Best Virtual Field Trips for Your Elementary Classroom

Once upon a time, field trips meant loading up the bus and heading to a museum or park for the day. But with today's technology, "field trips" have taken on a whole new dimension! Virtual field trips offer an opportunity for teachers to bring unique experiences to their students from the comfort of their own classroom. 

Listed below are some of the best virtual field trips on the web that offer plenty of choices and directly align with multiple science or social studies standards.

If you are looking for a way to get your students responding to what they  experienced, grab this FREEBIE set of digital response templates. Read about them here.

Teachers can choose from 3 different responses that will fit any field trip chosen! These responses offer maximum versatility to reach every learner in your classroom. 

SCIENCE

Access Mars

The ultimate field trip- another planet! This engaging website allows students to explore the Red Planet as well as the rover, Curiosity.

Detroit Public TV Digital Adventures:

Great Lakes Now - Virtual Field Trips

360 Experiences Winged Creatures 

Grab a lesson plan and link (provided on the website) and take your students to various areas along the Great Lakes.

International Wolf Center

Whether you're seeking red or grey wolves, this website has you covered! The IWC offers a variety of distance learning opportunities as well as free or paid encounters. Click on the "programs" tab to see all of your options.

Lights Over Lapland

Click in and choose your frosty adventure! Stunning photos and beautifully edited videos give students a virtual experience from Sweden.

National Zoo Live Web Cams

Download the provided bingo cards and click through to some fun! 5 different webcams and 4 different bingo cards offer plenty of virtual fun for you and your students.

Nickelodeon - Slime in Space

This YouTube link will lead you and your students through slime experiments in space, vocabulary enrichment, as well as some Q & A.

San Diego Zoo Live Webcams

Choose your animal and click in to watch them live in their exhibit!

Son Doog Cave

Enjoy this amazing land structure in Vietam and enjoy the 360 degree view as well as the accompanying audio.

Stellarium Web

An interactive website that gives stydents options for exploring the night sky.

SOCIAL STUDIES

American Battlefield Trust 

Click and select a battlefield! These virtual tours of Civil War and American Revolution battlefields bring your students to historic spots and give them a 360 degree view.

Colonial Williamsburg Webcams

Explore eight different webcams and see what's happening at places like Market House or Raleigh Tavern.

Ellis Island

Walk the hallways that millions of immigrants moved through as they made their way to a new life in America. View the refurbished Great Hall as well as areas frozen in time such as the Hospital Wing and Staff Quarters. The 360 degree views, navigation map, and comment side bars will give your students a modern-day lens to a historic place in American history.

History View - American Revolution

Click in and watch reinactors demonstrate what happened at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Commentary and visuals help students get a comprehensive understanding of "The Shot Heard Around the World". See everything History View offers here --> HistoryView.org

Museum of the American Revolutionary War (Distance Learning Link)

Along with an impressive virtual tour, the AmRev Museum also offers paid, live experiences for classrooms. 

National Constitution Center - Virtual Tour Exhibits

Choose from four different exhibits that offer 360 degree viewing, audio commentary, and zoom options.

National Constitution Center - Interactive Constitution

A brilliant website that gives students an opportunity to explore the process of drafting the Constitution as well as a closer look at the Civil War Amendments and the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.

Monticello

See Thomas Jefferson's estate in all it's glory. Monticello teamed up with Google to bring users a truly museum-like experience. Use the map or tale of contents to explore every inch of the home and grounds (incuding the Hemmings Cabin).

Mount Vernon

Tour the estate of our first president, George Washington! The clickable links lead students to 360 degree views, short texts about specific artifacts, stories, and videos.

National WW2 Museum (K-12 Distance Learning Link)

Offering a range of experiences, the National WW2 Museum is sure to have something that will fit your needs and budget. Video archives, webinars, and virtual and electronic field trip experiences are just a sampling of what they offer. Teachers can even explore their own professional development!

US Census Bureau - Home and Distance Learning Activities

A plethora of activities designed around the Census and statistics. This website offers educators lesson plans written in a classic format that includes grade level, time needed, and the location on Bloom's Taxonomy!

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

A virtual version of every exhibit. Bookmark and come back for more and more!

The Statue of Liberty

See Lady Liberty in all her glory. Multiple links will bring you to every inch of her magnificence; including some spots not included in the ticketed tour!

