ed-Tech Ninja » Social Studies

American Presidental Elections

Tech Ninja — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 01:09:09 +0000

Presidential Elections are coming up in the United States. Even among children there is high interest in this tradition that occurs every four years. This election will prove to be a historic one. For younger students, the way US Presidents are elected can be confusing. The Tech Ninja created this Notebook activity for his third grade students but it could be used or modified for other grades or age groups.

The Notebook file covers:

When elections are held
Jobs of the President
Requirement to be President
The two major political parties
Primaries and Caucuses
Nominees for 2008
Vice Presidents
Campaigns
Voting Day
The Electoral College
Mock Elections
Election Online Resources

The hyper-cool interactive electoral college map on page 15 was created by the awesome ninjas over at TeqSmart. They have more from where that came from. They have Notebook files and gallery elements available for free and for pay over on their website: http://www.teqsmart.org. The Tech Ninja highly recommends them. Click here to check them out.

Technical Information: This file was created in Smart Notebook 10 SP 1. Notebook versions older than 9.5 may not be able to
open this file correctly. To prevent download issues, I have zip compressed the file. To view the file on Windows, right
click on the compressed file and choose "Extract All..." Double click the resulting file to view.

>>Download now<< 16.25 MB

Teacher and the Rockbots

Tech Ninja — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:42:25 +0000

While searching for video resources for the Pledge of Allegiance on YouTube I came across a song that explained the meaning of the Pledge in a fun and educational way. The song was by Teacher and the Rockbots. Currently they have four albums out. One about American, on over multiplication, one on Science and one covering the World. The Ninja’s students love them! Additionally, they have worksheets and online games to reinforce the concepts covered in the music. You can buy the CD or download from services likt iTunes. Video example after the jump….

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/9IaxDppVJsk" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Tall Tales

Tech Ninja — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:24:04 +0000

Throughout history people have told and written stories about their heroes. A tall tale is a special kind of hero story because the heroes of tall tales are “larger than life.” They are bigger and stronger than real people, even when the tall tale is based on a real person. Tall tale heroes solve problems in funny ways that are hard to believe. Tall tales are a way people can express their culture through literature.

Explore several famous tall tale heroes with your students with this SmartBoard Notebook file. Learn about Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. Learn about the heroes of legends like Casey Jones and briefly discuss Greek and Roman myths.

As a final activity, have your students write their own tall tale.

This SmartBoard Notebook file originally contained two Discovery Streaming Education video files:

Page 3: Rabbit Ears Children’s Literature Collection: Paul Bunyan (Since the video is 30 minutes, the Ninja only used segments of this video)
Page 7: The segment entitled Peco Bill: Super Cowboy from the video The Art of Storytelling: Tall Tales

Technical Information: This file was created in Smart Notebook 9.7.46. Notebook versions older than 9.5 may not be able to open this file correctly. To prevent download issues, I have zip compressed the file. To view the file on Windows, right click on the compressed file and choose “Extract All…” Double click the resulting file to view.
>>Download now<< 20 MB

Symbols of National Pride

Tech Ninja — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:12:49 +0000

There are many symbols of national pride. This SmartBoard Notebook file goes over several including The National Anthem, Uncle Sam and the Liberty Bell.

There are several videos in this file from Discovery Streaming Education. If you have a subscription you will need the following files:

Page 2: The segment Flag from the video entitled U.S. Symbols
Page 8: The Star Spangled Banner
Page 13: The Uncle Sam Segment from the video entitled Celebrating America: Symbols and Ceremonies of the United States.
Page 14: The segment entitled Symbol Origins: Uncle Sam and the Liberty Bell from the video
Just the Facts Learning Series: Fun Facts of American History

Also featured is a video with the music of the group called Teacher and the Rockbots in a video that is included in the download.

Technical Information: This file was created in Smart Notebook 9.7.46. Notebook versions older than 9.5 may not be able to
open this file correctly. To prevent download issues, I have zip compressed the file. To view the file on Windows, right
click on the compressed file and choose "Extract All..." Double click the resulting file to view.

>>Download now<< 28.7 MB

The First Thanksgiving

Tech Ninja — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:09:06 +0000

The legend of Thanksgiving is has grown and grown over the years. Today, what many younger students consider to be an historical view of Thanksgiving is just a cartoon of what actually happened. Was it called Thanksgiving? Did they eat turkey? How many Indians were at the first Thanksgiving? What was life like for children at the time of the first Thanksgiving? I found a wonderful interactive website called Be the Historian: the First Thanksgiving from the Plimoth Plantation website about what the first Thanksgiving was like. Students can explore the customs and traditions of the Indians and what the Pilgrim town was like. There are sections of the site that challenge students to learn about the popular myths about Thanksgiving and it even invites students to explore some primary sources.

By itself, the site is cool. However, I didn’t want my students just hit and missing stuff throughout the site. I wanted them to explore it with a purpose. As a result, I created a guide in the form of a worksheet that turn the site into a bit of a scavenger. It also helped make sure that students didn’t miss any of the good stuff.

Now I know what you are thinking: “Silly Tech Ninja, worksheets are high tech!” My response, is that not everything has to have a high tech solution and sometimes the best or the easiest solutions are low tech. For this problem, the easiest solution is low tech with a webby twist.

Closer to Thanksgiving, this website gets a ton of hits and therefore can become unbearably slow or just unresponsive. The kind Plimoth Plantation people have allowed you to download the website to your own local computer or server so you get no delays or slow downs. Pretty nice, eh? Directions for this are at the link above. The download link for the guide is below.

Technical Information:  The download is in Adobe PDF and requires Adobe Acrobat to view. Download
it free here.

>> Download Now <<