Use John Lennon's Imagine to Teach Communism, Capitalism, & Socialism Lesson

This is a fantastic resource that will certainly help your students retain a better grasp on the differences between Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism - along with John Lennon's classic "Imagine"!

Included in this great download is a chart (with a completed answer key), 1-page reading, and detailed instructions on how to implement the resource in a unit on Industrial Revolution or on political/economic philosophies.

The reading very briefly describes an introduction to Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism and how they grew out of the Industrial Revolution. Students use this as a starting point to complete the chart to highlight the basics of each.

You then use John Lennon's "Imagine" to demonstrate the appeal of Communism and Socialism. Some great companion pieces to use with this resource for a complete lesson would be this  Effects of the Industrial Revolution & Communism Lesson Plan or the Industrial Revolution Complete Unit Bundle with everything for a 2-week unit on Industrialization!

You can download this awesome lesson by clicking here!

Thanks for looking!

New Absolute Monarchs and Enlightenment Interactive Notebook

This great new download features 14 Interactive Notebook pages on Absolute Monarchs and the Age of Enlightenment. These creative, engaging Interactive Notebook pages include graphic organizers, creative foldables, timelines, and more!

These are incredible resources for getting students engaged and active in their learning and allowing them to be creative with their notes.

Topics covered include:

♛ Causes and Effects of Absolutism
♛  Louis XIV and the Palace of Versailles
♛ Peter the Great & Russia
♛ Philip II of Spain
♛ England;s defeat of the Spanish Armada
♛ Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War
♛ England's transition to a Constitutional Monarchy
♛ William & Mary and The Glorious Revolution
♛ Enlightenment Ideas
♛ Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu
♛ Mozart, Beethoven, Delacroix and Enlightenment culture
♛ Enlightenment and Revolution
♛  Vocabulary activities and more!

  

These resources are sure to help your students enjoy learning about the Absolutism and Enlightenment and have a better understanding of important concepts, events, and people. You can also find more great resources for teaching about this era in this Complete Enlightenment and Absolute Monarchs Unit Bundle!

Thanks for looking!

You can download this great resource for your classes by clicking here!

Age of Exploration Interactive Notebook

Age of Exploration Interactive Notebook

This download features 11 Interactive Notebook pages on the Age of Exploration. These creative, engaging Interactive Notebook pages include graphic organizers, creative foldables, timelines, and more!

These are incredible resources for getting students engaged and active in their learning and allowing them to be creative with their notes.

Topics covered include:

•  Key Explorers and their Routes
•  Improvements in Navigation (The astrolabe, compass, and lateen sail)
•  The Columbian Exchange
• The Triangle of Trade
•  The Middle Passage
• Spanish Conquistadors
•  Prince Henry the Navigator
• Effects of European Migration
• Responses to the Age of Discover in Asia
• Vocabulary resources and more!

    

These resources are sure to help your students enjoy learning about the Age of Exploration and have a better understanding of important concepts, events, and people. You can also find more great resources for teaching about this era in this Age of Exploration and Discovery Complete Unit Bundle!

Thanks so much for looking!

New Email List for Freebies, Sale Notifications, and other Goodies!

I hope all of you had a wonderful summer and are excited about the start of a new school year! This year, I'd like to do a better job keeping in touch with all of you and providing free resources, sales, and tips about great ideas for the social studies classroom.

In order to do that, I have created an email list that will periodically go out with all sorts of goodies. Please do subscribe if you are interested! I promise not to be spammy or send very often :)

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Back to School Historical Skills Activities and Worksheets

Back to School Historical Skills Activities and Worksheets

This fantastic bundle of activities covers all the essential skills your students need to understand for studying history! It makes for fantastic back to school activities to help your students grasp the skills they will be using all year long!

The worksheets cover all of the following:

• Understanding primary vs. secondary sources
• Reading & creating timelines
• Determining fact from opinion
• Identifying cause & effect
• Understanding map projections
• Human development
• Absolute & relative location
• Climates & reading climographs
• Analyzing early human art

Each resource can be done on its own, as part of station/centers activity, in collaborative groups, or in many more ways that will help students focus on each skill!

Please click here to take a look, preview, and download today!

Thanks for looking!

Year-End Teacher Evaluation Survey for Students & Reflective Teachers

This download is a 2 page end-of-course survey for students to complete about your class to help you the teacher better understand how the year when and reflect on what to change for the next year.

The first page includes 12 statements about your class that students rate from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree". Each of these statements is something that surely apply to any social studies class. Some examples are:

"The grading system was fair"
"In class assignments were useful and helped me to learn the material.
"The amount of homework was fair."