The Vatican Museum

Breathtaking 360 degree exhibits; includes the Sistine Chapel

Google Field Trips

The Great Barrier Reef 

Harriet Tubman

Ford's Theater

Google Voyager

Google has an amazing "grid". So, it's no surprise they have some amazing tools that offer your students up close and personal experiences around the globe. I have done a handful of the experiences in Google Voyager and the students absolutely love them. The interactive component of moving around the globe blended with factoids, informational text, short videos, and artifacts give the students a truly museum-like experience.

No matter what your budget or subject area might be, there is something out there for you and your students. Keep using key terms to search for the latest and greatest offerings. And, if you come across some really spectactular finds, let me know. I'll gladly add them to this list!

Best Character Analysis Strategies for Your Elementary Classroom

Basic comprehension skills can be challenging enough. When teachers ask students to dig deeper into text and develop skills for character analysis, it can be even more so. It doesn't have to be. With just a few poignant strategies you can get your students digging deeper into text and having more than a cursory understanding of the most complex characters ever written.  

Characters Traits Mat

These might be my most favorite thing - ever! The basic set up involves presenting students with a character trait such as "bravery", "perseverance", or "clever" and then challenge them to find evidence in the text where a character demonstrates (through their words or actions) that trait. 

I often assign students a mat that has 3 spaces the size of a sticky note. They write text evidence (with page number) on the stickies and place them on the mat. As they move through the novel, they continue to place notes on the mat while determining which evidence is the strongest. When students have acquired more than 3 stickies, they must arrange their notes with the strongest evidence on the top.

I love the flexibility of these mats. They are especially useful when more than one character displays a character trait. The discussions are richer and more complex. It also leads to discussing motives behind words or actions; and we also discuss when a character demonstrates a trait, if that is a core trait of the character or is it done with a bigger purpose?

Character Traits Mats Completed on Paper with Sticky Notes

When we moved to remote instruction, I redesigned the mats to be computer- friendly. Instead of 3 spaces, students now had 4. In the example above, The Tale of Despereaux was a read aloud. When we completed the mat as a group, during remote instruction, students did not have the novel in their hands. Thus, page numbers were not cited. With a later novel, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, students had a novel in their hand and page numbers were expected.

Association Triangles

If you like Venn diagrams, you'll love Association Triangles. The main difference is that this organizer allows for the comparison of 3 characters (topics) and has a "sliding scale". Students cite text evidence that demonstrates a connection between the characters. If it applies to one character more than the other, the evidence will be closer to that character. If it applies to all three, the evidence is placed in the middle of the organizer.

Association Triangles Completed Digitally

I rarely expect students to cite page numbers for this response. Students are using a more global lens to consider the connections between characters/topics so pages numbers can be challenging. When appropriate, it's fun to place the students within the triangle (see Tales of Fourth Grade Nothing example) and offer them an opportunity to determine what, if any, similarities they have with the novel's characters.

FASTs

For deep character analysis, FASTs give students the direction to consider four different ways a single character presents themselves within a novel. 

F = Feelings

A = Actions

S = Saying

T = Thinking

Character Mats and Association Triangles have students exploring multiple characters at once. However, FASTs challenge students to hone in on a single character and develop a deeper understanding of that character's behaviors and motivations.

Students can start a FAST after the first chapter or two and build evidence as the novel progresses. They are an excellent tool and reference point for cumulative writing assignments at the end of a novel. They are especially helpful when students need to cite evidence while discussing or writing about characters. 

Character FASTs Completed on Paper
(Top: Because of Winn-Dixie, Bottom: The One and Only Ivan)

You can read about other strategies to use during your ELA instruction by clicking a link below:

Best Vocabulary Strategies for Your Elementary Classroom

Best Comprehension Strategies for Your Elementary Classroom

Grab your own set of editable character analysis activities (along with other reading responses) to use with your students from my TpT store here: Reading Response Worksheets or by clicking the image below.

Your download will include:

Google Slides

• Cover Slide

• 3 Vocabulary Slides

• 5 Comprehension and Character Study Slides

• 5 Author's Craft, Summary/Sequence Slides

• 3 Theme Written Response Slides

PDF Printables 

• Pre-Reading Activities

• Vocabulary

• Literary Devices

• Comprehension

• Character Analysis

• In-depth Analysis

• Summary & Sequence of Event Responses

• Theme Written Response

• Organizers & Rubrics