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  You and your students can also find: Maps, Data Access Tools, Historical Documents and Images, Constitution Day resources and more.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...

Do you use the Mi Open Book in your social studies curriculum?  Are you interested in connecting with other teachers that also use it?  You will want to become part of this workgroup! Social   Studies  Workgroup What : A collaborative workgroup for  Social   Studies  teachers to create and share additional support materials & activities to supplement the Mi Open Books When : February 19 - Kickoff, project founder Dave Johnson will be joining us part of the day Future Dates TBD based on need - may be in person or virtual Where: Calhoun Intermediate School District; 17111 G Drive N; Marshall, MI Who :  Social   Studies  teachers who use the Mi Open Books Cost : FREE Register Here Here is the agenda for the day: Feb 19 8:30-9:00 Goals of the Workgroup & Opening Activities - 30 minutes 9:00-10:00 History of MI Open Book Project - Dave Johnson - 60 minutes 10:00-10:30 History of #GoOpen Project - 30 m...

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 Transportation - Representatives from 10 sovereign Native American nations in Michigan, five State of Michigan agencies, two universities, and three private organizations collaborated to develop two short curriculum units, one for 3rd grade and one for 5th grade. Each grade level unit includes five lesson plans and support materials for teachers using information from two archaeological sites provided by MDOT and cultural, historical, environmental, and indigenous knowledge provided and vetted by Michigan Native American tribal partners participating in the project. The lesson plans use the Inquiry Arc of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework and focus on specific Michigan Social Studies Standards. The lesson plans also provide links to Michigan English Language Arts (ELA) literacy standards, as well as science and math applications. Questions? Staff Archaeologist James Robertson , 517-335-2637...

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...

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...

The new and improved Google Earth is here after 2 years of development, and it is worth checking out! (First note - at this time you can only check it out using the Chrome browser, or with an Android devices.  From The Keyword  Google Blog it will be "on iOS and other browsers in the near future.") To get a nice introduction, I recommend reading the blog post Welcome Home to the New Google Earth . Then, here are some quick overviews for starting to use it - The landing page for Google Earth on the web gives some awesome views - I just sat and watched it scroll through a few times before clicking on the "Launch Google Earth." After you launch, it will load - the time for this varies depending on your connection.  You will then see the new Google Earth There are a variety of icons on the left side - you can click on the Waffle at the top to open the drawer if you need to know what each icon is. One icon is not represented in the drawer - the ...

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)

Stony Brook University's School of Journalism has some great free resources for teachers in the Digital Resource Center around the topic of News Literacy. There is a " Let's Get Started " area with shared activity/lesson ideas that can be used. There are also 14 lesson plans that can be used within a course or integrated into your own curriculum - "The full News Literacy course , developed at Stony Brook University, organizes the material into 8 concepts that are spread amongst our 14 week course that take students from the first information revolution of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press to the Digital Age of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook. Each lesson stands alone or can easily be integrated into your program. Below, find a summary of each of those lessons, and a link to the most updated version of the teaching materials for each from our professors at Stony Brook University. Each of the following Course Packs include PowerPoint presentations, a...

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 ...

From Christine Schneider, MeL K-12 Education Specialist - " Join us on October 18th  for a 45 minute webinar to discover content paired with learning strategies to prepare students’ understanding of the upcoming election.  We’ll discover content on the history of presidential elections in the United States, the electoral process, political parties, and key issues surrounding this November’s election.  Pick the time that works best for you! October 18th at 10 AM EST October 18th at 4 PM EST Please share this with anyone in K-12. Email me with any questions: cschneider.mel@gmail.com"

From Brandy Archer at MeL - some great resources that you may find useful: Greetings, Below are links to great Open Educational Resources (FREE).  Some of these (Word Generation) I have shared before.  Keep scrolling down and you will even see some quick mindfulness activities to help students focus. SERP MEDIA Open Educational Resources for Public Use . Visit the SERP Media Website . LITERACY : WordGen Weekly . Visit the WordGen Weekly Website . WordGen Weekly (the “original” Word Generation program) is a supplementary curricular resource that offers a series of discussable dilemmas designed to promote academic language and other academic practices prioritized in the 21st century learning standards. The program is unique in its cross-disciplinary design, giving teachers of ELA, science, social studies, and math the chance to collaborate on the shared goal of helping students use aca...