When you’re studying a particular subject, it makes sense to dig deeper. For example, the Civil War Trust has some excellent lesson plans on the Civil War as well as a field trip planner, glossary of civil war terms, civil war coloring book, and more. If you cover the civil war in the US, you’ll want to visit this site. If you’re studying anything, try searching for the word “lesson plans” in quotes along with the topic with a plus like +”civil war” and you’ll be amazed at the results. Many of them align with standards from the states or National Council for Social Studies.

“The Library of Congress, in collaboration with the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and the Government Printing Office (GPO), today unveiled Congress.gov, a new public beta site for accessing free, fact-based legislative information. Congress.gov features platform mobility, comprehensive information retrieval and user-friendly presentation. Congress.gov, at beta.congress.gov, eventually will replace the public THOMAS system and the congressional Legislative Information System (LIS).”

The New York Times has some options to allow students to participate and learn from the US Presidential debates. If you’re teaching and you are wanting to use this as a topic, this is a great lesson plan.

Constitution Day is September 17. Discuss the US Constitution and the democracy in the US constitution. Here are some excellent lesson plans including one I like called “design a constitution” that helps you see the “different types of democracy and sovereignty evident in the US political system.” You could also do a play on the word constitution and have a “build your constitution” day with some good old American hamburgers and hot dogs while you study the constitution. ;-)

The Google World Wonders Project is a combination online museum and textbook but is a wonder in itself. Each site on the globe that is a wonder is linked to photos, videos, information,and a map about the site. This is the perfect companion for this flipping the classroom.

This link takes you to the teacher guides and suggested history topics for how you can use the site. This is a must share for history teachers around the world.