There are also 4 editable blank spaces for you or your students to add your additional class characteristics to rate.

On the 2nd page are 6 open-ended response questions in which students are asked to explain what they liked, disliked, and more about the class.

This is a great tool for effective reflective teaching practices. Each year I give my students this survey to complete anonymously for invaluable feedback about what helped them learn most throughout the year. Every year I gain a new insight about an aspect of my teaching that makes me a better teacher.

You can download it here and use it before the year is out!

Martin Luther King "I Have a Dream" Worksheet, Primary Sources, and Interactive Notebook Activity

This is an excellent, interactive resource for teaching about Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and the March on Washington! It includes a reading, primary sources, worksheet, and pop-up style Interactive Notebook page!

The 1-page reading includes an introduction describing the background leading up to the March on Washington and impact that it had. Links to the speech are includes as well for you to use with your students.

Five primary source images and documents are provided for students to analyze. The worksheet features questions designed to get your students to think critically about the event, speech, and primary sources. A key for this is included for your convenience.

Finally, the Interactive Notebook page has students creating a pop-up of Martin Luther King along with several signs and the Lincoln Memorial. Students then decorate these and add notes based on what they read, hear, and see in the primary sources. Completed sample versions are also included for you to look at with the download.

All of these are explained in a simple teacher's guide which is included as well!

This resource can also be download along with many more as part of this Civil Rights Movement Resource Bundle.

You can download this resource for your classes by clicking here!

Thanks so much for looking!

Selma March for Civil Rights Reading, Worksheet, and Interactive Notebook

This excellent Civil Rights Movement resource features an information text style reading on the historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights. Also included is a reading comprehension worksheet and Interactive Notebook page for your students to use based on the reading!

The 1-page reading describes the purpose and leaders of the Selma March as well as the infamous events on Edmund Pettus Bridge. It concludes with the effect the March had on getting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed.

The worksheet features questions designed to get your students to think critically about the March and gauge their reading comprehension skills. A key for this is included for your convenience.

Finally, the Interactive Notebook page has students create their own vision of what happened on Pettus Bridge and describe the groups involved. This is a great activity for students to work on based on what they read! Completed sample versions are also included for you to look at with the download.

You can download this great resource on the Selma March by clicking here!

Thanks so much for looking!

Newly Updated Industrial Revolution Unit of Lessons

This fantastic Industrial Revolution lesson bundle includes 22 amazing resources to teach an engaging, student-centered unit on the Industrial Revolution! It includes 4 PowerPoints along with multiple worksheets, Common Core-aligned readings, games and projects that work well for almost any group of students.

The resources cover urbanization, inventors and inventions, working conditions, Robber Barons, Communism, and more!

All of the following individual resources are included:

1. The best-selling Industrial Revolution Child Labor Story with Questions.

2. A creative Industrial Revolution Building Block PowerPoint

3. The Effects of the Industrial Revolution & Communism Lesson Plan - which includes a very engaging PowerPoint, graphic organizer for notes, and worksheet.

4. A fantastic worksheet on the major Inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

5. A brief Andrew Carnegie Biography Worksheet that includes a reading and questions.

6. A creative Gilded Age Dinner Party of Robber Barons & Progressives

7. A great Common Core aligned article and worksheet on Workers During the Industrial Revolution

8. A fun, active Determining Your Horsepower Lesson for the Industrial Revolution lesson to get students up and moving while they learn.

9. The engaging Upton Sinclair's The Jungle Reading, Worksheet, and Interactive Notebook Page to have students interact with an excellent primary source.

 

Plus so much more!

Think of all the time you'll save with 2 whole weeks planned out in full! An easy to follow directions page explains how to implement each resource!

You can download this resource for your classes by clicking here!

Thanks for looking!

Ferdinand Magellan Reading, Worksheet, and Interactive Notebook Activity

This engaging, fun activity features everything you need for a great lesson on Ferdinand Magellan, his accomplishments, and his voyage around the world!

Included in your download is a 1-page reading on Magellan that is easy for students to understand, while also covering his background and voyage. Accompanying this is a set of Common Core-aligned reading comprehension questions for students to answer. A key for this is included for your convenience.

      

Next is an Interactive Notebook-style graphic organizer which students cut out to create both a sail for his ship and a map of his voyage! This is definitely a fun activity that allows for student creativity while also hitting Common Core reading strategies! 

     

You can download this resource for your classes today by clicking here. 

Thank you for looking!

