TeachersFirst: Resources for K-12 Teachers

Lincoln Bicentennial: 1809-2009 Grades 0 - 12

If you are preparing for Lincoln's 200th birthday or a unit about the 16th President of the United States, check out this site. Designed for students in all grades, there is an interactive timeline, online quiz, podcasts, detailed lesson plans for all grades K-12 (with standards), printable pages, research information, suggested literature for all ages, information about the Civil War, Gettysburg, and more! Much of the site requires Flash; some of the printables require Adobe Acrobat. You can get both from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

IN THE CLASSROOM: Be sure to save this site in your favorites! Share the interactive timeline, online quiz, and podcasts using your projector or interactive whiteboard. Use this site for research about our 16th President. Have students create a blog from Lincoln's point of view (or from a slave's point of view AFTER the Emancipation Proclamation). Use the lesson plans designed for the grades that you teach. (Don't miss the history, language arts and writing, and art lessons).

Looking for Lincoln - History Hunt Grades 2 - 8

This site, originally created for students to use during a family field trip around central Illinois, shares information all about Lincoln. Students click to choose a location (Lincoln's Law Office, Lincoln Courthouse, Lincoln's Tomb, and several others). Once "at" the location, students are given some basic facts about the locations, a "History Hunt Question" with several clues to help them solve the mystery, and a "Mystery History Object" with pictures of artifacts from the time period and a brief description of the picture. This site is excellent, but does not provide the answers to the "History Hunt Questions." However, most are easy to find at the site. What a fabulous way to celebrate the 200th birthday of one of the USA's greatest leaders.

IN THE CLASSROOM: Take your students on this virtual hunt during the month of February. Why not visit a new place each day, share the information, ask the History Hunt Question, and share the picture and information about the artifact. Share the site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Have students create their own "History Hunt Questions" about the town where you live and any connections to Lincoln: Underground Railroad Houses, a courthouse that defends the rights of all races, or even a mint where they make Lincoln pennies. Have students share their History Hunt Questions on a class wiki or online as a Place Spotting challenge (Read more about Place Spotting here ). Younger students will need to do the hunt as a whole class activity because of the reading level and sophistication of some of the History Hunt pages. If you have the chance for lower elementary students to work together with older buddies, they could enjoy the hunt together without teacher guidance. Gifted students and better readers in lower grades could also work on their own.

Lincoln's 200th birthday coincides with Obama inauguration Grades 6 - 12

This website is essentially a news article highlighting the inauguration of Barack Obama (the first African-American president in U.S. history) and the celebration of the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. This article compares the two American heroes. The theme of Obama's inauguration is Lincoln and how the two men are similar. Both took office during critical times in U.S. history, both faced huge challenges, both are from the state of Illinois, and both are known for their inspirational speeches.

IN THE CLASSROOM: Share this article with your students. Have your class compare Lincoln and Obama. If they both had cellular phones, what do you think they might text to each other? Have students research the two men and then create a fictitious wiki that the men might have written back and forth to one another. Have students write their own articles comparing the two men.

Podcasts: Civil War Tours Grades 4 - 12

This site includes 14+ podcasts focusing on famous battles of the Civil War. Each location also includes a detailed map, brief description, dates, and more. Most are rather lengthy ranging from twenty to fifty minutes. This site opens slowly at times and requires Flash and Adobe Acrobat. You can get both from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

IN THE CLASSROOM: Share the podcasts on your projector or interactive whiteboard. (Download in advance to avoid delays). While listening to the podcast, project the map on the screen for students to view. After hearing a podcast have students create blog entries from the perspective of the soldiers at the battle. In younger grades, brainstorm ideas together before they start writing the blog entry. In the older grades, have a debate. Divide your class into two debate teams (Confederates or Union). Draw names randomly and allow the teams time to research the REASONS why they support their side of the war. For a shorter assignment, have a class discussion about how the Civil War and battles would have been different if the television (and YouTube) was around to broadcast the highlights of the battles. Would the war have ended more quickly or lasted longer? Why? Another idea: divide your class into groups and have the cooperative groups create local maps that highlight a location that has connections to Abraham Lincoln or the Civil War (if applicable).

A Problem, A Penny, A President Grades 0 - 5

This interactive site offers a short slide show about Lincoln. It all starts when Michael can't figure out how to take his papers home (he has no pockets). Lincoln pops out of a penny and teaches Michael about the 16th president (himself), the Civil War, the Lincoln Memorial, the penny, and a trick to take your papers home: put them in your hat! This site offers basic background information on the president and his legacy, perfect for even the youngest of students. The site has the option of reading the online story with text only or including audio. This site includes Florida standards.

IN THE CLASSROOM: Share the slide show on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Or have students work on individual laptops (or desktops) to listen to the story on their own. Since audio is available, even the youngest students can participate. What a fun way to celebrate Lincoln's 200th Birthday or Presidents Day! After viewing the slide show, have students write age-appropriate letters to Lincoln, asking him specific questions about topics highlighted in the slideshow. In younger grades, discuss the questions together and brainstorm a class list.

