Common Craft Video: Electoral College

If you are teaching anything about the election in the next week or two, you might consider using this quick Common Craft video about the Electoral College. I love Common Craft videos and have used them in my class when it comes to Biztown as they have some great ones on money, finance, the economy. This one is specifically about the Electoral College and how it determines our presidential election outcome. Hopefully you can find 4-5 minutes in the next 2 weeks to show this video if you are talking and teaching about the election.

Common Craft: Electoral College click here!

Crash Course History: Good Supplemental History Lesson Site

Crash Course History isn't going to teach students everything they need to know about a certain topic from history, but it is a good site to reference to students so they can learn about a topic in a different way or extend their learning beyond class. Might also be a good short video to supplement a class lesson. The videos are engaging with a lot going on with lots of extra information. And more and more are being added all the time, so you can keep checking back to see if they have added a topic that you are currently teaching about. I think the best use for this site would be for students to watch and use these videos on their own time in order to add to their classroom learning.

Click here to see all of the videos offered by Crash Course History

TIME's 20 Most Influential Americans

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo and his blog "Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day", I learned of a recent online interactive from TIME magazine about their ranking of the top 20 most influential Americans of all time. This list might be a good way to start a history or social studies class this year. To get students linked and hooked on history for the year, you could have them view the list, debate the list, re-write the list, or even argue for others not on the list and write their own big and persuasive essay. Either way, it will get them talking about history and debating and arguing their historical point. Great list, have fun!

TIME's top 20 most influential Americans of all time

As 9-11 Anniversary Approaches, Here are Some Teaching Resources

Again, credit and thanks to Larry Ferlazzo and his Websites of the Day for grouping several great teaching resources about 9-11 in one blogpost. If you are going to teach or reference anything about 9-11 to students in the coming weeks, this might be a great place to review and research or even use in class. I still highly recommend the archived videos as they are a very powerful reminder of how everything unfolded that terrible day. For our middle school students, we have to remember that they were not even in school yet and likely have no memory of the event except what has been told to them. To their minds, it truly is a history topic. Some of the resources in this blogpost by Larry might help 9-11 come to life for them and show them that although it is history, so much of what life is like today can be traced back to that day. Hope some of these ideas and resources help.

Larry Ferlazzo's 9-11 resources click here!