Here is our weekly digest of free topics. Check them out now before they expire. In addition to these, up to 20% of our library is free on any given day. Simply login to enjoy.
Important Events of the Revolution
In Boston, men like Samuel Adams and John Hancock kept the Colonists in a constant state of anger over British rule. In the surrounding countryside, groups of Colonists got ready to fight.
Ancient Chinese Society was like a ladder. On the very top step, the highest rank in Society, stood the emperor and the royal family.
Saturn is a gaseous giant planet named after the Roman God of the Harvest.
Paying for Columbus’s four voyages gave Spain a big head start in the exploration of North America. From Islands in the Caribbean Sea, Spanish Explorers and conquerors fanned out to various parts of the mainland. One of the conquerors was Hernán Cortés.
It’s a planet of sound! Sound starts with just a simple vibration
Free Infographic: States of Matter
All around us, water is constantly changing States. From ice, to water, to steam, and back, water changes form and function as it changes states. Download this free infographic to learn more about the various states of matter. Available now on Kids Discover Online!
Cross-Curricular Learning Activities
Classrooms are turning towards cross-curricular instruction to bring new life to lessons and enhance learning. Use the following games and activities to break down silos between disciplines and add a playful twist to your science and social studies lessons.
Integrates Language Arts, Math, History, Geography, and Art.
Integrates Language Arts, History, Social Studies, Music, Art, and Science.
Rain & Snow
Integrates Math, Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, and Art.
Integrates Music, Social Studies, and Art.
To land creatures like us, the Ocean doesn’t seem like a great place to live.
The very first Americans were big-game hunters who carried spears of bone and stone.
Bees Around the World—except in Antarctica, on certain Ocean Islands, and at extremely high altitudes.
On a rainy spring afternoon in 1952, your class has just watched a cartoon that showed a turtle hiding in his shell as a monkey sets off a firecracker. It was funny!
Ready to go time-traveling through Africa?
October 8: Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Columbus Day marks the anniversary of the day that Italian explorer Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas. Use the following resources as jumping-off points to introduce students to what life was like during this period.
- Related Units: Exploring the Americas, Age of Exploration and Colonization
- New Print Titles: Exploring the Americas, Age of Exploration and Colonization
In an effort to honor the original inhabitants of North America, some parts of the United States choose to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day or Native Americans’ Day instead of Columbus Day. Looking for resources to give kids both perspectives? Complete your lessons with the following resources.
- Related Units: Native America, Northwest Coast Peoples, Plains Indians, America 1492
- Print Title Set: Native America Set
October 11: Eleanor Roosevelt’s birthday, 1884
Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. After World War II, she was one of the first Americans to work with the United Nations. In 1946, she became the leader of the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission. She helped write the document that defined the rights all people should have.
- Related Topic: Post-WWII, 1950s
- Related Units: Mid-20th Century in the U.S., Teddy Roosevelt
October 19: Anniversary of the End of the American Revolution, 1781
On this day in 1781, the American Revolution was finally over when British General Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. Ill-clothed, poorly fed, barely trained, and often unpaid, the American soldiers had been up against the finest fighting force in Europe—and triumphed.
- Related Topic: After the Revolution
- Related Unit: American Revolution
- Print Title: American Revolution
October 22: On This Day Edison Invented the First Electric Lamp, 1879
In his search for the right filament for an electric lamp, Thomas Edison used his standard method: trial and error. On October 22, 1879, Edison and his assistants took turns watching in teams as a bulb with the carbonized thread burned for about 13½ hours. The team had succeeded!
- Related Topic: How Edison Invented the Lightbulb
- Related Unit: Thomas Edison
- Print Title: Thomas Edison
October 27: Theodore Roosevelt’s Birthday, 1858
Teddy Roosevelt was a man of contradictions: He glorified war, yet he was the first President to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He loved hunting, but he was also an avid conservationist who doubled the number of National Parks.
- Related Unit: Teddy Roosevelt
- Print Title: Teddy Roosevelt
October 28: On This Day the Statue of Liberty was Dedicated to the United States, 1886
On October 28, 1886, The Statue of Liberty was dedicated at a formal ceremony. Hundreds of thousands of people watched from the shores of New York and New Jersey. Bartholdi climbed to the top of his statue. As New York Senator William Evarts was making a speech, the crowd cheered. Mistakenly, Bartholdi thought it was his cue to pull a cord, causing the French flag to drop and reveal the statue’s face. Onlookers cheered. Bands played. When the noise died down, Bartholdi exclaimed, “The dream of my life is accomplished.”
- Related Topic: Building the Statue
- Related Unit: Statue of Liberty
- Print Title: Statue of Liberty
The battle to write, ratify, and enforce the Constitution, is the focus of this critical issue in American History. Major features include a look at the ratification struggle and how amendments are proposed and incorporated into U.S. legislation.
“Talking about the weather” takes on a whole new meaning in Hurricanes. For students fascinated by these turbulent, terrifying storms that can leave total destruction in their wake, all the latest data is here: from what causes them and how they differ from cyclones and typhoons, to how all three can cause deadly storm surges and tornadoes.
Cells, lays out all the basic facts about these microscopic structures out of which our bodies are made, covering everything from their internal “organs” to the way they determine every single human characteristic.
For students interested in how and why Europeans got started traveling West, Kids Discover Early Settlements provides a window onto the motivation of the “movers and shakers” behind the journey, whether it was for gold and treasures, natural resources, commerce, or control.
For students studying American government, Kids Discover American Government offers a compelling narrative about how our government functions. First, kids get an overview of the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches, and the balance of power at the federal level. Then they are introduced to state and local governments, including their structure and responsibilities.
