Waffle Bytes

Teachers - check out the US Census Bureau's Statistics in School (SIS) .  A plethora of resources for you - and since it is a .gov site, they are public domain (free to use). Find Activities and Resources A variety of activities searchable by either curriculum area or grade level are provided free on the site.  New activities have been added designed specifically for the 2020 Census.  You and your students can also find: Maps, Data Access Tools, Historical Documents and Images, Constitution Day resources and more.   Seeking Ambassadors Apply to be a teacher ambassador by October 24. Making sure ALL children are counted is especially important for education. 2020 Census responses will drive decisions on how more than $675 billion in federal funds will be distributed each year for the next 10 years to educational programs. The U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistics in Schools (SIS) is looking for ambassadors in all 50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samo...

You can now see the edit history for a single cell in Google Sheets!  There are several times I have needed to know how one cell was edited, and had to go through the entire workbook editing history to try and track it down.  This is a handy feature addition! To see a cell's history, right click on the cell, and select "Show edit history"  (it may even have a green box saying New next to it like mine...) - A window will pop up - it will show the latest change made to the cell - you can use the arrows to move through all edits made on the cell - Notice that the entries are timestamped, and tell who made the edit, in case you need that level of detail -

This find is for Social Studies teachers -  In addition to access to the programming, teachers can find "bell ringers," lesson plans and opportunities for professional development. From the website: C-SPAN Classroom is a free membership service for social studies teachers. Our mission is to enhance the teaching of social studies through C-SPAN's primary source programming and websites. ...To better serve you, our site is password-protected, yet remains free of charge. Membership gives educators access to their own library to store C-SPAN Classroom video clips, supplementary materials such as lesson plans and handouts, and special offers.

From the Michigan Department of Natural Resources - Michigan teachers can get wildlife  – w ildlife topics, that is  –  in the classroom! Registration is open for  wildlife classroom curricula  available to elementary through high school educators.  Curricula fit current state educational standards and are free of charge.  K-5th grades Go Wild for Michigan’s Wildlife  i ntroduces elementary students to a variety of species found throughout Michigan and their habitats.  Included in the materials are sets of "critter cards" for each student to keep. Sets of the cards are limited and are issued on a first-come, first-served basis to Michigan educators who register.  6th-8th grades Students can learn about Michigan black bears – from their life history to how the DNR manages populations – with  A Year in the Life of a Michigan Black Bear .  Students get to “follow” black bears' movements by looking at actual loca...

Black History Month Library - Google Drive Folder This resource, created and shared by Charles Preston , may provide some outstanding resources beyond what you have previously used.  The resources cover a wide range of history and people that may or may not be familiar to you.  This is a community contributed to work, so you will also see resources contributed by addition people.  Please note : many of the shared works are copyrighted, you be aware of Fair Use guidelines in using them with your students during classroom activities.  (The works that are creative commons licensed or in the public domain works have no such limitations.) Thank you to Charles Preston for sharing this out via Twitter - he may be someone you should follow.

Webinar about Michigan History resources available to you and your students via MeL!  From Christine, MeL K12 Educaiton Specialist -  Help your genealogists, students, researchers, and history buffs by connecting them with best sources for Michigan history. Join us on  October 25 at 3:30pm Eastern for a 30-minute webinar focused on Michigan history resources available through MeL. Learn about tools within MeL Databases which can help your genealogists, students, researchers, and community. Registration is free and open to all Michigan library staff, educators, and other interested users. Read more and  register for this webinar . https://store.mcls.org/index. php/michigan-history-with-mel. html This webinar will be recorded, and made available on demand anytime. http://mcls.org/mel/mel- training-events/ MeL training is funded in part by the State of Michigan through the Library of Michigan. Additional service support comes from th...

Google Classroom does a great job of managing Google Docs you want to use with your students.  It creates templates & copies for you (as needed), it creates collaborative docs.  It allows you to have them tied to assignments so they can be "turned in" to you, and you can even return them to be edited and resubmitted.  So much better than how we used to do it using just Google Drive! One of the struggles early on with Classroom has been the information about files/assignments turned in by students.  Were the late?  If they edited them, what edits did they make? What work have they done and what is still not turned in? This has gotten a huge boost in some of the newest updates.  Here are some features you probably want to know about: View work for 1 student : if you click on a student's name in the class student list, you can see all their assignments and grades.  You can also see if an assignment was done late.  (You can click on the ...

