Resources for Students and Families

+   Grades K-2

Kindergarten   Many Roles in Living, Learning, and Working Together

Grade 1            Leadership, Cooperation, Unity, and Diversity

Grade 2            Global Geography: Places and Peoples, Cultures and Resources

Topic: Community

Topic: Civic Engagement and Government

  • Kid Citizen -Students explore Congress and civic engagement through interactive activities that make use of primary sources and connect what they find with their daily lives

Topic: Geography

+   Grades 3-5

Grade 3    Massachusetts, Home to Many Different People 

Grade 4    North American Geography and Peoples

Grade 5    United States History to the Civil War and the Modern Civil Rights Movement

Topic: American Revolution

  • Liberty's Kids - Youtube video series created by student reporters covering the events of the Revolutionary War

Topic: Local Government / Civic Participation

Topic: Immigration and Citizenship

Topic: Civic Action / Civics Projects

  • iCivics game Activate, on how civic action works, while learning ways that individuals and groups can work to influence government and society

  • iCivics WebQuest Who Represents Me?, help students investigate who represents them at the local, state and federal level; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided

Topic: The Bill of Rights / Amendments to the Constitution

Topic: Geography

Topic: News and Media Literacy

  • Newsomatic -Free daily newspaper for kids, translated into Spanish and French, includes voiceover as well as writing and drawing activities

+   Grades 6-7

Grade 6   World Geography and Ancient Civilizations I

Grade 7   World Geography and Ancient Civilizations II

Topic: Ancient Civilizations

Topic: World History

  • PBS Learning Media - a range of grades; videos and interactive lessons on topics in world and US history

Topic: Geography

Topic: International Relations 

Topic: News and Media Literacy

  • News Literacy Project - provides tools to address misinformation about the current health crisis as well as free access to Checkology, an online platform to help students develop media literacy skills

  • iCivics game - NewsFeed Defenders, take on the role of curating a social media site to learn media literacy 

  • CNN 10 (formerly CNN Student News) - news of the day in 10 minutes

+   Grade 8

Grade 8   United States and Massachusetts Government and Civic Life

Topic: Declaration of Independence

 Topic: History of the Constitution

Topic: Bill of Rights / Amendments to the Constitution

Topic: Elections

  • iCivics game Win the White House, run your own presidential campaign, includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

  • iCivics game Cast Your Vote, on local elections, includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

Topic: Branches of Government / Checks and Balances

Topic: Local Government / Civic Participation

  • iCivics game Cast Your Vote, on local elections

  • iCivics game Responsibility Launcher, on civic duties and responsibilities

  • iCivics WebQuest Civic Heroism, on civic duties and acts of civic courage; students conduct their own research using questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided

  • iCivics WebQuest Who Represents Me?, investigate who represents you at the local, state and federal level; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided

Topic: Global Citizenship 

Topic: News and Media Literacy

  • News Literacy Project - provides tools to address misinformation about the current health crisis as well as free access to Checkology, an online platform to help students develop media literacy skills 

  • iCivics game NewsFeed Defenders, take on the role of curating a social media site to learn media literacy

  • CNN 10 (formerly CNN Student News) - news of the day in 10 minutes

Other Civics Topics

  • See resources that address a range of ages, grade levels and topics below.

+   High School

United States History I and II, the Colonial Period to the Present; Electives

Topic: History of the Constitution

Topic: Bill of Rights / Amendments to the Constitution

Topic: Elections

  • iCivics game Win the White House, run your own presidential campaign, includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

  • iCivics game Cast Your Vote, on local elections, includes Spanish version and supports for English Language Learners

Topic: Branches of Government / Checks and Balances

Topic: Local Government / Civic Participation

  • iCivics game Cast Your Vote, on local elections

  • iCivics game Responsibility Launcher, on civic duties and responsibilities

  • iCivics WebQuest Civic Heroism, on civic duties and acts of civic courage; students conduct their own research using questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided

  • iCivics WebQuest Who Represents Me?, investigate who represents you at the local, state and federal level; students conduct their own research using the questions, pre-vetted websites and guiding tools provided

Topic: Global Citizenship 

Topic: News and Media Literacy

Multiple Topics: 

+   Resources that address a range of ages, grade levels and topics

+   Valuable Reference Resources

Historical Documents, Museum Collections and Other Sources

Library of Congress 

  • Online Exhibitions - hundreds of rich, well-researched, primary source-based sites (K-12, school and family)

Upworthy

  • Voice Recordings of former enslaved Americans - ABC News Nightline / Ted Koppel Accounts of former enslaved Americans in their own words recorded in the 1930s and 1940s. Ted Koppel narrates this segment from 1999. (Note: use of word “slave” as opposed to “enslaved person.”)