Students curious about what makes cars run and radios work will get the full run-down in Energy. Defined as the ability to “get work done,” energy is investigated in all its forms: from water, coal, oil, and gas to wind and fire. And though it may seem eternal, one of these – oil – is likely to be depleted by 2050.
“No Constitution is the same on Paper and in Life,” wrote Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, who penned the Constitution’s final draft. Morris meant that words on paper do not change, but life does. The world changes.
Why conserve Energy? Because there are problems with every known source of Energy.
Uranus, Neptune, and the Dwarf Planets
The Planets beyond Saturn are far away, and Astronomers need big telescopes to see them.
Some States insisted that a bill of rights be added to the Constitution. They proposed more than 200 amendments.
Your heart is a pump, and it’s a lot like the pumps that people manufacture.
Pick any day of the year. There’s probably a fiesta or festival taking place somewhere in Mexico. Most Mexicans are Roman Catholics.
What if there was no such thing as a president of the country? What if the government had no money to pay soldiers? What if every state had a different kind of money and you had to change money when you crossed a state border?
When Sam Clemens was 11 years old, his father died, which left the family with no income. Within three years, Sam had to leave school. He was apprenticed to a local printer to learn the trade.
The Rosetta Stone and Other Buried Treasures
Imagine finding a buried treasure! Treasures are everywhere. Gold, ceramics, statues, and minerals are sunk deep beneath the seas. Entire cities, diamonds, and fossils are hidden underground.
Spain and Portugal Spain and Portugal Explore the World Explore the World
It’s October 1492. Christopher Columbus and his little fleet of three ships left the Canary Islands 36 days ago. Columbus had expected to reach Asia by now.
The Role of Rivers in Human Civilization
Rivers have always carried the drinking water that’s essential for human survival. Even today, two-thirds of all our drinking water comes from rivers.
The first business of America’s colonists was survival. Therefore, farming was their biggest job. But when survival was no longer an issue, the colonists got serious about business.
The sense of smell was important to early humans. They used it to avoid dangers and track food. Today, our noses still help us notice a fire, leaking gas, or spoiled food. But we no longer need them just to survive. Smell is still very important to us, however.
People keep trying to make fake, or counterfeit, money. It’s been going on for a long time. Counterfeiters, or people who make fake currency, cause real problems, because counterfeiting can make people lose faith in money.
Living in a World of Segregation
Rosa Parks had endured prejudice, bigotry, and injustice all her life. She knew this was unfair and unjust.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton died in 1902, and Susan B. Anthony died in 1906. But a whole new generation of women had come forward to lead the fight for women’s suffrage. They were armed with new weapons, and they were determined to succeed. In 1920, they were finally able to proclaim, “Victory.”
Your five senses are always bringing you information about the world around you. But they are not equal partners in the job.
Over time, the ashes from the eruption of Vesuvius changed to soil. Grass grew, and people moved back. The area thrived once again. Nobody knew that an entire town lay below them!
Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic. She flies nonstop from Newfoundland, Canada, to Ireland
Between 1500 and 1800, the Portuguese, Spanish, British, and Dutch brought almost 10 million enslaved Africans to the New World.
When asked on his deathbed if he wanted to recant some of the “lies” about his travels, Marco Polo supposedly answered that he had told only half the things he had seen. Fact or fiction, the stories he told in his Description of the World – a memoir of his 24-year voyage through Asia – are still enthralling today.
Ah, the Caribbean…it’s the ultimate tropical paradise, right? True enough, but there’s more to this stretch of islands than meets the eye. It has a colorful and violent history of colonization, slavery, and war – not to mention magnificent music and art.
Physical Characteristics of a Dog
Each breed of dog may have its own special traits—things like fluffy fur, floppy ears, curly tails, or spots.
Sight
Your five senses are always bringing you information about the world around you. But they are not equal partners in the job.
Welcome to old Japan. Here, Warriors with swords clashed on the battlefields and wrote poetry at home. Farmers grew rice but often went hungry themselves.
Imagine that your part of a community living 10,000 years ago. It is evening, your group is sitting around a fire, and the sky is full of bright points of light. What are these points of light? How did they get there?
Did you ever think your body is like a rain forest or a coral reef? Well, for countless microscopic critters, you are a walking, breathing ecosystem. These organisms need each other, and they need you too. In fact, you are their environment!
Problems between the colonists and Britain began in 1763. The Americans had fought for the British against France in the French and Indian War. After it spread to Europe, it became known as the Seven Years War.
This is one of the world’s smallest biomes, occurring on the west coast of the United States (particularly in California), along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and in coastal patches of South Africa, Australia, and Chile.
The thinking brain is the cerebrum, which looks mostly the same all over. It resembles a bowl of squishy, wrinkled gray gelatin.
Treasures from the 17th-Century Ship Atocha
On September 4, 1622, the mighty Spanish ship Nuestra Señora de Atocha sailed out of Havana, Cuba.
When you talk, you rely on facial expressions, gestures, and other visuals to help give clues to what you mean. A listener can ask questions if things are not clear. When you write, however, the words and punctuation have to communicate everything. That’s not an easy task.
Imagine a world without Italy. Without Greece. Without Ireland or Germany. These nations all arose during a worldwide surge of Nationalism in the late 17th century. The surge unified some parts of the world and tore other areas apart.
What could the Byzantine Empire possibly have to do with us, today? Plenty — our form of Government in the United States. The great paintings and sculptures of Europe. The Science and Technology we use every day. And more. The Byzantine Empire helped pass on much of the knowledge and art that shapes our world today
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cate
