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History specific paper, visual, active and interactive resources
- Short term planning
- Medium term planning
- Long term planning
- Delving deeper: CPD
- Journals and Subscriptions
- Other useful history websites
Generic resources
History Specific Paper, Visual, Active and Interactive Resources
Short Term planning – activities and lesson elements
The National Archives contains some useful lesson resources for KS3
Fordham University Internet History Sourcebooks Project has huge amounts of digitised sources and stats – very useful but may take some digging to find what you need.
Tom Richey.net is a good place to go if you happen to need something quick on a big topic like the Reformation, the French Revolution etc. His PowerPoints, Study Guides and YouTube videos are all freely available.
Mr Budd History is excellent for IGCSE – but will charge for some resources
Mr HindsHistory contains a whole array of revision videos and podcasts for students to access.
Crash Course World history from the Khan academy is also very helpful for videos that provide a basis for discussion AND, because of its range, useful for Deep Time/History (for more on this, see later).
Possible one-off ideas that might be worth a try.
The TES of course contains lots of great resources. One of these features a Teacher TV episode about the Alfonso the Camel lesson, which is all about getting students to use the language of causation to explain the origins of WWI. It could be applied to other topics too. Video and download are available here. The original research behind this lesson was published in the History Association’s magazine for teachers and you can read it here.
Teachit History provides some quick and excellent resources from history teachers across the UK which can be accessed for free in pdf form (well worth a look. Editable versions and further resources can be obtained for a small membership fee. It offers these ideas to liven up dull lessons.
ActiveHistory.co.uk and ClassTools.net are both founded by Russell Tarr, and are well worth exploring. The former for lesson elements and resources for topics in all key stages and the latter for some quirky ‘hooks’ such as Fakebook, fake SMS conversations, Sky News style news reader complete with ticker tape, clickbait etc. For example, see the hexagon generator. Finally, it is worth also taking a look at Tarr’s Toolbox.
Timelines TV contains a wealth of resources that need to be explored.
History and ICT contains a digest of prose from newspapers and elsewhere which can be used in teaching as well as a digest of useful youtube clips and possible uses. It is worth a visit.
You may find a use for some old maps either here or here
Ngrams can help demonstrate change over time. The idea is explained and illustrated here and google’s Ngram generator can be tried here.
If you are looking at the bigger picture of recorded human history, see John B. Sparks ‘Histormap‘ – useful for illustrating the fact that ’empires’ are susceptible to decline and fall.
Activities that depend on BYOD:
- The current student favourite (as of 2015) is Kahoot. If you want instant joy and competition in the classroom give this a try but prepare to be asked to play this in every lesson thereafter.
- Paddlet provides perhaps the quickest way for students to write something online to share with the rest of the class via a webpage displayed on the overhead.
- Timerime – is a website which enables pupils to construct their own timelines, including text, images and links to music and YouTube clips.
- Museum box is an interesting idea based on a Thomas Clarkson invention. This is big in America but it does need a subscription. Basically it allows students to build up evidence from text, images, video etc. using the virtual box. It may be good for lower school.
Medium term planning – complete lessons and teaching strategies
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- The
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- provides a useful section on teaching ideas, activities and teaching strategies.
Ian Dawson’s ThinkingHistory website provides teaching strategies that focus upon chronological understanding and developing ‘enquiry skills’. In addition, it lists activities by Key Stage, by period and by activity type:
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- Hot Seating
- Washing Lines
- Timelines & Living Graphs
- Role Plays
- Simulations
- Decision Making
- Physical Maps and Family Trees
- Archaeology and Mysteries
- Creating Communities
- Market Place
- Miscellaneous Models
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The University of East Anglia PGCE in history site provides suggestions for Role Play and an array of suggestions for activities which seek to build pupil understanding of key concepts including:
For a novel approach to writing see Dave Martin’s ‘historical fiction in the classroom‘ blog. For more explanation and guidance try here.
The National Archives site contains a useful education section that is divided into time periods.
More specifically for KS4 see Johndclare.net who is strong on mnemonics for ‘making it stick’.
Facing history and Ourselves is dedicated mainly to Civil Rights and Holocaust Education. the ‘Teaching strategies’ section contains a wide range of teaching approaches that could be adapted to work with other subject content.
Some strategies for ‘Making it matter’ can be found via The History Resource Cupboard under the heading ‘How to make history meaningful‘.
