The Library of Congress

History Firsthand has been designed to provide elementary children with experiences which enable them to begin understanding primary sources. Students move from personal artifacts to the vast American Memory collections and learn how archival collections are organized, how to interpret artifacts and documents, how to use primary sources to tell a real story and how to do on-line research.

Busy kindergartners are finding out how bread is made. In one area children are making bread, in another children are trying different kinds of bread, in yet another corner a group is preparing to visit a baker to see the process in action.

Three third grade girls go to the library during recess to find out more about their favorite animal, the dog. The librarian helps them look up dogs in a traditional encyclopedia, in the non-fiction section of the library and on the Internet. The girls leave with pictures, text and charts inspired to make a series of posters on their favorite breeds.

Fourth graders studying the colonial era have decided to make imaginary diaries of composite Pilgrims traveling to the New World. Using books written for children, original journals and a wealth of material on the Mayflower Web Page the children are able to begin constructing a view of North American settlers.

Determined to find Martin Luther King Jr.'s Nobel Prize speech, a ten year old spends hours visiting a range of sites on King from highly inaccurate ones done by home schooled six year olds to complex ones he can't make heads or tails of. All efforts to convince him that he would be better off looking at traditional books fail. 

Research. It doesn't just begin in high school. Throughout the elementary school years children are doing research both for themselves and because it is assigned. Whereas in the early school years research is often done by the whole class and limited by the children's skill level, by the upper elementary grades research has become a major part of children's academic experience. Learning how to do a research report - how to take good notes, how to paraphrase, how to locate material in a library, how to outline, and how to pull lots of information into a compelling final product - all are the stuff of elementary classrooms. Using primary sources to do research can enliven a history project, but requires even more specific skills:

• deciphering antiquated language
• doing close textual analysis
• developing visual literacy acuity
• knowing what is worthwhile and what isn't (evaluating sources)
• being critically aware of authorship understanding how information is organized

With the introduction of the Internet the possibilities for research are broadened considerably. This can be seen as a good thing in that so much more is at one's fingertips. It can also be seen as a bad thing in that it is harder to sort through so much information.

The following curriculum has been designed to provide elementary children with experiences that  will enable them to better understand the complexities of primary source collections and how to do on-line research. Moving from personal artifacts to the vast American Memory collection, students learn about how collections are organized, how to interpret artifacts and documents, how to use primary sources to tell a real story and how to effectively search on-line collections.

The activities, materials and lessons are built around the theme of Immigration. At the Dalton School in New York City, Immigration is a major topic of study in fourth grade. The following activities build on children's previous knowledge and interest in the topic of Immigration. The curriculum could easily be adapted to other topics. The American Memory Collections are rich in materials related to Civil Rights, the Civil War, Women's Rights, the Constitution, Westward Movement, Native Americans, Industrialization and other topics commonly studied in elementary classrooms. What is important is that the activities be meaningful to the students. We discourage use of Immigration materials if Immigration is not a topic under study. We suggest exploring the American Memory Collections and adapting the curriculum to whatever topic your students are studying.