Good morning, welcome to our series sharing Homeschool Resources: History. Take a look at the website and let me know if you’ve used any of these websites with your students and what you thought of the Resources and why. Charlie can’t wait to check out Plimoth Plantation: You Are The Historian.
All American History from Bright Ideas Press
Designed to be engaging and written in a comfortable style, Bright Ideas Press’ All American History reads like a good book—bringing America’s story to life, piece by piece.
Plimoth Plantation: You Are The Historian
Grades 1-8, with parental supervision
Interested in learning about the History of Thanksgiving? Look no further than this award-winning website produced by Plimoth Plantation (the spelling is correct). Here, kids and their families can discover what really happened at the first Thanksgiving and separate the myths from the facts.
When you get to the site you will see a brief introduction. Notice the Teacher’s Tools under the “Learn” drop-down menu on the homepage.
Eager learners can also jump right in and begin their investigation by clicking on the image or the button “Do you have what it takes? Click here to begin!” A new page opens to a multi-media extravaganza with beautiful sights and sounds. Your hosts invite you to use clues to unearth the real history behind the Thanksgiving feast. Click on “Begin Game” to begin the journey.
This is an engaging website presenting historically accurate evidence of the first Thanksgiving or Harvest celebration in colonial America that kids of all ages are certain to enjoy.
The Classical Historian History Game Superbundle
The Classical Historian History Game Superbundle has educational and fun History games covering History content from the Ancient Civilizations through 1914 and the US Constitution that teach kids to love history.
The British Museum: Teaching History with 100 Objects
Grades 1-9, with parental supervision
Using 100 objects from Museums in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales and from the British Museum, this website strives to help teachers to teach “the new National History Curriculum in England.” But nonresidents of England can reap the benefits of this website as well as it provides a wonderfully unique way to explore British History.
On the home page, there are several ways to begin exploring the objects. Items can be sorted and displayed by:
- Key Stages – in the U.S. these are like grade levels (approximate equivalents are: KS1 = Grades 1-2, KS2 = Grades 3-6, KS3 = Grades 7-9)
- History curriculum topic – Events, people, time periods
- Date – specific time frames
- Places – include Africa, Americas, Asia, Britain, Europe, Oceania
- Theme – Beliefs and ideas, Conflict, Empires, Rules and rulers, Social and personal life, Technology and arts, and Trade and contact
You can use a combination of these search methods to narrow the selections down. Once you have input your desired search selections, images of all available objects meeting that criteria will populate on the page. Select the object image and the page will open. On the object page, there will be a larger image of the item, a brief description and much more information about the object including where it was from, what period, culture, what material it was made from, its dimensions and more. Use the right-hand sidebar menu to dig deeper by selecting:
- About the object – more in-depth details about the item
- A bigger picture – explanation of the objects purpose and similar items
- Teaching ideas – ways to use the item to explore history
- For the classroom – Download the image and related images and find links to activities.
All the items have downloadable PDFs of all the information and images for the objects.
Add this website to your “go-to” list for British History.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
