Interactive Whiteboard Activities, Book Resources
Teach Dear America
Students can travel back in time to discover the America of yesteryears, from the Colonial Period in the 1600s to World War II.
- Grades: 3–5, 6–8
Scholastic’s “Dear America” activities offer students a glimpse of life in our country from when the Pilgrims settled here up to the end of World War II. In addition to reading articles about various historical periods, students can also read “diaries” from girls during those eras and browse the fictional scrapbooks of the diaries “authors.”
- While browsing the About the Era timeline, students read about what life was like in America during the Colonial Period, Revolutionary War, Westward Expansion, Civil War, Turn of the 20th Century, The Great Depression, and World War II.
- Students can Explore the Scrapbooks — interactive, fictional scrapbooks created by a girl living in the Revolutionary War era.
- Students can also Explore the Books — links to “diaries” of girls from the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s. These books are a part of our Dear America book series.
- About the Authors shares the bios of the writers who penned the Dear America book series. Among them are best-selling authors and recipients of prestigious awards.
Learning Objectives
Scholastic's Online Activities are designed to support the teaching of standards-based skills. While participating in the Dear America project, students will:
- Use Web technology to access time periods in American history
- Conduct research by gathering information about the culture of a time period by reading background material, journal entries, historical fiction, and by viewing online video dramatizations of people's lives
- Evaluate journals as historical artifacts, especially the concept of firsthand account vs. history text
- Study the people of the past by completing an arts and craft activity that connects students, hands-on, to the culture of a past era
- Communicate their discoveries about the time period by presenting their completed arts and craft activity
- Use Flash technology to enhance learning and promote creativity by appropriately furnishing a period room
- Synthesize information about American history and past culture to write a journal entry from the point of view of someone from that era
- Use Web technology to publish American history journal entries online
- Subjects:African American History, Colonial and Revolutionary America, Civil War Period and Reconstruction, American Civil War, Industrial Revolution and Gilded Age, American Revolutionary War, Great Depression, Pilgrims, Independent Reading, Journalism, Journal Writing, Immigration, Pioneers, World War I