Strategies that depend upon BYOD
NearPod requires a bit more planning than Kahoot but provides a more sophisticated tool that can be used to make dull powerpoint interactive and includes polling and quizzing features, and enables students to download all the notes to their devices (so particularly helpful perhaps for KS4-5).
Planning big history? Try exploring the big history project.The activities are designed specifically for BYOD. You will need to register to make use of the activities.
Long Term Planning – help with Schemes of Work
- For KS3 QCA schemes of work relate to the previous version of the NC for history but still a useful resource for planning.
- For ICGSE see Edexcel’s ICGSE history page.
- Pre-U planning may be assisted by accessing the CIE Teacher Support website. You should have been allocated a username and password by the TS Co-ordinator.
- BYOD
A fairly bewildering array of resources needing to be explored include Edutopia’s Epic BYOD toolchest and other sites worth exploring include Edtechreview and Teachers first.
Delving Deeper – CPD
The Historical Association offers free online history specific CPD
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- to registered users.
For a subscription, the Historical Association also provides trails for articles dealing with the teaching of key concepts such as causation, change and continuity, significance and evidence.
Journals and subscriptions
- History Today.
- History Association membership provides access to Teaching History archives but the website also provides access to many teaching and learning resources available for free. Membership costs £56 per individual and £104 for corporate membership.
- KeyStageHistory provides some free resources as well as some advice. An example of a history mystery on this site from WWII can be found here. Membership is £49.95/year.
- The HistoryResourceCupboard contains some free resources but sells most of its lessons and entire schemes of work on an item-by-item basis. A free history mystery style lesson on the black death can be found here
Other useful history websites
- World War I propaganda.
- Old Magazine Articles provides excellent resources for studying Versailles and other topics at GCSE
- Measuringworth.com is a useful website for looking at the relative value of money and spending power, with lots of the usual reservations and caveats.
- nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/ simplified version of measuringworth.
- Best of history websites
- History World.net is worth exploring – especially for topics beyond Britain, Europe and America, though it covers these too.
- School History has come back from the dead – and it is amazing. It includes online courses for students as well as lessons and resources. A basic membership is free but teachers can upgrade very cheaply.
- An excellent history website which can be used as an example or as a resource for students is PWHS US HISTORY
Generic Resources
Paper, visual and interactive resources
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- is the most followed educationalist in the UK. Here is his resource page.
Enchanted Learning is superb for geographic resources as well as other things. Need a blank map of Russia, the Middle East, Africa, etc. so that students can complete it for themselves? This is the place to find it. You can copy quite a lot without subscribing.
Mike Gershon provides a range of excellent resources from starters, plenaries, differentiation, AFL, Essay writing, philosophy in the classroom. He is a prolific author, including the 50 quick ways series. His Ultimate Lesson Activity Generator and Plenaries on a Plate are worth keeping handy.
Puzzle maker is good if you want to build your own crosswords, word searches etc.
FLIPQUIZ enables you to create game show style quizzes for the classroom. It can be challenging and engaging and provides graded questions and therefore instant differentiation!
Quiz Schhol is a useful too for creating multiple choice quizes with feedback and certicates!
BLOCKBUSTERS style quizzes can be generated here (choose from existing stock or make your own)!
Tips4teaching.co.uk founded by Paul Wright, is particularly strong on AFL.
Political self-tests are useful for helping older students become politically literate and for helping them engage with the past. You will find a selection here.
Various ICT resources
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- Ten google drive apps to try
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This needs to be explored – http://cheneyagilitytoolkit.blogspot.co.uk
To create QR codes to give students a quick way to access links try: http://www.qrstuff.com
You and/or your students can turn text into a nifty ‘word cloud’ that highlights key concepts with Wordle! Other word cloud generators are listed here.
If you want an alternative to powerpoint, why not try creating a Prezi. Nearpod is another effective application (see above).
Teachers are increasingly making their own videos to embed on YouTube or elsewhere. I have just started doing this myself and have used VideoScribe but there are lots of alternatives.
If you want to embed quizzes and comments into youtube and other videos, try these tools recommended by educators technology.com
Quizlet is an excellent website used by teachers the world over to create flashcards and other resources for students to use on their own as well as for you to use with the students in the classroom. Excellent for revision purposes.
For downloadable Clipart click here and for graphic organisers click here and here and here. Though admittedly you could find loads just by typing ‘graphic organisers’ into google.
For student handouts on all kinds of subjects, Student Handouts dot com is certainly worth exploring.
RGS History 