The KIDS Report is a biweekly publication produced by K-12 students as a resource to other K-12 students. It is an ongoing, cooperative effort of 15 classrooms from around the world. Teachers assist and provide support; however, students select, evaluate and annotate all resources included in every issue of the KIDS Report.
The KIDS Report is published with a generous grant from John and Tashia Morgridge and with the support of the General Library System of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This issue of KIDS, dated September 12, 2000, was written and produced by Karen Grindall's class at the Portage Path School of Technology in Akron, Ohio.
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Exploring Early America
http://www.epla y.com/1998-12-26/etravel/things/things.adp
Want to know something truly amazing about life in the 1770s? In this great
web site about our history you will find things you never read in a history
book. It has six categories: travel tips for the time; weird stuff (such as
what people did after the Boston tea Party); what kids did in every day
living; wild critters (why the eagle and not the turkey); what to wear (the
story abut the British Red coats); and big deal (about the liberty bell).
Each segment is short, but to the point, and has hot links to further
information. In addition, each of the six categories has a kids' voting
area for you to give your opinion after you have read the material. This is
definitely a "kid friendly" site giving stories from the history book and
many stories from "behind the scenes."
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Colonists Travel on the Mayflower
http:/ /teacher.scholastic.com/thanksgiving/pictimeline/sep1620.htm
Life was not very easy for those who traveled to America on the Mayflower.
Visiting this site gives you an interactive tour of what it was like if
you made the voyage. You canexplore the different parts of the ship. The
interactive tour will really help you out when you go through all ten
different parts and learn many things along the way. You can also visit
different dates between September 1620 to February 1621 to find out what
might have been happening. After you complete the tour you can then meet
the passengers and crew and hear how the trip would have effected each of
them. A picture time line helps you to better understand the sequence of
important historical events.
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Jamestown Gazzette
http://tqjunior.advanced.org/5226/final1.htm
Visiting this web site gives you a personal feeling about Jamestown,
Virginia around the time of the settlement. You get a serious look at how
life was and the struggles the first settlers must have faced. You can find
out about John Smith, go into John Smith’s diary or take a quiz to find out
how much you now know. When you take the quiz you find out immediately if
you are correct. There is a brief study guide for kids giving small amounts
of information about the major people and things. There is an interactive
drawing of the fort and when you click on an object you will get
information that you probably won’t find in your history book. The best
thing about the site is that is was made for kids by kids as part of the
annual junior Thinkquest contest.
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Archiving Early America
http://earlyamerica.com/
What happen long ago in Early America on today's date? Are you curious?
This site not only gives you this information but it also has many other
good facts about Early American life. You can explore maps, everyday living
in the early Americas, important documents, and an abundance of information
you probably did not know. If you have questions that are not answered at
the site you can e-mail the experts at the site to get answers. There is
also a fun crossword on the topic to help you check your understanding.
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Visiting Colonial America
http://www.history.org/almanack.htm
This site has not only good information but also many pictures to help you
understand what life was like in colonial times. You get an insider’s view
of specific families. You can learn how they celebrated major holidays at
the time and how they handled everyday living. This site gives a
substantial amount of information about colonial children including the
games that they played, their entertainment and jobs. You can get a feeling
of the difference of living in cities such as Philadelphia compared to the
country. It also gives you an idea of how it was to live back in the late
1700s and how the Revolutionary war might have effected you. The focus of
the site is Williamsburg, Virginia but is general enough to give a wide
view of colonial living.
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Life On A Colonial Farm
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/perspectives/dailylife.html
When you visit this site you will be working with one page only; as you
click on objects in the drawing you will receive short, well-written pieces
of information about life on a colonial farm. The picture helps you to
understand how complex their lives were even though we often think it was a
simple life. You can then go back to the main page of this PBS site and
find out what was happening in other parts of the world during this time or
what was happening with the American Revolution.
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Virtual Jamestown
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vcdh/jamestown/
Jamestown was the first permanent colonial settlement and this site tells
you more about the different kinds of people and how they lived. You can
access maps, archeological artifacts and even primary source documents such
as letters written by people who lived in the colony. The part we liked a
lot was the virtual reality of the historic museum (you will need quicktime
to view it) because we could virtually walk around the fort and zoom in
when we wanted to view details.
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These Internet resources were evaluated on the basis of Site Selection Guidelines that the students developed. Questions and comments can be sent to the facilitating teacher at the Portage Path School of Technology, Karen Grindall, at kgrindal@neo.rr.com
2000 Copyright by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the entire KIDS Report provided this paragraph, including the copyright notice, is preserved on all copies.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A Publication of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries