50th Anniversary March on Washington Sale!

To start off this week-long remembrance of the 1963 March on Washington, This fantastic lesson plan inspired by the "Freedom Riders" will be 50% off!

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.

This is an awesome lesson for your Civil Rights Movement unit, gets kids moving around the room, while also working on their reading skills!

Be sure to look out for more Civil Rights Resource deals all week long!

March on Washington 50th Anniversary

This coming August 28th marks the 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington, one of the largest political rallies for civil rights in world history. There are a lot of events going on in Washington, DC this weekend to commemorate the anniversary.

Here is some rare footage of the event, including marchers, speeches, and of Martin Luther King, Jr:



To commemorate the event this week, be on the look out for giveaways, sales, and specials on all of my Civil Rights Movement lesson plans and teaching resources!

Thanks for stopping by!

Huge Back to School Sale

I know some teachers go back in a week while others are back already, but the biggest sale of the year - Back to School 2013 is this Sunday & Monday - August 18-19!

Every single lesson plan, teaching resource, PowerPoint, project, worksheet, etc will be 28% off! 

That's going to result in the lowest prices ever for some resources! For example you can save $36 on this Bundle of Every American History Resource that is already just 1/3 the price of products individually! The same for this Bundle of Every World History Resource! Both of these products will rise in price as new products are added, so this is the absolute lowest they will ever be! By downloading now, however, you get every resource that will ever be added to the store - FOREVER!

There's so many more amazing resources for your World and American History students available! These include:

1. Breathtaking, engaging PowerPoints in 3D!
2. Already discounted resource bundles that will be discounted even further!
3. Best-selling Warm Up Questions to start every day of the year with a CCSS focus!
4. Fun Craftivities for younger students!
5. Newer resources like this fun Marriage Counselling for the Union sheet, this great Emmett Till QR Code Project that integrates technology, or these Extra Credit Restroom Passes!
6. Plus so much more in my Students of History store all for 28% off!

All resources are of the absolute highest quality, have been used in my diverse classes successfully and proven to be highly engaging and reach all students. I promise you will not be let down. These amazing lessons can save you countless hours this year coming up with new strategies to engage your students.

Start looking through the store now and I know you'll find resources you'll love!

Excellent Tool to Limit Students Time Out of the Classroom

If your students are anything like mine, they are constantly asking to use the restroom or to get a drink of water. I was always hesitant to say no because you never do 100% know when a student really needs to go or just wants to check his/her phone or meet up with their friends in the bathroom.

A few years ago this problem stopped for me though! I created these extra credit bathroom passes for my students and they are absolutely one of the best tools I have ever used for my classes! If you have an issue with students constantly wanting to use the bathroom, I promise this will solve the problem immediately!

I've done the distribution for these a few different ways at the beginning of the quarter. Some years and for some classes, I gave each student 3 or 4 depending on the period (those classes after lunch usually require more legitimate bathroom trips than in the morning).

Other years we played games the first week such as this one where students earn passes by naming as many people from the video as they can:

Either way, the passes good for either 5 or 10 extra credit points (both are provided) or one trip to the bathroom. When a student needs to use the restroom or get a drink, he or she turns in a pass. However many are left at the end of the semester, they get that much in extra credit!

When I implemented these several years ago, my students' "bathroom" trips dropped dramatically. The best thing is you never have to refuse anyone! It works like a charm and great for classroom management. Your students will be in the room and on task longer so that you can teach them more effectively. It's an incredible classroom management tool!

You'll find that those constant wanderers never leave the room! And if you have students who do use them up and are doing poorly in your class, think of the ammo you have for a parent conference! "Well, if only he hadn't gone to the bathroom so much, he could have 20 points extra credit."

You can find passes for 5 and 10 points here!

Thanks for looking!

Renaissance and Reformation Lesson Plan Bundle

This brand-new amazing, comprehensive Renaissance and Reformation Unit Bundle includes a wide array of resources to teach your World History units on the Renaissance and Reformation!

