Smithsonian's History Explorer

In clicking around on the Smithsonian's History Explorer, I found a flash that contained an interactive handwritten copy of the Gettyburg's Address from a photograph taken 11 days previous to the event. You can hear it read by Liam Neesom, zoom in or out, or view a typewritten transcript.

Under related resources on the same page, you can click to an introduction to Abraham Lincoln entitled "An Extraordinary Life," an interactive timeline page "The American Presidency," or view documents from The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. Along the way you are also presented with the opportunity to view museum artifacts such as this Patent Model of Lincoln's. It is easy to get lost in this website because of the rich network of sources presented.

From the home page:

Your gateway to innovative, standards-based online resources for teaching and learning American history, designed and developed by the National Museum of American History as part of Verizon's thinkfinity.org consortium. Explore the rich resources of the Museum and bring history to life with artifacts, primary sources, and online tools for the classroom, afterschool programs, and home.

The front page features a time line for searching that is really cool. It may take some time to learn how to navigate the site efficiently; however, time well spent!

Historical Thinking Matters

Very interesting flash that describes how historians approach original sources as it seeks to whet the appetite about why historical thinking matters. The site describes it:

An introduction to the site's approach using documents to explore conflicting accounts of the 1775 Lexington Green skirmish

The site then presents four investigations that demonstrate how historians seek to resolve issues arising from conflicting source materials. This award winning site would be a terrific resource for students starting on a National History Day project.

The Jamestown Online Adventure

My third grader and I had a lot of fun this morning reinforcing his current history lesson at Time4Learning by playing the Jamestown Online Adventure at History Globe. It allowed us to make some of the same critical decisions that the original colonists had to make and to see how these decisions affect the outcome. We played it several times, playing around with the decisions to see how it affected the outcome. It was a good level for my son with quite a bit of interesting, and, I think, accurate, information without it being too much.

It was serendipitous to come across this site just as we were studying the colonies. I love it when that happens!

Eagerly Awaited Second Volume Release

I never know what I am going to find when I get to bopping around the internet. In this case, I discovered that Susan Wise Bauer's The History of the Medieval World finally officially released last week. The is the second of a 4 volume "history of the whole world." Many homeschoolers love Susan's Story of the World. It is my impression that this is an expanded and grown up version, so to speak.

The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade

Excerpt from review:

A masterful narrative of the Middle Ages, when religion became a weapon for kings all over the world. From the schism between Rome and Constantinople to the rise of the T’ang Dynasty, from the birth of Muhammad to the crowning of Charlemagne, this erudite book tells the fascinating, often violent story of kings, generals, and the peoples they ruled.

History for Children: SNOW WEEK - Crossing the Delaware

History for Children: SNOW WEEK - Crossing the Delaware

Here is a sample post from Jill Miles blog, History for Children. It is loaded with great posts like this one - descriptive and informative summaries about living history books for children. You can search by age, period or special interest. Open this blog in one window and your library's online catalog in another and bring home a nice stack of books for your current area of interest!

Homeschool All-Stars

I just ordered my copy of Homeschool All-Stars - a brand new hardcover comix by Bentley Boyd, author of popular Chester Comix history series.

It is being offered this week at a discount by the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, one of my favorite places for cool homeschool stuff. It is free to join so check it out!

Back to the book, it features one page biographies of famous homeschoolers such as Beatrix Potter, Abraham Lincoln, Ansel Adams, and George Washington Carver. There is a wide range of personalities and contributions in the people selected for the book. I think the comix presentation will be particularly appealing to my very right brained youngest.

I will be back to write a review once we have a chance to read it!

Wonderful WWII Picture Book

I think I picked this book up at the library solely on the basis of the lovely and engaging cover art. My 8 year old is currently fascinated with money so I thought this was a good bet on some level. What I didn't expect was a child friendly snapshot of life during World War II. Colorful watercolors depict the rag man, the milk man and the garbage wagon. Since this is before my time, too, I think I was as intrigued as my son. We enjoyed the story as well. I even managed to get through the letter at the end without totally choking. Definitely a great example of a living history book.