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There are several interactive Thanksgiving sites that you can use with your students to teach about life in the 1600s and how the holiday began.  All of the sites below have something different to offer, so check them all out! 

Journey on the Mayflower (from Scholastic)

Journey on the Mayflower is a wonderful site from Scholastic.  It begins with an interactive timeline.  With each stop on the timeline, there is a mini movie complete with sound effects and narration.  Also explore the tab at the top of the site about “Daily Life“.

The First Thanksgiving (from Scholastic)

The First Thanksgiving, also from Scholastic, has wonderful slide shows depicting what life could have been like during the 1600s as well as a webquest for your students to complete.

Colonial House (PBS)

Colonial House from PBS has many different pages worth exploring.  For example, there is a section on “375 Years Ago at 360 Degrees” with panoramas of the colony.  Very cool!  Also, you can play “Dress Me Up” to see if your students can match the correct clothing with the colonists for the time period.  At the bottom of the home page, there is a section for teachers called “Educational Interactivities” with lesson plans completely written out for you.  Thank you, PBS!

Welcome to Plimouth Plantation’s You are the Historian… Investigating the First Thanksgiving

This is one of my favorites!  Plimouth Plantation’s You are the Historian allows students to be the historian and investigate the first Thanksgiving from the point of view of the Native Americans and the Colonists.  As you click through your investigation, there are interactive activities with narration and sound effects to keep the youngest learner engaged.

Mayflower History

Mayflower History’s site, based on the book by Caleb Johnson, is geared for intermediate students, probably 4th grade students and older. Click on “Pilgrim History” to be taken to a page full of resources on the voyage, life in the new world, the Native Americans and more.

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If you have an interactive whiteboard (Promethean, SMART, or Polyvision), it’s always nice to know where you can find websites that work especially well with your board.  A site that may not be suitable to use with your class in the computer lab could be very valuable once you use it with your interactive whiteboard in a whole group instructional setting.

As I was searching for interactive whiteboard links, I came across this site by ETTC (Educational Technology Training Center).  The site has tons of links suitable for your interactive whiteboard.  But the best part of the site is that the links are broken down by elementary sites, middle school sites, and high school sites.  ETTC also separates the links by subject area: math, language arts, science, social studies, music, PE, art, software, tutorials, and other.

It’s the best list I have seen to date.  I looked at about 70% of the sites under “elementary” and was astonished that the sites were of high quality.   There is nothing worse than a hotlist of sites that suck.

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GAMES FOR THE INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD

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There are several sites available that allows you to see current news articles in a different way.  I like a few of them, and some of them I don’t understand at all.

The first one is the Spectra Visual Newsreader by MSNBC.com.  The best way for me to describe it is a cross between an aggregator and a customized start page.  The user has the choice of adding topics that he/she is interested in and the site will arrange your articles in a moving, interactive orb of news.  It is hard to capture this as an image since the articles are always moving allowing you to zoom in on different topics. I like the colors and the movement. I felt like a baby staring at a mobile at nap time.  Pretty! Pretty!

The next one is World News Maps by TSmaps.com.  This one is a bit more simple.  You have a world map.  Click a country.  Thumbnails of articles from that country appear.  Simple. Easy.  It’s okay.  I can’t see myself using it personally.  See below.

Third, is NewsGlobe sponsored by Yahoo.com.  It looks very similar to Google Earth’s globe, except there are long red poles sticking out of the earth, which represent different news articles around the world.  Obviously, this provides a visual representation of where the news is actually occuring at the time, which is helpful when teaching current events.  However, I personally would still find myself going to Google Earth to show students the exact location of the article versus an approximate location.  I did like how NewsGlobe has an “AutoPlay” feature that allows you to sit back and watch the news jump around the globe or an “interactive” feature that allows YOU to be the explorer.

Finally, there is a site called Doodlebuzz.  This site boasts, “DoodleBuzz is a new way to read the news through an experimental interface that allows you to create typographic maps of current news stories.”  Basically, you type a word in the search field.  Then you start doodling on the screen to get the news to appear.  The result, to me, is a huge mess.  There are titles of articles all squished together and you have to keep doodling to get the rest of the story.  Eventually you can click the article to be taken to the site featuring the article.  It’s A LOT of work to get to the news.  I don’t get it.  I don’t understand why it’s worth the effort.  I found this site frustrating, but “to each his own”, I guess.

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Check out this new site called Statetris!  This online game is very similar to the old favorite game called Tetris where you have to fit falling geometric shapes together as they fall from the sky.  Statetris is similar, only instead of geometric shapes, you can use states for the United States map, or countries for continent maps.  How much fun would this be to use with an Interactive Whiteboard (like a Promethean board)?  Imagine how much fun it could be reviewing for a geography test with this site.  Fun, fun!

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Social studies lends itself so easily to online sites! I already mentioned my favorite online history game, The Pyramid Challenge, in a previous post. Any teachers, parents, or students who are interested in social studies for research or interest should definitely check out these sites. First, head over to National Geographic’s site for educators. Even though the ads on the right-hand side of the site can be a bit annoying, it has a a great selection of tools including: current events, lesson plans, maps and photos, and professional development. They have a wonderfully detailed online activity on Jamestown and life in 1607. As you click through Jamestown, you’ll find links to music, recipes, and maps. It gives a small glimpse into what life was like at that time. Clicking under the “maps and photos” section, you’ll find a link to Xpendition Atlas, which has a wide selection of maps in black and white perfect for printing and copying for classroom use.

Just as interesting is National Geographic’s site on environments. There are section to explore such as habitats, natural disasters, global warming, and goiing green. Who wouldn’t want to make lightning strike or unleash an avalanche? I do!

Finally, check out the link to mywonderfulworld, which was created to “give the kids the power of global knowledge”. There are separate sections for teachers, kids, and parents. You can find links to educational travel programs for students or take virtual tours of any continent you wish to visit. Looking for lessons based on the geography standards? Look no further! Do you want to test your global IQ? Here’s your chance.

If you teach social studies or are just fascinated by it, you’ll definitely find these sites worthwhile.