Head on over to my new blog to check out two videos that give great summaries of the causes of the Great Depression. One focuses on spending and investing habits, while the other shows a big-picture view regarding banks and the loan cycle created by the Treaty of Versailles.
It’s getting close to the end of the year. I don’t know about you, but I could use some comic relief! This made me laugh. As teachers, we typically know more about a time period than the average person, but would that really be enough in this situation? Enjoy!
I came across these two videos this week while prepping for a lesson on World War II. I had never seen some of this footage before.
The first video is about Hitler’s battle with Parkinson’s disease. What I love about this video is that it is the first video footage I have ever seen that actually shows him shaking (and trying to hide it, of course). To keep your students involved in the video, ask them to see if they can spot the shaking. (See the video below.)
The second video discusses Hitler’s relationship with his girlfriend/eventual wife Eva Braun. Students are always very interested in learning what kind of woman would date Hitler. I knew a lot about Braun and Hitler already, but this video includes colorized footage of them which makes things seem so much more realistic. Also, this video does a great job of explaining what happened in the final hours of Hitler’s life when he was hiding in his bunker.
I have a bunch more videos that I use/show during World War II. I hope to post a big list of those soon. I’ve just got to add a few more!
Check out this virtual tour of Ford’s Theatre! Use the white arrows to move around the theatre and click/drag your mouse on the screen to turn around. The first part shows the main theater view from the stage, but if you scroll down the page, you will see other parts of the theater. Show your students exactly where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated! What better way to teach about what happened when Lincoln was assassinated than to take them inside the presidential box where it happened. See the stage on which John Wilkes Booth jumped when he yelled “Sic semper tyrranis!” Students can really visualize the events of that night using this tour.
One final note: Have you ever seen The Conspirator? It’s a great movie about Mary Surratt, the only female charged in Lincoln’s assassination. It’s too long to show it in class, but it’s a really interesting movie that scratches that history itch!
This is really more of a science/math video, but it has George Washington in it sooooo it’s history-related. Right? It made me laugh, so I thought you might enjoy something silly on Monday morning!
While we are teaching, why not try to make better human beings in the process? History provides many examples of things we should and should not do. Watch the video below to find out how you can teach character ed that everyone will appreciate. Click here for a list of character traits and examples that you can use in your class.
This video popped up on my Facebook feed. It’s history-related. It’s satire. It’s silly. It just made me laugh. It’s called “If Beauty Influencers Existed in the 1700s.” Yes, it’s stupid, but also fun. There’s probably some inaccuracies in it, but I’m not fact-checking all of that. It’s a just clever, history-related video that put a smile on my face. I don’t think that I’d use it in the classroom unless I fact-checked all of it.
Do you know of any awesome videos like this that you can use you the classroom? Send them to me! I’d love see them!
I’ve decided to start doing some video posts! Watch the video below or read the summary after the video for the basics.
An easy and creative way to let students showcase a large amount of knowledge on a subject is to have them create pamphlets. The most popular design for a pamphlet is the trifold layout.
A tri-fold pamphlet can be tricky for students to design, especially when creating it digitally. It’s hard to visualize which part will be the front. So, I created this free digital template to help your students create a trifold pamphlet! It works as a PowerPoint file, or you can upload it to Google slides and share it with your students. If your students create a hard copy at their desks, display the PowerPoint on your board to help them get started.
To give you an idea of what this might look like, I’ve included two sample assignments to use with the template. One covers the Continental Army, and the other covers Jamestown.
This video is a short and sweet summary of how Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle led to changes in the meat-packing industry. It’s a great way to reinforce a discussion of the Pure Food and Drug Act, and it also shows some really interesting shots of the meat-packing industry back in the day.
You can use this in conjunction with my other free resources to teach The Jungle found in this blog post.
While you’re at it, check out my QR Code Scavenger Hunt on the Progressive Era in my TPT store. It’s a fun and engaging way to get students out of their seats while reviewing important aspects of the Progressive Era! Students LOVE my QR code scavenger hunts!
Here is a great video about Sitting Bull and his role in Native American resistance, particularly in the Battle of Little Bighorn. It’s not on Youtube, but you can watch it here. There’s even a link to download the video! This is a great option if you need to post it somewhere for distance learning or if you want to have a copy on your hard drive in case your internet goes down the day you want to show the video.
Here’s another video showing the reaction to the Battle of Little Bighorn.
This is a longer video that gives a play by play of the Battle of Little Bighorn. It might be too long for the classroom if you have a lot of material to cover, but it would be a great suggestion for students who want to learn more about the battle itself.
Easy assignments to implement after watching these videos include a word web about Sitting Bull or my free acrostic poem assignment.
Use this short video before Thanksgiving break as a bell ringer or filler.
The True Story of the First Thanksgiving – PBS (2:58)
Optional questions to ask:
I always show my students a couple of short videos about the history of Halloween each year. Here are some of my favorites from the History Channel. The first gives a general history of Halloween. The second focuses more on the origins of trick or treating. Both are about 2-3 minutes long. Use them as a fun filler at the end of class or to grab students’ attention at the beginning of class. You can even use them to start a discussion about how American traditions and culture were influenced by other cultures.
