Immigration has been a very big piece of conversation and conflict in the last several years, and students most likely hear of it often in current event studies.  I found this site very interesting and would definitely use it in my classroom.  It had very interesting information about Ellis Island and the process of entering the United States in the past.  It has line and bar graphs sharing the number of immigrants that have entered the US through the years and where they are from.  The virtual tour guides you through the process of entering the US and answers many questions that students may be wondering.  The site shares the stories of 5 children who have immigrated to the US from different countries.  Much of the data and descriptions are from up to 2010, so supplementary material would be needed in order to so the current issues with immigration and continue conversations. 

Teaching Tolerance

I am not in a classroom as of yet, so have not had much experience searching for good sites to utilize for instruction.  While looking at the We Are Teachers site, I found a recommended site called Teaching Tolerance that I will spend more time looking at.  The site has eight specific areas: race & ethnicity, religion, ability, class, immigration, gender & sexual identity, bullying & bias, and rights & activism.  Similar to my first suggested site, I looked at immigration and caught myself quite interested in the information that was available.  While my own children and my students will not be able to walk in the shoes of all people, I want them to know of the joys and struggles of others in order to be able to empathize, to a point, with them.  This site seems like a good one for teachers to get information and lessons from in order to assist in positively broadening the understanding of others.

This website is just so full of videos, and articles, that are age appropriate for elementary students, that I think it will be very valuable when planning lessons. In lower elementary students learn about why we have a government, and some of the basics of what they do. Students also learn the significance behind many major holidays. Recently, we celebrated the fourth of July. Even though we are not in school during this holiday, I found a video on the fourth of July and what it means that I think would be a great introduction to the creation of government for lower elementary students, from PBS learning’s website. 

 

Another resource I found when looking for websites for teachers, was www.icivics.org. This website is free and has everything from games to lesson plans, to help teachers present the idea of civic participation to their students. There is also plenty of information on the branches of government and the role of media in our world. 

This website includes videos and pictures that tell about the first Thanksgiving. It has information about pilgrims and Native Americans and what life was like for both. I liked how it also had information about the Mayflower and the journey the pilgrims took. I would use this resource in my classroom. I think that it is hard for young students to picture what life was like in those times and the visuals would really help the history come to life for them. 

 

Skype in the Classroom
This website has virtual field trips and Skype sessions with educators from different educational locations. I think that it would be awesome if my class could meet someone from a location we are not able to visit and be able to interact with them as we were learning. The virtual field trips would also be great since it would help the students experience things far from where we live. 

Vocabulary Instruction:

I included both of these resources because I believe they can be used in tandem when deepening vocabulary knowledge. I like how it forces me to think of deepening knowledge and developing vocabulary in a tiered format. This filter will allow the teacher, or the students, to classify the information they are teaching/learning. 

Domain Based Education: Children’s Media (NEW) is a great source to introduce children’s books that can drive discussion on moral, personal, or social dilemmas. Plus, this site has provided research that changed my view on education as a whole. The principles of creating a domain based focus in your classroom connects directly to the primary goals of the social studies curriculum.