Do you know some interesting American icons, places, people, or history?

Question

I am teaching gifted elementary students this year. Our big theme is America. I want to stay away from regular classroom materials. Our subjects include geography, history, literature, art, music, math, writing, thinking, and anything else interesting or challenging. Any ideas, books, CDs, links, lesson plans, or organizational strategies would be welcome.

Answer 1

From the UNC School of Education, LEARN NC gives you what you need for K–12 teaching and learning, when and where you need it — lesson plans and teaching strategies, classroom text & multimedia, and online courses for teachers and students.

http://www.learnnc.org/

Answer 2

I do not teach elementary, so forgive me if this is too advanced.

If you go to http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itsv/06...

you will find a list of 32 American icons.

Could you present your students with a list of American heroes/heroines/icons and allow them to choose one?  Then throughout the year, students could learn bits and pieces about their icon and present it or share it with the class.  For example: first the kids could learn where they were born and do a little research on that state/town.  They could then share that info with the class or start a diary as that person, using the information they learned.  This could continue all year, until the end where students could come into class dressed as their icon.  

The goal would be that the student would not only learn a lot about their person and his/her impact, but would learn about other icons from their classmates.  Because you would have all genres represented, you would include geography, history, literature, art, etc.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Richard Feynman is one of the top most interesting american scientists, although he's not very appropriate for elementary students, although he is very appropriate for elementary students in other regards.  

He worked on the Manhattan project with Oppenheimer, married several times (mostly to strippers), played the bongos, picked locks and safes, won the nobel prize for Feynman diagrams (basically reduces several pages of mathematics regarding particle physics to drawings of the particles and their interactions to produce the same answer).

He's appropriate for elementary because the way he did science is often left out of elementary schools.

Answer 4

Facts about each U. S. State

http://www.50states.com/facts/

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/state/

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/sta...

http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/m...

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Teaching Resources

http://www.wacona.com/

http://www.2020site.org/

http://www.abcteach.com/

http://www.4teachers.org/

http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/

http://www.btinternet.com/

http://www.englishforums.com/

http://www.schoolexpress.com/

http://www.sitesforteachers.com/

http://www.4teachers.org/archive/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/

http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/3-5.htm

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.ht...

CLIPART and PRINTABLE RESOURCES

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http://www.teacherfiles.com/clip_art.htm

Curriculum Links

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