Children's Lives at Colonial London Town tells the stories of three 18th-century families who lived in the port town of London Town, MD. Funded by a Teaching American History (TAH) grant, Anne Arundel County Public School teachers created this interactive online storybook and complementary app in partnership with the Center for History Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and Historic London Town and Gardens.

The storybook includes a three-chapter narrative exploring the lives of the Pierponts, a four-child, single-mother family running an ordinary (a public house) in 1709; the Hills, a middle-class young Quaker couple raising Mrs. Hill's five young siblings in 1739; and the Browns, 1762 tavernkeepers who owned several slaves, among them seven-year-old Jacob. Introductory sections explore the pre-colonial lives of Native peoples and the early days of colonization.

Each of more than 40 pages features images of primary sources, photographs of reenactors, and two to three paragraphs describing the everyday lives of these families. The stories look at how both parents and children (including enslaved children) ate, slept, dressed, worked, learned, played, and attended to their health. Questions throughout the text ask students to consider the information they read and develop questions about the past. Highlighted names and vocabulary invite readers to click to visit a glossary.

A slideshow gallery of images used in the storybook, an interactive map showing the locations of the three families' homes, and a timeline of events of both national and local London Town events from 1600 to 1800 support the storybook. Clicking on highlighted names and terms on the timeline takes visitors to related primary sources and articles off-site.

But how to use the storybook in the classroom? An Educators section orients teachers to the storybook and its supporting materials. A guide outlines the purpose and structure of the storybook, while the "Educator Resource" section offers more than 10 downloadable lesson plans and activities for 4th- through 5th-graders. Teachers can also review pre-reading and during-reading strategies for using the storybook, as well as strategies for writing prompted by it. Teachers can also follow links to sections of the Historic London Town and Gardens' website, including a 300-word introduction to London Town's history and information on London Town school tours.

To learn more about subjects covered in the storybook and to explore the sources that went into making it, see "Additional Websites and Places of Interest" for more than 25 links to websites focusing on Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania history and "Sources Used to Create This Book" for a bibliography of more than 30 books, primary sources, and websites.

A window into history tailored specifically for upper-elementary students, Children's Lives at Colonial London Town could make a compelling whiteboard read-along activity for teachers covering the colonial era. For students and teachers with smartphones and tablets, try the free app version and let students explore at their own pace.

Internment experiences of Americans and Canadians of Japanese heritage in the Northwest during World War II are documented in this site, which features an exhibit that "tells the story of Seattle's Japanese American community in the spring and summer of 1942 and their four month sojourn at the Puyallup Assembly Center known as 'Camp Harmony.'" The internment camp section furnishes nearly 150 primary documents--including 12 issues of the "Camp Harmony Newsletter," 16 government documents, ten letters, 39 photographs, 24 drawings, a scrapbook, 20 newspaper clippings, and a 7,500-word chapter from the book Nisei Daughter that describes camp life. The site also provides archival guides and inventories for 21 University of Washington Library manuscript holdings relating to the internment and for 21 related collections; a 46-title bibliography for further reading; and additional information and documents related to Japanese Canadian internment. Valuable for those studying the wartime experiences and culture of interned Japanese Americans.

This archive offers a collection of more than 900,000 photographs, maps, letters, documents, books, artifacts, and other items relating to all aspects of Texas history, from prehistory through the 20th century. Subjects include agriculture, arts and crafts, education, immigration, military and war, places, science and technology, sports and recreation, architecture, business and economics, government and law, literature, people, religion, social life and customs, and the Texas landscape and nature. Some subjects include sub-categories. For instance, social life and customs, with 694 items, includes 13 sub-categories, such as clothing, families, food and cooking, homes, slavery, and travel. The visitor can also search the collection by keyword.

Resources for educators include seven "primary source adventures," divided into 4th- and 7th-grade levels, with lesson plans, preparatory resources, student worksheets, and PowerPoint slideshows. Subjects of the lessons include Cabeza de Vaca, Hood's Texas Brigade in the Civil War, life in the Civilian Conservation Corps, the journey of Coronado, the Mier Expedition, runaway slaves, the Shelby County Regulator Moderator war, and a comparison of Wichita and Comanche village life. This website offers useful resources for both researching and teaching the history of Texas.

More than 137,000 photographs of Florida, many focusing on specific localities from the mid-19th century to the present, are available on this website. The collection, including 15 online exhibits, is searchable by subject, photographer, keyword, and date.

Materials include 35 collections on agriculture, the Seminole Indians, state political leaders, Jewish life, family life, postcards, and tourism among other things. Educational units address 17 topics, including the Seminoles, the Civil War in Florida, educator Mary McLeod Bethune, folklorist and writer Zora Neale Hurston, pioneer feminist Roxcy Bolton, the civil rights movement in Florida, and school busing during the 1970s.

"Writing Around Florida" includes ideas to foster appreciation of Florida's heritage. "Highlights of Florida History" presents 46 documents, images, and photographs from Florida's first Spanish period to the present. An interactive timeline presents materials—including audio and video files—on Florida at war, economics and agriculture, geography and the environment, government and politics, and state culture and history.

When President Roosevelt created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in May of 1933, the nation was in the throes of the Great Depression. Roughly 15 million Americans were unemployed, many of whom had lost both their livelihoods and their life savings. FERA maintained local relief organizations that created work projects for the unemployed, primarily construction and engineering projects. This collection of close to 200 photographs documents the work of FERA in King County, Washington, which includes Seattle, Tacoma, and Bellevue.

The bulk of photographs depict construction projects for roads, bridges, schools, public buildings, and parks. Workers also appear working on sewing machines as well as at relief centers, the blacksmiths' forge, the furniture factory, and the sheet metal workshop. Together, these photographs shed light on not only the development of King County, but also on important general aspects of the New Deal program they sought to document.

Take some time on this guide to all things West Virginia. This website offers a plethora of articles from "Abolitionism" to "John Zontini." To aid your search, you can sort through articles by topical category, alphabetical order, selecting "random article," or running a keyword search for specific interests. Your search will return media as well as text results, nicely sorted into separate categories. Articles are brief, but cross-referenced; and they also include citations and images, when available and appropriate.

The encyclopedia also includes larger sets of information and images referred to as exhibits. Topics include steamboats, John Henry, the Kanawha County Textbook Controversy, the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, coal mining, historic preservation, the Swiss community of Helvetia, the Greenbrier resort, and labor. A similar feature offers a handful of historical West Virginia maps.

Want something more interactive? Try the thematic 10-question quizzes, forums, or interactive maps and timelines.