinner Party

This next lesson on the French Revolution has students place 8 key figures like Robespierre and Louis XVI in a way that keeps the dinner from turning into a "reign of terror".  Besides just identifying people as Jacobins or monarchists, students must make connections between various ideas and philosophies. The lesson includes 8 short biographies students can read in groups and discuss. Here are some sample images from this lesson:

      

 

Gilded Age Dinner Party

Lastly, for American History, I created this lesson for a Gilded Age Dinner Party that includes both Robber Barons and Progressives. Like in the French Revolution lesson, students read biographies of 8 people and must think critically to seat them next to others and justify their seating arrangements.

The Ultimate WWI Unit Resource Bundle

This fantastic bundle includes an incredible set of resources for your World War I unit! I have been using all of these in my classes for a number of years to fantastic success when I teach about WWI.

Each of these individual products is included:

1. World War I & Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points Flag Project 

2. World War I and German-American Loyalty Speech Analysis Worksheet 

3. World War I Propaganda Analysis 

4. Post World War I Map Analysis Worksheet 

5. Treaty of Versailles and 14 Points Venn Diagram 

6. WWI Powerpoint Presentation Lesson Plan 

I promise, the PowerPoint above is one of the best presentations you will ever use! It covers absolutely everything you need to cover for the Great War and can be spread over several periods.

All of the included worksheets are great for supporting learning and are based on essential learning standards.

As a bonus, I also included several additional worksheets not on TpT, a full test and answer key, and a webquest! All of the combined resources would be $18 not including the additional resources, so this bundle is an incredible value!

You can download this unit plan by clicking here.

Free Beautiful Age of Enlightenment Presentation Lesson

The Age of Enlightenment has always been an important but dry topic for my students. To help make things more engaging, I created this beautiful PowerPoint Lesson which you can download for FREE here.

Students create a foldable book in which we draw pictures and take notes on 5 Enlightenment thinkers: Hobbes, Voltaire, Locke, Montesquieu, & Rousseau. This visually stunning powerpoint contains the process for making the book as well as notes, quotes, and an exit ticket for students.

It covers all Common Core Standards material from World History on the Enlightenment, but in a simple way for students to understand.

This fantastic FREE lesson can be downloaded here.

As a culminating activity, my classes complete the "Enlightenment Salon Party" activity which you can download here. This allows them to think critically about each philosophers ideas, find similarities, and use real-world processing.

Thank you for looking and hope you enjoy!

Great Video on the Berlin Wall

From the History Channel comes this awesome short video on the Berlin Wall (which I'll be covering this week in US History). Includes some very cool animations combined with historic footage:


Prior to showing this video, we do a lesson on the Berlin Blockade as a prelude to the wall being built and I include this great story about the American pilot Gail Halvorsen, nicknamed "Uncle Wiggle Wings the Candy Bomber" because he parachutted bags of candy to the children of West Berlin. A great little history story for students!

D-Day on Color

Here is a compilation of some amazing color footage from the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France (Operation Overlord). George Stephens, a film maker during the war, took the footage with other cameramen hoping to use it in a documentary.


Normandy in Color by brest44

In my class I showed this as part of an amazing Apple Keynote presentation I put together on the major battles of World War II. You can download this file here for use on your Mac computer. There are some wonderful capabilities Keynote has that PowerPoint does not. I definitely recommend trying it out if you have the chance!

The Glorious Revolution & Parliament Limiting the English Monrachy

This beautiful PowerPoint presentation covers the period of English history after the death of Queen Elizabeth I through the reign of William and Mary. In simple, visually engaging slides, each monarch (and Oliver Cromwell) is reviewed and their struggles with Parliament are highlighted. 

It includes slides on James I, Charles I, Charles II, Oliver Cromwell, the Commonwealth period, Charles II, James II, and William & Mary. 

All of which are fantastic and informative for your students, but can also be modified to fit your needs. This also includes a warm up and exit ticket to review your student's understanding of the lesson. 

You can download this lesson here. Hope you enjoy it!

The Ultimate World History II Review Packet Bundle

This review packet is by far the best way to get your students prepared for a final exam! It includes a complete 19 page packet and 37 slide PowerPoint presentation on a complete year of material.

The 19 pages each cover a unit of World History:

1. World Empires at 1500
2. The Renaissance
3. The Reformation
4. The Age of Exploration
5. Absolute Monarchs
6. The Enlightenment
7. Revolutions in Science & Society
8. Latin American Revolutions
9. Nationalism
10. The Industrial Revolutions
11. Imperialism
12. World War I
13. The Inter-War Period
14. World War II
15. Genocides
16. The Cold War
17. Independence Movements
18. The Modern World
19. World Religions

Each page is filled with fantastic graphic organizers, visuals, and outlines to help students understand key information. All information is based on state and Common Core Standards and focused on helping students focus on essential topics.

When completed, this packet makes for a perfect study guide for World History. Every single vocabulary term, important figure, and event from the year is included! I guarantee your students will have a greater comprehension of the entire curriculum.

I usually take about 2 weeks and cover a few pages a day and my students always do amazing on our state assessments. You can download this complete bundle with everything included by clicking here!

Thank you for looking!