National Park Service

 John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum 

Emerging America 

  • Radical Equality: Utopian Abolitionism, Steamboat Barnet, and Forge of Innovation: The Springfield Armory and the Genesis of American Industry - Interactive online exhibits. Grades 3-5 and 6-12. School or family. 

The Boston Athenæum 

  • Digital collections of visual and textual primary sources, including materials related to the study of government and civic engagement, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as:

  • The Events Archive (book talks, lectures, panel discussions) includes recorded programs (video and podcast formats) with scholars, authors, and artists on topics across the humanities and arts.

Digital Public Library of America 

  • Primary Source Sets - DPLA’s free primary source sets explore topics in history, literature, and culture developed by educators and include teaching guides for class use.

  • DPLA Search: Search to access more than 36 million images, texts, videos, and sounds from DPLA’s 4,000+ partner institutions across the country. The collection is useful for primary source research and analysis and research projects on almost any topic, as well as creating things like scavenger hunts and games for putting a little fun in e-learning.

 Massachusetts Historical Society

  • Boston Tea Party - print materials, including broadsides and poems.

  • Phillis Wheatley - poetry of the first published African American writer in America

  • Coming of the American Revolution - primary sources and contextual essays arranged into 15 topics relating to the events leading up to the American Revolution.

  • Perspectives on the Boston Massacre - letters, pamphlets, diary entries, legal notes, and engravings relating to the Boston Massacre.

  • Fire! Voices from the Boston Massacre - view video of re-enactors portraying eye witnesses to the events of March 5, 1775.

  • John Adams and Abigail Adams Correspondence - John and Abigail Adams exchanged over 1,100 letters, beginning during their courtship in 1762 and continuing throughout John's political career (until 1801).

  • 54th Regiment - visual materials from the MHS relating to the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the first military unit consisting of black soldiers to be raised in the North during the Civil War.

  • African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts -historical manuscripts and rare published works that serve as a window upon the lives of African Americans in Massachusetts from the late seventeenth century through the abolition of slavery under the Massachusetts Constitution in the 1780s.

  • The Case for Ending Slavery - primary sources that reveal how slavery, and debates about slavery, contributed to the formation of the United States, including letters, diaries, broadsides, artifacts, songs, legal notebooks, and photographs representing a variety of viewpoints.

  • Images of the Anti-Slavery Movement in Massachusetts - digital images of 840 visual materials that illustrate the role of Massachusetts in the national debate over slavery, including photographs, paintings, sculptures, engravings, artifacts, banners, and broadsides that were central to the debate and the formation of the antislavery movement.

  • Massachusetts in the Civil War (1861-1862) - letters, photographs, and broadsides that provide examples of the great cost to families from Massachusetts in the first two years of the Civil War, 1861-1862.

  • Women’s Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage - learn about pro-suffrage and anti-suffrage activities and activists from Massachusetts.

MCN Guide to Virtual Museum Resources 

World Digital Library

National Archives

Ellis Island

Lower East Side Tenement Museum 

Perkins School for the Blind 

New York Historical Society Online

Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC.

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI)

U.S. Census Bureau

The Nature Conservancy

  • Nature Lab - Interactive lesson plans for teachers, students and families to explore nature around the globe alongside Conservancy scientists

New York Times: The Learning Network

  • The Learning Network - publishes about 1,000 teaching resources each school year, all based on using New York Times content — articles, essays, images, videos, graphics and podcasts — as teaching tools across subject areas. Most of the resources are free (only lesson plans are limited to five per month for non-subscribers). Intended audience is middle and high school teachers and students. 

CNN

  • CNN 10 (formerly CNN Student News) - news of the day in 10 minutes

CIRCLE

  • CIRCLE Data Tool offers a unique way to explore the relationships between voting and other forms of civic participation, and some of the conditions that shape such engagement. It features more than 40 unique indicators and includes data at the national, state, congressional district, and county levels. The classroom companion illustrates examples for teachers from many disciplines to use the data in inquiries and other projects.