This is a good video explaining the start of World War I. The link will take you to the an Encyclopedia Brittanica page about Franz Ferdinand. It’s the first video on the page. It’s entitled, “Witness the beginning of World War I with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914” and is 3:28 (after the ad). I typically show a video like this after in order to reinforce the content after I have explained a historical event. However, if you show this as conversation starter, bell-ringer, or opener, before you show this to your students, explain who the leaders are that are mentioned in the video. For example, the video starts with Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. Explain briefly that Kaiser Wilhelm was the head of Germany and that Germany had the strongest military in Europe before the war. Also, mention that Germany was aligned with Austria-Hungary, etc. You may even want to write a list of countries and leaders on the board for reference. If you do this, use a chart and use a different column for each “side.”
By the way, just a side note, I do NOT recommend the Biography.com video about Franz Ferdinand. It is very biased and even calls him “stupid and unpleasant” and calls his assassin “studious.” That is NOT an objective video! I don’t deny that he probably wasn’t the most pleasant guy, but a video that uses language that it is clearly not being objective.
This is a very interesting article including little known facts about Franz Ferdinand. It would be great to go over it at the beginning of the next class as a way to access the students’ prior knowledge and gain their interest. Keep in mind that there are some negative aspects to him (as with any leader) that are discussed in this article. However, remind your students that just because someone is unlikeable or does something you disagree with does not mean that he/she deserve to be killed. I have found that many students often respond with an emotional outburst like “Well, he deserved to be killed!” or “Serves him right!” Use instances like that to reinforce the value of every human life, and remind students of how they would want to be treated by those who thought little of them.
Eli Whitney. You’ve all heard of him. You know, he’s that guy that indirectly led to an increase in slavery and all of that horrible stuff. He was just trying to help make life easier (and make a little cash in the process), but his ideas made a HUGE impact on America.
I taught a lesson on Eli Whitney this week. In my opinion, you need to make sure your students know 2 things about Eli Whitney:
1- He invented the cotton gin
2- He came up with the idea of using interchangeable parts in manufacturing
It can be hard to visualize how the cotton gin works without seeing one (or at least a diagram of one). I found the BEST video I have ever seen showing the operation of a cotton gin. Now granted, this video is in black and white and is probably older than me, but there is no better video that I have found which has clear shots of the teeth in the wheels. When you show this to your students, just let them know ahead of time that it is an older black and white video and that there is a cheesy guy in a wig pretending to be Eli Whitney.
(Side note: I have often found that students tend to dismiss something they see as old or in black and white IF they haven’t been prepped for it. Before I show an older video, I always explain that the video explains or illustrates something so much better than other videos that it still has relevance and is worth showing. Once I acknowledge any obviously cheesy moments or outdated phrases or clothing, it takes away much of the novelty of it, and the students can move past it and just absorb what the video is showing.)
Another “decent” video (although NOT the History Channel’s best production) is this one. You may want to use this in between your discussion of the cotton gin and interchangeable parts.
Now, here’s what I’m REALLY proud of! I decided that I wanted to have my students make some kind of crafty-type thing to help them remember how the cotton gin worked. So I enlarged and printed the picture below on cardstock (you could use regular paper too if you had to).
I then gave my students some glue, cotton balls, and unpopped popcorn kernels (to represent cotton seeds). They had to glue the stuff on the diagram in such a way as to represent what the cotton gin did. Use liquid glue if you do this. None of this will stick if you use a glue stick. Also, tell your students to tear apart the cotton balls into smaller chunks. The balls will last longer, and it just looks better.
Now, this will seriously take less than 5 minutes, so why should you do it? Because sometimes your students need to do something hands-on. Because sometimes your students need to do something other than take notes. Because sometimes you need to do something different. And if you think this craft may be too “childish” for your kids, I think you underestimate how refreshing a change of pace is when you are sitting in class and listening to people talk all day long. Did I mention that it would be GREAT reinforcement for tactile learners…or really anyone?
If this idea is too simple for your “high-minded classroom ways,” (haha) try this: Divide your students into small groups and give them a poster board, cotton balls, popcorn, and glue and say…”Make me a diagram of a cotton gin.” or “Make a poster demonstrating how a cotton gin works.”
Before you get your students pasting and crafting, you need to reinforce the impact of the cotton gin. It is pointless for your students to know how the cotton gin works if they don’t know the impact it had on the South (and really the world). I used a table to show the students the difference the cotton gin made. Have them cut out each box and put it in the correct spot in the chart. (See link at the bottom of the article.)
One thing that you need to discuss when covering the effects of the cotton gin is the positive and negative effects of the invention. Have a brief discussion about the good and bad that has resulted from various inventions (start off discussing the cell phone). Have students do some deep thinking about consequences and cause and effect (maybe a short free-write). Many people talk about the fact that the cotton gin led to an increase in slavery but often overlook the fact that the cotton gin also provided a way for poor farmers living in the South (who didn’t own slaves) to better support their family. Also, cotton provided the raw materials necessary for textile mills to expand which provided more jobs.
