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You Are Here: Home > Best Sites for History Lesson Plans
Best Sites for History Lesson Plans
These websites are a gateway to a vast number of history and social studies teaching resources, including lesson plans, curriculum units, presentations, primary sources, Powerpoints, quizzes, and more. Many of these resources included technology-integration history classroom activities, though not exclusively so.
As you browse their contents focus on "lesson ideas" that can be adopted and integrated into your lesson objectives. Look for lesson plans and activities that enhance and supplement what you are trying to accomplish, not supplant it. You will need to do some critical evaluation before introducing any of these lesson plans into your classroom.
Best of History Web Sites
Best of History Web Sites contains links to over 1200 history-related web sites that have been reviewed for quality, accuracy, and usefulness. It also features categorized and annotated lists of links to hundreds K-12 history lesson plans, teacher guides, activities, games, quizzes, and more throughout its pages. Also, visit the special Lesson Plans section of Best of History Web Sites for the best history lesson plan collections on the Internet.
Center for History and Media: History Matters
CHNM's resources include a list of "best" web sites, links to syllabi and lesson plans, essays on history and new media, a link to their excellent History Matters web site for U.S. History, and more. Resources are designed to benefit professional historians, high school teachers, and students of history. Go to the Digital Blackboard section for lesson ideas that integrate the Internet.
Teaching American History This is a wonderful collection of thoughtful and thorough lesson plans and other resources on teaching American history. Each project was created by teachers in Virginia at a Center for History and New Media workshop. All projects include a variety of lesson plans and resources, and some even offer instructional videos on source analysis. The lesson plans cover a range of topics in American history and utilize interesting and engaging sources, activities, discussion questions, and assessments. Take your time browsing—there are many to choose from.
Library of Congress: Learning Page
LOC's Learning Page provides a "teacher's eye view" of over 7 million historical documents, photographs, maps, films, and audio recordings. Lesson plans can be searched by theme, topic, discipline, or era. You'll find activities, tools, ideas, and features useful in the teaching of American History.
PBS Teacher Source
PBS is a great source for information on a myriad of historical events and personalities. PBS's assorted and diverse web exhibits supplement specific individual television series and generally include a resume of each episode, interviews (often with sound bites), a timeline , a glossary, photos, and links to relevant sites. Go to the PBS Teacher Source for lessons and activities -- arranged by topic and grade level -- and sign up for their newsletter. Categories include American History, World History, History on Television, and Biographies. Some lesson plans require viewing PBS video, but many do not.s.
BBC: History
BBC's History section offers a multitude of sites, activities, games and other resources. Major categories include: Ancient History, Archaeology, Church and State, Science and Discovery, Society and Conflict, War and Culture, and Family History. There are also sections entitled Multimedia Room, Historic Figures, Timelines, Programmes, Reading Room, Talk History, For Kids, and History Trails. The BBC Multimedia zone offers games, animations, virtual tours, and galleries. Many games deal with various aspects of British history.
Digital History
A great site from Steven Mintz that includes: a U.S. history e-textbook; over 400 annotated documents, primary sources on slavery, Mexican American and Native American history, and U.S. political, social, and legal history; short essays on the history of film, ethnicity, private life, and technology; multimedia exhibitions; reference resources that include a searchable database of 1,500 annotated links, classroom handouts, chronologies, glossaries, an audio archive including speeches and book talks by historians, and a visual archive with hundreds of historical maps and images. The site's Ask the HyperHistorian feature allows users to pose questions to professional historians.
The Web Quest Page
A WebQuest is a form of project-based and problem-based learning in which the resources are located on the Web. These inquiry-oriented educational sites are produced by educators for use by students and are modeled on a template developed by Professor Bernie Dodge. Some WebQuests are very impressive -- others are less so. I would suggest consulting the Portal, which contains an updated matrix of pre-selected Web Quests, and then looking for WebQuests in the "top" category. WebQuest links should be checked to make sure they are active.
EDSITEment - History
EDSITEment is a partnership among the National Endowment for the Humanities, Verizon and the National Trust for the Humanities. All websites linked to EDSITEment have been reviewed for content, design, and educational impact in the classroom. This impressive site features reviewed links to top sites, professionally developed lesson plans, classroom activities, materials to help with daily classroom planning, and search engines. You can search lesson plans by subcategory and grade level; middle school lessons are the most numerous.
The British Museum: Ancient Civilisations The British Museum’s award-winning ancient civilizations websites include interesting images, simulations, and other resources to make the study of Ancient History enticing for students. Each website includes a staff room with downloadable teaching resources.
Smithsonian Education The site is divided simply into three main categories: Educators, Families, and Students. The Educators section is keyword searchable and features lesson plans -- many pertaining to history. The Students section features an interactive "Secrets of the Smithsonian" that teaches about the special collections at the Smithsonian.
Gilder Lehrman Institure of American History
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is a nonprofit organization supporting the study and love of American history through a wide range of programs and resources for students, teachers, scholars, and history enthusiasts throughout the nation. The institute offers lessons, quizzes, activities and primary source documents on a variety of topics
Mr. Donn's Pages: Free Lesson Plans, Activities, and Resources
Teacher Don Donn of the Corkran (Maryland) Middle School provides complete units on various historical topics with daily lesson plans and resources. Units include Ancient History, World Geography & Maps, World Cultures/Eastern Hemisphere, World Cultures/Western Hemisphere, World History, U.S. History & U.S. Government, Sociology & Psychology, Social Studies & Literature. The numerous lesson plans and resources available at this popular site have been developed by Mr. Donn and his wife Lin and other contributors.
Historyteacher.net
An impressive, award-winning site from a New York high school teacher. It features many research links and curriculum resources for Global Studies, U.S. AP History, US European History, and American History and Government. It also has quizzes, news links, and more.
Schools of California Online Resources for Educators (SCORE)
The Schools of California Online Resources for Educators (SCORE) project is a terrific resource for teachers and students alike. You'll find lesson plans -- all rated and arranged by grade level and content area. Unfortunately the state of California is no longer funding SCORE so the website is not being updated.
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