Whole Lotta Lincoln Grades 6 - 12

There are many sites about Lincoln. However, this site takes a personal look at Mrs. Abraham Lincoln (plus a "whole lotta" Mr. Lincoln). There is a short video that delves into the life of Mary Todd Lincoln (a must-see in the secondary grades). There is also a lot of research information about Lincoln's presidency and personal life, slavery, the Civil War, and how his words and actions live on in people today. This site requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

IN THE CLASSROOM: Be aware that the video of Mary Todd discusses the death of some of her children, so decide whether this is appropriate for your students. Use an interactive whiteboard or projector to share this unique look into the life (and love) of the Lincolns. Have students write a blog entry from the perspective of Mary Todd, what must her life have been like? What advice could she give Laura Bush or Michelle Obama? Use this site with your students who are more focused on the interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences. These aspects of his (and her) life will provide connections for the students to better understand Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and U.S. history.

Civil War@Smithsonian Grades 7 - 12

This outstanding site examines Americas most profound national experience through artifacts that are housed in the Smithsonian Institution. Twelve topics - including Slavery and Abolition, Appomattox, Life and Culture, Weapons, and Mathew Brady - link to virtual collections of objects that can be individually explored. A Civil War timeline is included. Some of the interactives require Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

IN THE CLASSROOM: This site is an excellent addition to a unit on slavery and the Civil War OR an art class! Have students write captions for the pictures. Challenge students to create a blog entry from Lincoln, a slave, Mathew Brady, or someone else shown in pictures. What were they thinking? Why did they do what they did? How would life have been different if the Internet was around during the Civil War?

Stixy (beta) Grades 0 - 12

TeachersFirst Edge entry: for slightly adventurous technology users. Create collaborative visual and verbal spaces where you can post and share ideas, images, snippits of text, sticky-notes, photos, documents, and more using Stixy. The product makes a bulletin board of items, reminders, commentsessentially everything you could throw onto the front of your refrigerator and more. You can share the stixyboard by URL. Here is an example of a Stixyboard created by the TeachersFirst Edge team. At the time of this review, Stixy was testing a calendar feature with a limited test group. Some features of Stixy appear a bit slow, but the tool still says it is in beta testing. Be patient as the pages load. (Watch the little status report in your lower left in Internet Explorer; it will tell you that things are loading.)

IN THE CLASSROOM: Skills needed: Join (free) using an email address. Note that you do not need to access this email to be able to log in right away (handy when some email is blocked at school!). It will help if you forget a password, though. Use your extra, memberships email account (such as Gmail). If you plan to have students create individual accounts with their individual email accounts, check school policies. Another option is to use your teacher Gmail account and set up subaccounts for up to 20 students to register (by code name or number). Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service. If you plan to have students collaborate using a Stixyboard, they will need to be able to log in individually, using either a Gmail subaccount or their own email accounts. To share a board, click Options. You can find the URL for the board there, as well. Safety/security concerns: Sharing of Stixyboards is completely controlled by the users who create the boards. If students only share with those within their group, there is no contact with outsiders. Make sure they include you as a shared member on any collaborative project so you can monitor student work. Check school policies (and obtain parent permission, if necessary) before allowing students to post any work to the web. Stixy does not promote public sharing and commenting. Possible uses: Teachers can use Stixyboards shared by URL to assign or create web-based tasks: directions and tasks to do on the web (with links), collections of writing prompts (images AND text), or calendars. Students even young ones will catch on to the tools of Stixy very quickly to create their own Stixyboards. Have students collect quotes and images to convey a message or profile a concept or time period: a Stixyboard about the 1960s, a writers journal of ideas for future writings, a collection of images that use LINE as a major design element, a board full of questions on a new curriculum topic - a visual KWL chart that can be added to, rearranged, and edited as the unit proceeds -- almost a cognitive journal as learning proceeds. For example: Thoughts about Macbeth or The Great Depression. As students read a piece of literature or a challenging speech such as the Gettysburg address, they can collect, question, and comment on snippets from the text, including their own I wonder or what if notes. Have students make a Stixyboard of the water cycle or other processes, including images and notes to explain each step, then turn in the URL for their work or share it with others for changes and additions. (Changes are logged as part of the list at the left of any board.) For art classes, assign students to collect and annotate images as they prepare to create artworks of their own, just as artists collect materials in design notebooks and sketchbooks. Some thoughts on giving credit and copyright: Since it is simple to add notes, students can easily keep track of the SOURCES of anything they collect into a Stixyboard, such as images or quotes, simply by copy/pasting URLs into a "Credits" note. Make sure you require them to do this kind of citation, especially if they use any images. Note that a password-protected (see options) Stixyboard CAN use downloaded images from the web under Fair Use, provided you limit access to that board ONLY to members of that class.