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Ideas, Activities, and Plans

Lesson Plans, Units, PD Plans, Activities, and Book Backdrops to engage and empower your students.
This vetted searchable database of teacher-created resources is your source of inspiration for primary source driven teaching across the curriculum. Find just the right resource and then let us know how you used it:
Classroom Implementation Report
PD Activity Report

TPS Files
LessonPlan--ABCs.jpg

Slave Resistance

Oigarga, James
  • Lesson Plan
  • 6-8
  • History
  • Common Core
  • Abolitionist, Freedom, Underground Railroad, Resistance, Slavery
LessonPlan--ABCs.jpg

Sinking of the Lusitania: Is There a Justifiable Reason to Go to War?

Deal, Larry
  • Lesson Plan
  • 9-12
  • History
  • Common Core, NCSS
  • Archduke, Assassination, Justify, Lusitania, U-Boats, War, World War I, WWI
Book Backdrop Default Image

Silver at Night

Thistle, Gay
  • Activity
  • Pre K-2
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Children, Coal, Ellis Island, Immigrants, Night, Pennsylvania, Silver
Book Backdrop Default Image

Shine Man: A Christmas Story

Rooker, Sarah
  • Activity
  • 6-8
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Boxcar, Breadline, Christmas, Great Depression, Hobo, Hooverville, Poverty, Travel
Book Backdrop Default Image

Shh! We're Writing the Constitution

TPS
  • Activity
  • 3-5
  • English/Language Arts
  • Common Core
  • Constitution, Federalist, Franklin, Government, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Philadelphia, Washington
LessonPlan--ABCs.jpg

Segregation and Education

Mitchell, Lakisha
  • Lesson Plan
  • 6-8
  • Civics and Government, English/Language Arts, History
  • MD State
  • Civil Disobedience, Civil Rights, Integration, School, Segregation
Book Backdrop Default Image

She's Wearing a Dead Bird on her Head

Thistle, Gay
  • Activity
  • 6-8
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Audobon, Bird, Enviornment, Fashion, Migratory, Women's Suffrage
PDPlans-primerofteachertraining-BLUE-light.jpg

Setting the Stage: Using Visual Literacy and Primary Sources as a Backdrop for Literature

Sabra, Jodi
  • PD Plan
  • 6-8
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • 21st Century Learner
  • African American, Context, Inquiry, Literacy, Segregation, Sharecropper, South, Stripling, Visual
Book Backdrop Default Image

Secret Signs: Along the Underground Railroad

Simatic, Sandy
  • Activity
  • Pre K-2
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Abolition, Civil War, Harriet Tubman, Quilts, Signs, Slavery, Underground Railroad
LessonPlan--ABCs.jpg

Scene Investigation: The New Boy, January 1, 1905

Wilson, Zachary
  • Lesson Plan
  • 9-12
  • History
  • NCSS
  • Civil War, Culture, Economy, Election, Geography, Lincoln, North, Political Cartoon, Slavery, South, States Rights
Activities--SnakeGame.jpg

Scene Investigation: A Slave Auction at the South

TPS
  • Activity
  • 9-12
  • History
  • NCSS, Common Core
  • Auction, Civil War, Davis, Drawing, Harper's Weekly, New York, PSSA, Slavery
PDPlans-primerofteachertraining-BLUE-light.jpg

Scavenging For Information

Daquila, Michael
  • PD Plan
  • 6-8
  • Arts and Music, English/Language Arts, History
  • ISTE Standards
  • Direct Learning, Johnstown, North America, Scavenger, Scavenging, Washington D.C.
PDPlans-primerofteachertraining-BLUE-light.jpg

Scavenger Hunt Activity

TPS
  • PD Plan
  • 6-8
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Resource Manual, Inquiry, Poster, Analyze, Scavenger Hunt
Book Backdrop Default Image

Rudy Rides The Rails A Depression Era Story

Scumaci, Mary Beth
  • Activity
  • 6-8
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Children, Dreams, Family, Great Depression, Migrant, Migrate, Riding the Rails, Rudy, Survival
Book Backdrop Default Image

Rose's Journal

Beckstrom, Kim
  • Activity
  • 3-5
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Child Labor, Children, Great Depression, Journal, Labor, Mill, Rose
Book Backdrop Default Image

Rosa's Bus

Bucks, Robert
  • Activity
  • Pre K-2
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Civil Disobedience, Civil Rights, Equality, Jim Crow Laws, Martin Luther King, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks, Segregation
Book Backdrop Default Image

Rosa Parks

Uram, Paige
  • Activity
  • 3-5
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Civil Rights, Civil Disobedience, Equality, Jim Crow Laws, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks, Segregation
LessonPlan--ABCs.jpg

Role of Women During World War II

Fowler, Mary Conner
  • Lesson Plan
  • 6-8
  • History
  • NCSS
  • Government, Home front, Propaganda, Women, World War II, WWII
Book Backdrop Default Image

River Ran Wild

Colcuhoun, Jaclyn
  • Activity
  • Pre K-2
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Colony, Declaration of Independence, Immigrant, Nashua Indian, Nashua River Valley, River, Small Pox
Activities--SnakeGame.jpg

Reconstruction 1865-1877

Davenport, Rikki
  • Activity
  • 6-8
  • History
  • SC State
  • Amendment, Discrimination, Freedmans Bureau, Political Cartoon, Reconstruction, Sharecropper, South Carolina, Slavery, Technology
Unit-poster.jpg

Recalling September 11, 2001

Parry, Reba; Polesovsky, Melanie; Wadsworth, Tia
  • Unit
  • 3-5
  • English/Language Arts, History, Science and Technology
  • PA State
  • 9/11, Air Pollution, Asbestos, Cancer, Change, Emotion, Heroes, Identity, September 11, Sulfur Dioxide, Superman, Terrorism
PDPlans-primerofteachertraining-BLUE-light.jpg

Real Deal for Project Based Learning

Mitchell, Audrey
  • PD Plan
  • 6-8
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • VA State
  • Analysis, Coal Breaker, Industrial, Manifest Destiny, Project, Revolution, Westward Expansion
Book Backdrop Default Image

Quiltmakers Gift

Thistle, Gay
  • Activity
  • 3-5
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • Common Core
  • Great Depression, New Deal, Quilt, Roosevelt
PDPlans-primerofteachertraining-BLUE-light.jpg

Primary Sources Today and Yesterday

Young, Jayne
  • PD Plan
  • 3-5
  • English/Language Arts, History
  • 21st Century Learner
  • Baseball, Japanese, Inquiry, Internment, Photograph, Today, Yesterday

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Citations for TPS Eastern Region Publications