By Nina KendallHispanic Heritage Month is here. The annual celebration of Hispanic heritage is organized around historical anniversaries. Now is a great time to reflect on how you include Hispanic heritage and history in your classroom. As a history and geography teacher, I approach this topic from multiple perspectives. If you are still looking for a few options for your social studies classroom, check out our suggestions.
The Hispanic
Heritage Month site hosted by the Library of Congress has a collection of
art, literature, and history that will help you
design engaging lessons.
A section of the
Veterans History Project is dedicated to oral history records of Hispanic
American Servicemen since World War II.
The Smithsonian Hispanic
Heritage Teaching Resources explore the art of textiles in the southwest,
provide historic resources about the Bracero Program, and examine the
development of cowboy culture.
The Smithsonian
Latino Virtual Museum is a unique way to experience Latino culture. Explore
a virtual landscape hyperlinked to related resources and YouTube videos. Set your students to explore the site or
check out the teacher resources for ways to incorporate it in your classroom.
The PBS Hispanic Heritage
Month site will provide you with links to the Latino Americans documentary
and Latin Music USA documentary. The Latin Music USA documentary is a
fascinating look at immigration and musical syncretism.
Edsitement has put together a collection
of resources for the study of art, language, culture, and history. The 14th colony site provides
resources for Teachers to use in teaching about the California Mission system.
The state of California has lesson plans and student
friendly biographies about César E. Chávez
for K-12 students.
Check out these resources and pick what works best
for you. A new resource may be just the thing for a lesson you are planning.