Authors of American Literature Magic Portrait Videos and PowerPoint

Attention English teachers! I just finished up an very cool to set of "Magic Portrait" videos of great American Authors! This download includes amazing, moving images of 10 classic American writers set into a PowerPoint for your author study or lesson!

Each author portrait comes alive by blinking, smiling, looking around your classroom, laughing, and more! This is always a great surprise for students and will definitely capture their attention immediately. Once I started using these, my students were more engaged in every presentation as they studied every slide to see if it was moving!

A short preview can be seen here in this Instagram post:

ELA teachers asked and I listened! Coming soon!!! #teachersfollowteachers #iteachtoo #iteachhighschool

A video posted by Students of History (@studentsofhistory) on Mar 12, 2015 at 4:40pm PDT

Note that this is likely not a complete resource to use on its own. This PowerPoint includes 10 videos and PowerPoint slides that can be used as an overview of American authors or for Back-to-School night to really impress parents as you review some of the authors their children will learn about.

However, I imagine most ELA teachers would take these slides and insert them into your own author studies as you cover an individual author far more in depth. Authors included in this download are:

Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edgar Allen Poe
Walt Whitman
Frederick Douglass
Emily Dickinson
Mark Twain
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
William Faulkner

You can download this resource today by clicking here!

If there happens to be another author you would like please let me know! I am currently working on a British Author set next so stay tuned!

Spring into Social Studies FREE eBook of Lesson Resources

This free eBook includes 14 amazing, free social studies resources for grades K-12!

Fourteen of the best sellers on TpT have gotten together and contributed resources to help you Spring into Social Studies!

Inside you'll find games, Interactive Notebooks, Lap Books, primary source materials, reading passages, and more! There's resources for every grade from Kindergarten through 12th, which makes this an especially great resource for you homeschool teachers & parents!

Teachers in elementary, middle, and high school as well are sure to find several excellent resources to use for social studies.

You can download this resource today by clicking here!

Thanks for looking!

Pocahontas Reading and Accordian Timeline Activity

This fun reading craftivity for elementary students features a 1-page article on Pocahontas that highlights key events from her life. Students then use what they read to create a timeline of key events in Pocahontas' life.

Two sets of timeline printables are included if you want to have students summarize key events, draw pictures of them, or do both. Full color photo examples are included.

Also included is a 5-question Common Core-aligned worksheet to further gauge student understanding. An answer key for this is included.

  

This is a super fun way to not only learn about the real Pocahontas, but work on reading and sequencing skills!

You can download this fun activity for your 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade students by clicking here!

Thank you for looking!

New World History Interactive Notebooks for the Renaissance and Reformation

I finally finished all my Interactive Notebooks for US History earlier this month so  it's on to World History now!

I started with this set of 14 Interactive Notebook pages on the Renaissance and Reformation. These creative, engaging Interactive Notebook pages include graphic organizers, creative foldables, timelines, and more! These are incredible resources for getting students engaged and active in their learning and allowing them to be creative with their notes.

 

Topics covered include:

• What is a "Renaissance Man"?
• Why did it begin in Italy?
• Leonardo da Vinci's works
• Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel's ceiling
• Renaissance Humanism
• Writers and literary works of the Renaissance
• The Northern Renaissance
• The works of William Shakespeare
• Martin Luther, the 95 Theses, & problems in the Catholic Church
• Henry VIII and his wives
• Gutenberg and the printing press
• The Counter Reformation & Council of Trent
• Vocabulary activities and more!

These resources are sure to help your students enjoy learning about the Renaissance and Reformation and have a better understanding of important concepts, events, and people. You can also find more great resources for teaching about this era in this Complete Renaissance and Reformation Unit Bundle!

Thanks for looking!

Inside North Korea Lesson Plan Resources for The Interview

Ever since the Sony hack and reports that North Korea attempted to disrupt the release of Seth Rogen & James Franco's new movie The Interview, my students have been really curious about what North Korea is really like. 

Fortunately, my brother was lucky enough to travel there years ago. He visited the "Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum" in Pyongyang to learn about their perspective on the Korean War (which you can pretty much get right from the title) and brought back some amazing resources. 

I put them together to create this awesome lesson plan on the Korean War from North Korea's perspective. Students analyze a set of documents and images from North Korea and compare them to how their own textbook describes the conflict and results. The lesson includes 20 pages of images and documents along with a document analysis worksheet, and suggested extension activities. 

This is a really great, engaging lesson plan to help your students understand North Korea. You can download it for use in your classroom by clicking here!