Grades 3-5 Balancing Three Branches at Once: Our System of Checks and Balances
This lesson has everything a class needs; readings, primary sources, activities to learn how our government works.
Grade 5 A Look at Slavery Through Posters and Broadsides
This lesson from the Gilder Lehrman Institute uses primary sources, group work and critical thinking skills to investigate the institution of slavery.
Grades 3-5 Dust Bowl Days
This lesson looks at the cause and effect aspect of the Dust Bowl through maps, photographs and letters
Grade 8 Examining the Middle Passage
Using first person accounts, this Gilder Lehrman lesson investigates the treatment of Africans as they crossed over the "middle passage."
Grade 6-8 Women of the Industrial Era
Individual lessons on Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Clara Barton
Grade 6-8 On the Oregon Trail
This lesson uses diary entries and photographs of the time period to help students discover the trials and tribulations of the Trail.
Grade 6-8 Before Brother Fought Brother: Life in the North and South 1847-1861
This is a unit with four different lessons, looking at economics, slave life, women in society and life before the Civil War
Grade 8 The Civil War as Photographed by Matthew Brady
In small groups, students will analyze Civil War photographs, create an in-class gallery and write a diary entry from a Civil War soldier's viewpoint
Grade 5-12 Presidential Inaugurations
The Gateway to Educational Materials created by the Department of Education, has put together links that give students the history of inaugurations, primary sources such as presidential speeches and photographs, and articles comparing different inaugurations throughout our history.
Grade 8 & 11 Voting Rights for Women: Pro and Anti Suffrage
Students will investigate the struggle for women's suffrage from 1848 to the 19th Amendment in 1920
Grade 8 & 11 Battle Lines: Letters from American's Wars
Listen to readings and examine the original letters (from Revolutionary War through World War II) covering such subjects as enlisting, missing the comforts of home and love