All of the following TpT resources are included:

1. A gorgeous PowerPoint on Renaissance Art, Literature, and Philosophies

2. A creative, Pop-Up Notes and PowerPoint on the Protestant Revolution  

3. This brand-new Renaissance Art Show and Newspaper Project

     

4. A reading and worksheet to help students Compare the Beliefs of Catholics & Protestants

5. This fun and hysterical Snoop Dogg Renaissance, Reformation, Discovery, & Monarchs Cloze Reading

6. An interactive Am I Machiavellian? Quiz Based on The Prince

Plus a map activity on Europe during the 1500's and a full test with multiple versions and answer keys not found on TpT!

Priced individually, all of these resources would cost over $16! This Renaissance and Reformation Lesson Plan Bundle will save you money and countless hours of preparation!

Six Strategies ANY Teacher Can Use to Increase Student Engagement in History Classes

1. Engage Students the Minute They Walk In!
One of the best strategies to get students on task immediately is to have a daily warm up activity that activates prior knowledge and connects to that day's lesson. Here are 120 amazing daily warm up activities for US History that you can use every day of the school year!

For your World History classes, here is a PowerPoint download of 150 Warm Up Activities that you can use all year long!


2. Make Your Presentations Come Alive With Movement & 3D!
Now matter how engaging your PowerPoints are, at some point they are still just pictures and text. What will really WOW your students and knock them off their seats is when the pictures come alive - blinking, smiling, looking around the room like the "magic portraits" in Harry Potter.

I have created a series of these for World and US History that will truly amaze your students. There are amazing, complete lessons on The French Revolution with 24 slides and 9 Magic Portraits, a great Founding Fathers of America PowerPoint with 7 Magic Portraits, a 9-slide Philosophers of the Enlightenment "Magic Portrait" Lesson, and many more!

Make your Presentations in 3D! Everyone knows that the biggest summer blockbusters now are all in IMAX or 3D, so why not engage your students with the same strategies? I have a whole category of 3D lessons that can be downloaded by clicking here!

You can even purchase a class set of 3D glasses for your students here!

Then you can use simple anaglyph 3D pictures to create visually stunning, 3D lessons that will come alive in your classroom! You can download this fantastic 3D lesson on the Age of Imperialism, features beautiful slides like these:

Or for your US History classes, here is a similarly engaging 3D lesson on the Transcontinental Railroad! Over 22 slides, it tells the amazing story of the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad from the Homestead Act through the hammering of the Golden Spike at Promontory Point, Utah. The material is based on state and common core standards of US History.

4. Make Your Worksheets Fun!
Reviewing vocabulary and reinforcing concepts is something that is important for students, but can obviously become monotonous. I was thinking about ways to make my review worksheets more engaging for students when I came across a "Snoop Dogg Translator". I ran my CLOZE reading guides through the translator, than added my own flourishes to create these hilarious review guides that students go crazy for!

  

For US History, you can download a Snoop Review Bundle that includes all 4 Snoop Dogg (or Snoop Lion) review guides on early America from the colonies through the Civil War. Each is also available as an individual download as well.

For World History, this Snoop Dogg review covers the World at 1500, Renaissance, Reformation, Age of Discovery, and Absolute Monarchs all in one!

5. Add The Thrill of Competition to your Assessments!
The Vocabulary Football League (VFL) has helped my students increase their vocabulary skills and performance on our state tests as much if not more than anything else. My students actually look forward to these quizzes!

After being placed on teams, each week they take a simple 10-question vocabulary quiz based on words we have covered that week. Add up the team's score and that's it!

I keep standings on the board and I'm telling you, the kids love it! I have students encouraging each other to study! When it's coming from them and not the teacher, you know it's working!

6. Have Students Act It Out & Perform!
This World History lesson on Imperialism has students analyzing one of 8 cartoons from the Age of Imperialism and creating short scenes to act out for the class. In order to act out the scenes, students must think critically about the information presented and they almost always create memorable scenes that will help the rest of your students remember the concepts.

I have my US History students act out this short scene from a contemporary play about the settlement of Virginia colony. In the scene, a captain tells them all sorts of outlandish lies to entice two men to move to Virginia. It is a fantastic way to introduce students to reasons why people would come to the New World.

ALL of these amazing resources can be used to bring your classroom alive! Hope you all have a wonderful school year!