Social Studies page

American Studies

Civics

• We The People, Robert A. Carter and John M. Richards, Coronado Publishers, 1983. A somewhat dated text that does a nice job covering the concepts. Cartoons and illustrations help keep the text lively although it is probably not illustrated to the level of modern texts.

Constitution

• National Constitution Center contains lesson plans and lots of educational materials relating to the United States Constitution.

Criminal Justice

• Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st Century, by Frank Schmalleger, Prentice-Hall, 1997. BC HV 9950 .S35 1997. A nice college intro text that covers crime in America, policing, adjudication, corrections and special issues such as juvinile delinquency, drugs and crime, multinational criminal justice and the future. Information about the book and criminal justice links are available at their web site .
• Policing America: Methods, Issues, Challenges, by Kenneth J. Peak, Prentice-Hall, 1997. An intensive text on the police in the United States from several different aspects. Somewhat of a difficult text for children. BC HV 8141.P33 1997.

Foreign and Local Regional Resources

Geography

• The American Automobile Association provides guidebooks for free to their members to travel destinations in the United States and Canada. Their guidebooks provide brief summeries of geographical and historical information on states, cities and towns that you might find useful when working on geography.
• US Geological Service website. Contains several lesson plans related in addition to other things of interest.
• Geography.com.sg contains lessons on various aspects of geography with information on Singapore too.
• Owl and Mouse Software has many mapping games for free.

History

• New Hampshire
  • New Hampshire Historical Society
  • History of New Hampshire, by Everett Stackpole, American Historical Society, 1916. BC F34.S77
  • The History of New Hampshire, from its discovery, in 1614, to the passage of the Toleration act, in 1918, by George Barstow, I.S. Boyd, 1842. BC F34.B28
  • New Hampshire: a Bicentennial History, by Elizabeth Forbes Morison, Norton, 1976. BC F34.M67
• United States
  • A History of US, Joy Hakim, Oxford University Press. An excellent series for upper-elementary level in a ten-volume set. BC ERC.
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • Crossroads: A K-16 American History Curriculum. There's quite a bit of lesson information here.
  • National Council for History Education. They have links to many history and social studies sites as well as their idea of a good history curriculum (in broad terms). They also have a nice issues page with archives of previous issues.
  • The Young Oxford History of Women in the United States,10 volumes, Oxford University Press. (BC ERC)
  • America, A Narrative History, 3rd edition by Tindall. A college level textbook with a WEB Site with lesson plans.
• European
  • We're trying out many of the WW Norton books and they're working out reasonably well though they assume a strong vocabulary and a rough idea of life back then.
    • The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559 by Eugene Rice, jr.
• World
  • History and Great Books recommendations, Grades 5 - 8 from The Well-Trained Mind.
  • World and Regional History texts and lesson resources for the texts. I've also taken a look at A History of Modern Europe by Merriman and it too looks like something that we'll use in a few years
  • Tradition and Memory: World Cultures to 1500 Course; appears to be a complete World Civilizations course online.
• The Middle Ages
• American and British
• Colonial Williamsburg
• Egyptian
• History/Archaeology/Anthropology/Paleontology
• Condensed China: Chinese History for Beginners, contains a brief overview of Chinese history and a bibliography for further study.
• Timelines from Information Association (Canada)

Law

• American Law & Legal System, by Calvi. BC KF387.C28. An excellent text suitable for older kids.

Political Science

• An introduction to modern political theory, by Norman Barry, St. Martin's Press, 1989. BC JA71.B35.
• Modern political ideologies, by Andrew Vincent, Cambridge, 1995. BC JA71.V55.
• Political ideologies: an introduction, by Robert Eccleshall, Routledge, 1994. BC JA74.P63.
• Politics: a very short introduction, by Kenneth Minogue, Oxford University Press, 1995. BC JA66.M55

States

• America The Beautiful, 1991, Childrens Press, Chicago, K-6.
• From Sea to Shining Sea, Dennis Brindell, 1992, Childrens Press, Chicago, K-6.

Social Studies

• People and Neighborhoods, James Banks, 1993, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, NY, grade 1.
• Neighborhoods and Communities, James Banks, 1993, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, NY, grade 2.
• Communities Near and Far, James Banks, 1993, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, NY, grade 3.
• Regions Near and Far, James Banks, 1995, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, NY, grade 4.
• The United States and its Neighbors, 1995, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, grades 5-7.
• Latin America and Canada, 1995, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, grades 5-7.
• The World: Past and Present, East and West, 1995, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, grades 5-7.