On April 2, 2012, the U.S. National Archives released detailed 1940 census records offering full access to 1940 census images as well as 1940 census maps and descriptions. I am enhancing my knowledge base on my family's history by using the information gathered in the April 1940 Census.

Each detailed census, released after 72 years, covers important data about most families. The release consists primarily of the actual census data sheets filled out by the enumerator or census-taker that contain information on addresses, family members, ages, sex, race, marital status, educational attainment, birthplace, and occupation. The occupation category reports on the wages earned. There is a subcategory which includes those who performed "Public Emergency Work." This subcategory chronicles the situation of over three million people who worked for such New Deal agencies as the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, and the National Youth Administration which employed unemployed people to carry out specific work projects during the depths of the Great Depression. There is also a category that directed the Enumerator to "indicate whether engaged in home housework (H), in school (S) unable to work (U), or other (Ot)."

In order to find information about my grandparents and great-grandparents, I used the census maps of Enumeration Districts provided by Stephen Morse and Joel Weintraub at the Unified 1940 Census ED Finder. I started by looking for Enumeration District maps that covered the area where my family members lived. Then I searched the data sheets in each district until I found actual addresses for my relatives and could complete my search. Most people do not know their relatives' addresses and may choose to look under their names. While many companies offer research services (for a fee), the 1940 census data can be a wonderful resource for conducting your own research or learning about life in the 1940s.

The following organizations are organizing the digitized data sheets so that searches can be made by the name of the family member. Each contains some free information, as well as more complete information that requires a monthly or annual fee:

• HeritageQuest Online
• Ancestry.com
• MyHeritage.com

Every September 17, Constitution Day calls on teachers to memorialize—and critically engage with—Constitutional history in the classroom. But what approach to the Constitution should you take? What quality teaching resources are available? How can you interest your students in a document that is more than 200 years old?

In 2008, Teachinghistory.org published a roundup of Constitution Day resources. Many of those resources remain available, but online Constitution Day content continues to grow. Check out the sites below for materials that recount the Constitutional Convention of 1787, compare the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution, explore U.S. Supreme Court cases that have interpreted the Constitution, and apply the Constitution to contemporary debates.

The Library of Congress's Constitution Day page collects the full text of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Amendments, as well as the Federalist Papers and the Articles of Confederation. Lesson plans for grades 6–12 accompany the documents. The page also includes short suggested reading lists for elementary, middle, and high school, and links to relevant Library of Congress American Memory collections, such as Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention and the papers of James Madison, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. Also check out the Library's collection of primary sources "Creating the United States."

You can find an elegant, simple presentation of the Constitution on the National Archives' Constitution Day page. Check out their high-resolution PDF of the original document, part of NARA's 100 Milestone Documents exhibit.

If the Constitution is proving a difficult read for your students, try the National Constitution Center's Interactive Constitution. Search the text by keyword or topic, and click on passages that are unclear to find explanatory notes from Linda R. Monk's The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution. The Constitution Center also offers its own Constitution Day page, with a short video on the creation of the Constitution, interactive activities, and quizzes.

If you're not already familiar with EDSITEment, created by the National Endowment for the Humanities, take a look through their extensive collection of lesson plans. A quick search reveals more than 90 lessons related to the Constitution.

Interested in bringing home to students the Constitution's importance today? The New York Times' Constitution Day page links current events to the Constitution in more than 40 lesson plans. The Times also invites students to submit answers to questions such as "Should School Newspapers Be Subject to Prior Review?" and "What Cause Would You Rally Others to Support?"

Can't find anything here that sparks your interest or suits your classroom? Many more organizations and websites offer Constitution Day resources, including the Bill of Rights Institute, the American Historical Association, Annenberg Media, and Consource. (Check out our Lesson Plan Reviews for a review of a lesson plan from Consource on the Preamble to the Constitution.)

Do you celebrate Flag Day? Though not an official federal holiday, June 14 (one week from today) memorializes the day when the Second Continental Congress approved the first version of what evolved into our modern national flag.

Since 1777, the flag has gained 37 stars and exact specifications for color and design, but it's always been recognizable. Red, white, and blue, it has waved over people, places, and events throughout U.S. history. How much do your students know about the flag and its history? If you ask them to share what they know, do they offer stories about Betsy Ross or the writing of "The Star-Spangled Banner"? Use these stories as starting points or explore other pieces of flag history with free online resources.

• Historian John Buescher describes the history of the flag—and the history of the story of Betsy Ross.
• Historian Alan Gevinson looks at the design of the Confederate flag and how it differs from the U.S. flag.
• In Lesson Plan Reviews, we explore the strong points of a Smithsonian Institution lesson on "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the War of 1812.

• The Smithsonian National Museum of American History lets you interact online with the flag that inspired the national anthem.
• The Smithsonian exhibit July 1942: United We Stand looks at ways the image of the flag was used in World War II.
• You can find more flag-related artifacts on the Smithsonian National Museum of American History's History Explorer.
• OurStory, another project of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, offers a reading guide for the picture book The Flag Maker, which looks at the flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
• The Library of Congress suggests questions to ask students about the flag and related primary sources.
• When Alaska and Hawaii became states, the 48-star flag needed two new stars. The National Archives preserves two possible designs sent to the White House by citizens.
• Every year, the president proclaims Flag Day. Read recent proclamations at the White House website.
• EDSITEment offers crosscurricular lessons on the flag as a symbol and other symbols of the U.S.