The Michigan Open Book Project is a multi-year project to provide Michigan social studies teachers with OER (Open Educational Resources) textbooks that can be downloaded, modified, and used in their classrooms.  These are FREE resources (as licensed under Creative Commons) that you can modify to best meet your needs!  From the site: "A simple math problem:  T+D+TE=MOBP T = Textbooks - your district spends thousands of dollars on them, but they were written for other states and by the time they make it to you, they're already out of date. D = Devices - your district is getting more devices every year.  Perhaps an update to the aging computer lab.  Perhaps a mobile lab of tablets to check out for your classroom.  Maybe you're going 1:1.  Whatever the scenario, more devices are making their way into Michigan schools each year. TE = Teacher Empowerment - The best teachers know their content and know ho...

From Sonya Norris at Michigan electronic Library: Do you have students asking for resources to write country reports? MeL has several student-friendly resources for this oft-requested topic. Britannica and World Book both will allow you to compare basic facts and figures about countries but Britannica is definitely more full-throated when it comes to articles. They do a great job with articles at scalable reading levels including images and video to augment the text that is freely available for students to include in their reports with attribution. Kids InfoBits is geared for preK-5 and while they don’t do side-by-side country comparisons or list every country recognized by the UN, they do have in-depth data on approximately 90 countries. They have resources from many sources that they break down into books, biographies, pictures, magazines and news. For Brazil, for example, they have over 500 news articles beginning at middle school reading levels as well as...

Great find of images, primary sources, and a variety of other resources for school use! From the site: "DPLA connects people to the riches held within America’s libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions. All of the materials found through DPLA —photographs, books, maps, news footage, oral histories, personal letters, museum objects, artwork, government documents, and so much more— are free and immediately available in digital format . The cultural institutions participating in DPLA represent the richness and diversity of America itself, from the smallest local history museum to our nation’s largest cultural institutions. Our core work includes bringing new collections and partners into DPLA, building our technology, and managing projects that further our mission through curation, education, and community building."

From Deb Biggs at MeL - Do you have an elementary through high school aged student at your desk looking for resources to write a biography for a school assignment or just satisfy their curiosity? Look no further than MeL, we have outstanding biographies spread among our various resources. If you’re looking to browse in a particular area, such as a figure for Women’s History Month or a poet for National Poetry Month,  BritannicaSchool  is a good place to start. Research in Context  for middle schoolers has over 232 individual biographies just on civil rights figures and they’re strong on ancient civilizations such as figures from India, Greece, Egypt, the Aztec Empire and Rome. If you’re looking for presidential biographies,  Kids InfoBits  is going to be your best bet at the elementary level and  Britannica for high school  students.  Worldbook Kids  specializes in brief biographies for the K-5 group that you can break...

Witness: The Story of Our Times Told By the People Who Were There Witness Women in History: A collection of interviews with people who were there at key moments in women's history Last week I showcased the Black History collection.  This week I'd like to showcase the Women's History collection. If you are looking for first person accounts of key moments in women's history to use in your curriculum, you should check out BBC's Witness Women in History podcasts (a portion of their larger Witness segments).  Each podcast is an approximate 8 minute interview with people that witnessed these events.  Events span the globe.   Currently there are 73 episodes available. Episodes available include: War brides Women's baseball in WWII The Warsaw ghetto Women's strike in New York Anne Frank's Diary Mother Teresa The battle for votes for women Helen Keller Roe vs Wade Available on the BBC Website (iPlayer Radio) or by searching for speci...

Witness: The Story of Our Times Told By the People Who Were There Witness Black History: Interviews with people who were there at key moments in black and civil rights history If you are looking for first person accounts of key moments in black and civil rights history to use in your curriculum, you should check out BBC's Witness Black History podcasts (a portion of their larger Witness segments).  Each podcast is an approximate 8 minute interview with people that witnessed these events.  Events span the globe.   Currently there are 47 episodes available. Episodes available include: Ruby Bridges attends an all-white school The Mississippi burning case Mixed race marriage victory in US (the film Loving is based on this) Black Congresswomen Shirley Chrisholm The children's crusade "I Have a Dream" Muhammad Ali and the draft The Los Angeles riots Available at iTunes Available on the BBC Website (iPlayer Radio)

History teachers that have not checked out the site "Facing History and Ourselves" really should spend a few minutes exploring it.  There are great resources which range from full unit plans, to videos and primary source materials that may be pulled out and used to support existing lessons. Their stated mission - "Our mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry."  Their work began with the holocaust, but has expanded to include a wide range of topics/events designed to make a "connection between history and the moral choices [students] confront in their own lives." Below is information about their materials that are about the Reconstruction Era after the American Civil war. From Big House Media: "Facing History and Ourselves  has produced a series of  free   videos  and  accompanying lessons  that ...

