Humanities
Active Learning Projects in Humanities:

Make a Town - Kids Learning Activity
K - 4th Grade
Make Town has houses and stores to be cut out of paper and made into three-dimensional buildings. As they arrange the building into a town, kids plan yards, streets, parks and a downtown. Kids learn to think of what a town needs to work and why they are built in certain ways.

Odyssey Online
4th - 12th grades
There are quizzes and games, with pictures of genuine objects from museums, on the uses of the objects in ancient life. Well designed and fun it has information on Greece, Rome, Egypt, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Near East.

Pirates!
4 - 8th grade
Adventurous and romantic--this history of pirates includes a high seas adventure and the biographies of several pirates.

Letter Sounds
Pre-schoolers learn letter sound relationships playing a free educational alphabet game using the modalities--sight, sound, kinesthetics--that a computer makes possible. A pre-reading activity for young children to learn beginning phonics. Free software.

Seeds of Change Garden
Grades 3 - 8
Discusses both botanic and cultural aspects of food, with emphasis on the differences between New World and Old World plants. The site contains gardening information for kids, and recipes. The recipes include some that originated in either the New World or the Old World before contact, and so contain only foods known in that area at the time.

Make a Village - Kids Learning Activity
3 - 6th Grade
Make a Village has a church, an apartment house and several houses to make into a village or town. After cutting them out and assembling the structures, they can be arranged into a village. Students learn how town can be planned in advance, or how some just grow; how traffic patterns flow; how city services are delivered; and how transportation an zoning affect towns and cities.

The Incredible Art Department
Grade 3 - 8
Pictures to inspire students, and specific activities for students to make their own art using a variety of techniques.

Japanese Laquerware Art Lesson
2nd-6th grade
Using paper plates, students make a "lacquer" plate with a traditional Japanese design.

Relief Block Prints
4th grade up
Block prints in a Japanese style, made with plaster of paris. (Other materials could be used.) Messy.

Islamic Art/Eraser Prints
A geometric design is made on an art gum eraser, then it is printed and rotated 1/4 turn (4 times) to make a larger design, often unexpectedly interesting.

Make a Farm - Kids Learning Activity
K - 4th Grade
Make a Farm has a barn, silo, chicken coop, fences and other pieces to put together to make a farm. Kids plan what animals to raise and what crops are needed to feed both people and animals. A way for kids to learn about where food comes from.

At Home in the Heartland
A source on immigrants and others in Chicago, it gives brief biographies and outlines choices individuals had to make, an intersection of personal goals and the times in which they lived--the Depression, the aftermath of W.W.II, etc. The stories were apparently gathered from their descendents, so you get to make the same choices, and compare to the ones made by the real people. Somewhat slow, but visually rich. The personal interwoven with the historical makes it worthwhile.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Only the quiz is interactive, but still an interesting and important site.

"Cave Painting"
Earth-tone pastels to draw animals on rocks, in the style of cave paintings.
See a real cave filled with prehistoric drawings

The Secret of the Maya Glyphs (National Geographic)
Find and read Mayan glyphs in this adventure story.  A little slow to load.

Tour Egypt
This is the official internet site of The Ministry of Tourism, Egypt. It is the recipes that make it interactive, but the rest is interesting too.

Updated 12/5/06

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