Once you cover the cotton gin and move on to interchangeable parts, there’s more fun stuff to do. After explaining interchangeable parts and their importance, may sure you show them that they are surrounded by hundreds of examples of them. You can use your board markers as a handy example. If you lose the top to one, you can replace it with another.
Have your students go on a scavenger hunt around the room for examples of interchangeable parts. You can divide them into groups and have them race. Whoever gets done first is the winner and gets candy or extra points on a quiz. I would make them find about 30 different examples within the classroom. Or, you could also set a timer and see which group can come up with the most examples of items with interchangeable parts in the time allotted. Pretty much anything with a screw has interchangeable parts. In fact, a screw is an interchangeable part! Students are probably wearing examples of items with interchangeable parts as well: watches, zippers, buttons, earrings, etc.
A word of warning, apparently there is a theory out there called the Mandela effect, where a group of people collectively remembers something wrong. There’s a bunch of articles devoted to this. Well, some crazy people claim that Eli Whitney was black and that he invented the cotton gin to reduce the work of slaves. It’s a crazy Internet theory with no reliable evidence, but there’s always that ONE kid in class who’s read stuff like that and brings it up. Haha! The point is, the cotton gin changed the course of American history, regardless of the physical characteristics of the inventor!
Here’s a link to my cotton gin table. It’s pretty simple. You can add more stuff to it if you would like (specific statistics about cotton production and slavery). The fonts may look weird if you don’t have them on your computer.
Featured image courtesy of Dsdugan – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58026846
Do you know about ALL of the amendments to the Constitution? Can you tell me what each one changed or added to the Constitution? I can’t (gasp). I’m betting your students can’t either (and probably you neither, unless you’ve been teaching Civics for a while). Well, I found this video that gives some quick pneumonic devices to help you remember some of the more important amendments. You don’t necessarily need to show this to your students, but I would watch it and go over these tricks with your students (and use them yourself). The tip about the Reconstruction amendments is pretty helpful.
The one that he didn’t cover, which I think is super-important, is the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. I actually scoured the internet (ok, I looked for 10 minutes) to see if anyone else had tips for remembering the 19th, and I couldn’t find anything useful! I used to tell my students to imagine a bunch of women standing in line to vote wearing t-shirts that say “19” or imagine a bunch of girls jumping up and down squealing, “I’m 19!” You know, that would be a good extra credit assignment; have students come up with easy and creative ways to remember the some of the important amendments.
Do you have any neat ways to remember amendments? Leave them in the comments below!
How did the Great Depression start? Here’s a very informative video about the Great Depression that can tell you that and more. It does an excellent job of explaining how the Great Depression came about. It is clear, straightforward, and easy to understand. The video is 7 minutes and 30 seconds long, but you can stop it at 6 minutes if your students start to lose interest. The last minute and a half is basically a silent comparison of Roosevelt and Hoover. It does end a bit abruptly, but overall it explains the start of the Depression very clearly.
Can you imagine what it would be like to be on the USS Arizona when it was hit? Well, the guy in this video knows! In remembrance of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I thought I would link to this REALLY interesting video of a veteran of the USS Arizona detailing his experience during the attack. Sometimes when you are studying a large event where many people die, it’s hard to make it personal. This interview is fascinating and gives students a very personal glimpse of what these men went through! It’s 15 minutes long, but I loved watching to the end. At the end, he explains what he thinks happened to his twin brother, who was also on the USS Arizona. You can stop it at about 10:00 if students start to lose interest.
According to the Library of Congress, “It has been said that during the silent newsreel period no president was more photogenic than Theodore Roosevelt. He was unusually cooperative with motion picture photographers, often pausing in the midst of official ceremonies to face the camera, bow, wave, smile, gesture, or otherwise accommodate the cameraman.”1
The Library of Congress has a good bit of video footage of Roosevelt at various places and events. These things are really neat to watch! Not only do you get to see the man himself, BUT you get a good glimpse of the crowds that came to see him. Check out the outfits that everyone wore! In some of the footage, it may take a minute or more for TR to appear. If you want to show a few of these to your students, play a quick game of “Who Can Spot Teddy Roosevelt.” Make sure that you watch the clips beforehand, so that you know when Roosevelt will appear (in case your students miss it and don’t see him). Remind students that this is not some old movie with people in costumes; these were actual people in these clips! They might get bored watching all of each clip, so you may want to show just a couple of minutes. You could also show one a day for a few days at the end of class. Here are a few below. To see the full list of videos with descriptions, click here.
After recording my recent podcast about the Civil War activity that showed students Civil War casualty rates, I came across two great videos that you can use to go along with that activity.
#1 – This is actually a preview of the series Death and the Civil War. It is a little over two minutes long, but it definitely pulls at your emotions!
#2 – This is from the Civil War Trust and it is called Battlefield Death In4. This four-minute video gives an excellent summary of the logistical problems that the massive deaths in the Civil War caused. They mention things that most students wouldn’t think of, like pigs digging up and eating corpses buried in shallow graves. Plus, you can download this video so that you can access it quickly and/or have it in case your internet won’t work! (This website covers various topics in four minutes. After doing some digging, I found over 40 videos!! What a great resource!)