Great American History Games

More than 20 games, puzzles and learning activities for American history.

More than 30 engaging hands-on activities in this guide make key time periods come alive and enhance history lessons. Includes step-by-step directions, lists of important dates, fun facts, recipes, and more. Illustrations.

Despite the growing number of books designed to radically reconsider the educational value of video games as powerful learning tools, there are very few practical guidelines conveniently available for prospective history and social studies teachers who actually want to use these teaching and learning tools in their classes. As the games and learning field continues to grow in importance, Gaming the Past provides social studies teachers and teacher educators help in implementing this unique and engaging new pedagogy. This book focuses on specific examples to help social studies educators effectively use computer simulation games to teach critical thinking and historical analysis. Chapters cover the core parts of conceiving, planning, designing, and implementing simulation based lessons. Additional topics covered include: Talking to colleagues, administrators, parents, and students about the theoretical and practical educational value of using historical simulation games. Selecting simulation games that are aligned to curricular goals Determining hardware and software requirements, purchasing software, and preparing a learning environment incorporating simulations Planning lessons and implementing instructional strategies Identifying and avoiding common pitfalls Developing activities and assessments for use with simulation games that facilitate the interpretation and creation of established and new media Also included are sample unit and lesson plans and worksheets as well as suggestions for further reading. The book ends with brief profiles of the majority of historical simulation games currently available from commercial vendors and freely on the Internet.

Fun and challenging games to test your child's knowledge in American history; the lives and accomplishments of each U.S. president; the unique history and geography of the 50 states and Washington, D.C.; and reading comprehension, vocabulary, and spelling.

From the 9/11 attacks to waterboarding to drone strikes, relations between the United States and the Middle East seem caught in a downward spiral. And all too often, the Central Intelligence Agency has made the situation worse. But this crisis was not a historical inevitability—far from it. Indeed, the earliest generation of CIA operatives was actually the region’s staunchest western ally. In America’s Great Game, celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford reveals the surprising history of the CIA’s pro-Arab operations in the 1940s and 50s by tracing the work of the agency’s three most influential—and colorful—officers in the Middle East. Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt was the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and the first head of CIA covert action in the region; his cousin, Archie Roosevelt, was a Middle East scholar and chief of the Beirut station. The two Roosevelts joined combined forces with Miles Copeland, a maverick covert operations specialist who had joined the American intelligence establishment during World War II. With their deep knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs, the three men were heirs to an American missionary tradition that engaged Arabs and Muslims with respect and empathy. Yet they were also fascinated by imperial intrigue, and were eager to play a modern rematch of the “Great Game,” the nineteenth-century struggle between Britain and Russia for control over central Asia. Despite their good intentions, these “Arabists” propped up authoritarian regimes, attempted secretly to sway public opinion in America against support for the new state of Israel, and staged coups that irrevocably destabilized the nations with which they empathized. Their efforts, and ultimate failure, would shape the course of U.S.–Middle Eastern relations for decades to come. Based on a vast array of declassified government records, private papers, and personal interviews, America’s Great Game tells the riveting story of the merry band of CIA officers whose spy games forever changed U.S. foreign policy.

Traces the changes in the way Americans have amused themselves and the growth of leisure time from colonial times to the present, and describes the technological and social developments behind these differences.

"Over 2,000 entries covering the who, what, where, when and why of U.S. history."--Thumbnail.

Color portraits of prominents figures from american history adorn the 55 cards of this stately deck.

All students love learning history with these exciting, easy-to-read plays. The plays are all written on a 3rd grade reading level, so even your most challenged readers will be successful. Topics covered include Columbus’s explorations, Jamestown, the Pilgrims, the Boston Tea Party, the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, Immigration, and more. Also includes creative activities, Web and literature links, background information, and vocabulary lists. For use with Grades 4-8.