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INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES
NEW RESOURCES
List of Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People Released
Social Education, the offical journal of the National Council for the Social Studies has released its 2012 supplement, "Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People"Here are a few to add to your professional resource folders:
- Recommended Websites for Elementary Social Studies
- The Leveled Readers Chart
- Reader's Theater Resource List
Featured Resource for Elementary Teachers
BrainPOP creates and provides animated, standards-based content that supports educators and engages students. BrainPOP is used in numerous ways, from introducing a new lesson or topic to illustrating complex subject matter to reviewing before a test. All content areas, including Social Studies, are addressed.
Kudos to our own Instructional Technology Department for providing this instructional tool to All AISD elementary and middle school students and teachers who now have access to BrainPOP, BrainPOP Español and BrainPOP Jr. from 7:00am-5:30 pm, 7 days a week.
All are supported by BrainPOP Educators, which features free lesson plans, video tutorials,professional development tools, graphic organizers, and best practices for our teacher community.
Oral History
Can elementary students learn from doing an oral history project? Yes, they can. Are elementary students old enough to take an oral history? Yes, they are. Elementary students might want to interview a family member.
You can use this link Oral History K-2 for a lesson from Edsitement on how to teach social studies using an Oral History. Your students will connect to history and learn about their families, culture, and heritage. What a great experience!
Great Texas Women
A downloadable book on Great Texas Women in history produced by the UTSA's Institute of Texas Culture. There are many narrative texts about Texas women and primary source pictures. Go to the Great Texas Women website or go to Resources on the left side of this page, select, then select Web Resources, select W for Women and download this wonderful book for your classroom. You will want this book available for your students all year and not just for Women's History Month in March. Enjoy!
Texas Cartoons
Texas Cartoons - You can use these political cartoons in just about any grade level. They can be used as warm-ups, previews, or as an activity in a Texas lesson. Students will find them engaging and motivating.
Take a Look at Our World
Share this powerpoint with your students. See if they can find Austin and other important cities in the United States and throughout the world.
Enjoy!
Learning About Our Community
Austin Past and Present is an interactive documentary that brings Austin’s history to life. From its geologic formation to its current urban skyline, Austin Past and Present explores Austin’s past and present in more than 300 multimedia stories and over 2 hours of motion picture documentary.
Students learn new and fascinating things about their community while they use this project in combination with district-provided curriculum that is aligned to state standards.
Check out the collection of local and Texas history through this amazing website! There are many newspapers, photographs, and other information dating back to the 1800s. The Austin Post Card site can be especially helpful in teaching Texas History in an interesting, engaging way!
Put your video i-Pod or i-Phone to work with Zilker Trek,
a self-guided, multimedia tour
of Zilker Park!
Karen Kocher (Austin Past & Present creator) has another dynamite project! Take a walk at Zilker while learning - and you will be amazed at all you can learn - this is a great medium forintegrating into other content areas. (Yes, there really are other content areas besides social studies!)
Visit: www.zilkertrek.org
There are some pages you will want to print when you go to the zilkertrek website, Lesson for Podcast 00: Get started with Zilker Trek and the Zilker Trek Project Overview. The second website (New Horizons) is a great resource for journal writing. You will see examples of journals that students have made that show learning and pride in their work. There are more links in this article (they are in red) that demonstrate what to record and how to draw/sketch a picture (a short slide presentation that each student can watch).
How often do journals seem like something more to do, after reading this short article and going to the sites presented, you will see how you can encourage students to take pride in their work in all subjects that require a notebook, (hopefully your students all have a social studies notebook and after viewing these sites, you will want your students to have notebooks for all their subjects) thus increasing what they observe, record, and learn.
More Related Web Resources (WEB):
Great models for students to see what an interactive notebook should look like-
- Nature Walks. This site describes the benefits of nature walks and how to develop your observational skills-
- Nature Journaling: This website describes how to create a nature journal and describes why such a journal is beneficial to learning.
Resources From Previous Trainings
Provided Materials
Click on the links below for lessons and resources from our recent training for Kindergarten through 2nd Grade teachers: Primary Sources for Primary Grades. Updates will continue to be added!
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