This resource provides links to a number of activities involving local mapping including autobiographical mapping known as a "turf map," how to get students to connections to their local geographies, mapping a school for teaching tolerance, use of historical maps of a community, and use of technology through Googe Earth. Ideas presented were mostly introduced in APHG Academies that have been sponsored by the VGA, NCGE meetings, AP Annual Conferences, workshops, and through collaboration with colleagues. This collection is intended to help get new teachers started or to move others to grow their curriculum and enhance the experiences of their students and build geographic skills by promoting the inclusion of local geographies into classrooms and through personal observation and data collection in local environments.

This guided reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842) focuses on expanding vocabulary, developing student understanding of imagery and other figurative language, strengthening reading comprehension, and strengthening expository and persuasive writing skills.

 Massive Resistance to school integration was an important part of Virginia history, but it is often not taught or it's glossed over quickly. Students will watch actual newsclips and then write a factual paragraph about Massive Resistance in VA.    In this lesson, students will explore the Robert Russa Moton Historical Site on the Civil Rights Trail website. Then they will watch original news clips of different events during the Massive Resistance Movement in Virginia. As they watch the clips they will complete a graphic organizer on the 5 Ws. They will use the information from their graphic organizer to create a well-written, complete, factual paragraph.      This lesson is designed for upper primary grades but can be used for middle school also. It covers Virginia History and US History II SOLs and English writing and research SOLs.     Feel free to modify this lesson and its accompanying documents as needed for your classes. 

Students will look at an overview of the rise of mass news media in the U.S.. They will then study the Civil Rights movement through the lens of media coverage to determine the impact news coverage of violence against peaceful protestors helped lead to social change.

After completing background research on what it was like to live during the colonial times students will be placed in a Minecraft world where they will have to collaborate with a group of classmates to build a colony that provides food and protection since the game will be played in survival mode.

The student will demonstrate an understanding of the lives of the native people and locate the three American Indian language groups. Fourth grade students are learning about American Indians and the three major language groups spoken in Virginia. These comprehension “mix-ups” are a great way to monitor students’ understanding of the content along with checking reading comprehension.

The students will locate Virginia and its bordering states on maps of the United States.
The students will also locate and identify important water features of Virginia. Fourth grade students are learning about bordering states as well as bodies of water that were important to the early history of Virginia. These comprehension “mix-ups” are a great way to monitor students’ understanding of the content along with checking reading comprehension.

Students will select a person, persons, or event from the Pre-war to Civil War era that had a significant impact on African American and United States history. They will design a monument or a memorial and create a proposal for it.

Create a museum exhibit that will explore a specific historical time period or event through the display and analysis of historical artifacts and primary sources.

Author: Katie Frazier, Museums at W&LStudents will examine a ceramic object made by David Drake (about 1800-about 1870), an enslaved person who lived on a plantation in Edgefield, South Carolina. As an enslaved individual, Drake was denied the basic rights of learning how to read and write. Despite writing being illegal for enslaved people, David Drake was known for writing his name and poetry on the ceramics he made. He wanted to express his feelings about life, religion and his own identity as an enslaved person.  

A collection of resources for lesson planning and learning more about Native Americans, past and present. This resource was created through a partnership between CodeVA and the Virginia Tribal Education Consortium (VTEC). 

Students will read a passage about the Virginia economy after the Civil War. They will follow the instructions in the passage to code Ozobot to do a series of different things based on the economy. 

Students will follow along with the slide deck to discuss changes in technology, as well as changes to the U.S. Constitution.  Students will then work to correctly place statements in a Venn diagram.  With extra time, students will do a Roll & Read activity with Plus Plus or Pixel blocks. 

1st grade students often struggle to relate to the experiences of others, to help them empathize with how obstacles make it harder to reach goals, they will work together to build towers out of various types of building toys. Each group will have an obstacle they must overcome, just like Maggie L. Walker overcame her obstacles and became a wonderful example of a good citizen! Students will learn and explore how to be a good digital citizen using internet safety. 

Students will use Google Slides to create an artifact that illustrates their learning about Harriet Tubman & the Underground Railroad.  Slides will include specific components (i.e. video book talk).   

Using sensory bins, wiki sticks, and magical water painting art, students will merge their knowledge of Virginia’s civil rights icons with strong password dos and don’ts.  

This guided reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842) focuses on expanding vocabulary, developing student understanding of imagery and other figurative language, strengthening reading comprehension, and strengthening writing skills.

This is as a study game to help students better identify and internalize definitions and explanations of key political parties, concepts, and people from the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the United States.

Students will complete an IDM (Inquiry Design Model) Lesson to guide them through the social and political discrimination, segregation, and violence against African Americans during the “Jim Crow Era.” They will evaluate the effectiveness of the Reconstruction Amendments based on three supporting questions that help guide them to constructing and providing evidence for a final argument that addresses the compelling question.

In 1607, a party of Englishmen landed in a place they called Virginia. They followed in the footsteps of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had visited Virginia (which, at the time, included North Carolina) with a party of settlers in 1585. The colony founded by Raleigh’s party failed, weakened by lack of supplies and irregular contact with England.

To the people who already lived in the area, this was the land of the Powhatan Confederacy, a vast regional network of allied communities living under the leadership of Wahunsenacah (also known as Powhatan). Contact between the English and the people of the Powhatan confederacy was fraught with misunderstanding and conflict. This owed a great deal to the fact that the English were in the Americas to form a colony and make money for the Virginia Company of London, the corporation that had launched them on their voyage west. The Powhatan, on the other hand, lived out their values of kinship, allyship, and reciprocity in a way that was at first incomprehensible to the English, and that later they firmly rejected.