Presents activities to help elementary students learn to interpret history. Using the voyage of Columbus, students can learn how history is written, what a historian's job is, and why it is important to analyze more than one point of view. The activities also teach students to understand historical symbols. (SM)

Contrasts Piagetian based research with psychological research of script knowledge-based and domain-specific knowledge restructuring theories. Suggests that a cultural framework incorporating script and domain specific ideas would be more effective for studying historical understanding than Piagetian theories. Concludes that children can…

Argues that historical understanding requires historical thinking--taking a critical stance toward what is read and assuming a questioning attitude. Identifies numerous trade books that deal with sources (showing how evidence is acquired and evaluated), conflicting interpretations, and powerful concepts and generalizations. Describes how to help…

A social studies wax museum can teach elementary students facts as they celebrate Halloween. A primary activity has students determine historic scenes to include in the wax museum, practice their poses, and put on a Halloween show. An intermediate activity has students research historic events, interpret information, create backdrops and props,…

Discusses how stories can be used to "teach" history and science. Provides many examples of how this is done in the author's Montessori classroom. Explains the ramifications of using stories in classrooms and how it inspires children to research a topic in greater depth. (JS)

This paper critically examines the English National Curriculum (NC) for History and its Schemes of Work's development of temporal cognition within the primary school. In addition, it outlines the findings of a longitudinal research study into Year 4 pupils' assimilation of historical time. The paper contends that the development of historical time…

The author uses a visit to a medieval site by elementary school students as an example of how to approach field trips for development of historical techniques. (DE)

This journal issue covers the history of film, radio, and television in Iowa. The first article, "When Pictures and Sound Came to Iowa," summarizes the origin of movies and radio and their early beginnings in Iowa. Using old photographs and measurement charts, the viewing, reading, and listening habits of young people in 1950 and 1958…

Argues that the social studies curriculum has added too many contemporary issues to be effective. Contends social studies should emphasize history more and the expanding environments approach less. States that history should be introduced in the primary grades and strengthened in the upper elementary grades. (RKM)

Explains the relationship between how children learn clock, calendar, and historical time skills and concepts. An alternative view of how temporal and historical understandings affect the teaching of history called the developmental-historical time view is proposed. (BSR)

A high school senior requests that history be taught as truth rather than as myth and that schools accept their role as agents of change in society. (JB)

Describes a local history unit used to introduce fourth graders in Berkeley, California to history. The topics and activities used to teach the topics are discussed. (AM)

The author suggests using historical memoirs and autobiographies to involve today's students in the lives of the children of pioneer America. He describes some particular memoirs he has presented to elementary classes. (Editor/SJL)

Presents an interview with a Holocaust survivor as a means of showing how the interviewing process can support and personalize well-written historical fiction for children. (TB)

Describes how elementary students can use computers to create newspapers from another time period, sparking their interest in history and motivating them to do a little research. (SM)