Great opportunity for teachers of Word War II!  This program is selecting 18 teachers to "study the experiences of America’s World War II soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coastguardsmen as they fought throughout the Pacific." Teachers selected are involved in an 18-month learning journey that includes a weekend in Washington DC and 12 day Pacific field study experience.  Teacher will be developing content and lesson materials for the website as part of the experience.  

The Broadway musical Hamilton —based on Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton—can be a classroom resource to boost understanding of American history. The Rockefeller Foundation and the producers of Hamilton are giving students and schools an opportunity to connect to the past in a contemporary context and to become engaged with the content they are studying in an exciting way. The musical has infused Chernow’s retelling of history with hip-hop, rap, and pop and has given life to a story that, for many, has been difficult to relate to in the modern era. The historically valid choice to emphasize Hamilton’s status as an immigrant wanting to make a name for himself in his adopted country has made the story even more relatable to students today. The nonprofit Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History has put together a curriculum and created a website with copies of the primary documents that undergird the book and lyrics, along with videos , essays , and oth...

FROM PBS: In the formative years of the United States, two key figures helped shape a new government: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. However, their vision of what that government should be and do often conflicted. In this interactive from PBS LearningMedia ’s A Biography of America , students read statements by Jefferson and Hamilton on the role of government, the virtue of people, the institution of slavery, and the role of cities. Then they decide who, in their opinion, had the more enduring vision for America. The website also provides background information and discussion questions to support teachers in using the interactive with their students. Click Here to Access Free Interactive and Support Materials Plus : A video segment adapted from PBS ’s American Experience describes the early life of Alexander Hamilton. Born outside the 13 American colonies on a small tropical island, Hamilton struggles early when his father leaves and his mother dies of y...

 Voices of History is the Bill of Rights Institute ’s free digital storehouse featuring the best of the institute’s primary-source-based lesson plans . Written by teachers for teachers, the materials are aligned to content standards, and are searchable by topic and accessible anywhere on any device. One of the featured lessons (“What Are the Origins and Interpretations of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms?”) explores the origins of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights, as it was included to reflect the concerns of many citizens in a number of states. Another featured lesson (“The Responsibilities of Frederick Douglass”) takes an in-depth look at responsibility— striving to know and do what is best rather what is most popular—through the life of Frederick Douglass.

The Bill of Rights Institute has developed Documents of Freedom , a free , comprehensive , interactive digital course covering all the history, government, and economics topics in traditional textbooks. Written for teachers by teachers, all materials highlight primary sources and meet state standards. Teachers can search for primary-source-focused resources that fit seamlessly into their teaching plans. They can access student readings along with corresponding teacher materials, including classroom activities, presentations, and assessments. Incorporated into the readings are engaging images and videos that provide a more interesting way for students to interact with historical content. The course material is available everywhere from a laptop to a cellphone, from the computer lab to students’ homes. Students can easily adjust the display of the text and choose the style and size that works best for their individual preferences and learning needs.

Thanks for this gem from Greg Miller at Wired - The USGS has a new online map viewer that display maps that cover the entire country and are FREE to download.   Here's from Greg - " Hunting for historical topo maps on the USGS site used to be confusing and annoying. It involved a lot of clicking on what you hoped was the right thing, squinting at the tiny preview maps, and twiddling your thumbs while the enormous full-sized version downloaded. And then starting over when it turned out to be the wrong thing.... Now, browsing and searching for maps is much more intuitive. You can type or zoom in on a particular place, limit your search to maps of a particular scale or from a particular range of dates. You can download them in a variety of formats, from JPGs (fine for printing out a nice map to put on your wall), to KMZ files (to import into Google Earth), to GeoTIFFs (for the power users who wants to import maps into GIS software). There’s even a  YouTube tutorial  that...