
| Holy crap…are we the only ones who blinked and it’s already May?!? As summer approaches, it gets harder and harder to keep students attentive. Here are five free Topics for you to help keep your students engaged this week. |

British explorer James Cook’s first two voyages took him around the world—farther south than anyone had ever been before, even crossing the Antarctic Circle. It was during this week in 1770 that his ship, the Endeavour, reached Botany Bay, Australia. Learn more about his travels in this Topic.

Did you know that William Shakespeare passed away on the same day he was born–April 23?? Pretty crazy, right? Check out this Topic to see some of the ways in which his legacy lives on!


Few movies have done more to “popularize” the Civil War, than the 1939 film Gone With the Wind. Did you know it was adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s 1937 book, of the same title, which she won the Pulitzer Prize for that year? See some of the other books, songs, and movies which honor the memory of this war.

On April 29 in 1945, a milestone of World War II takes place, as U.S. Army forces free over 30,000 prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. One of the tougher aspects of WWII to teach young students, accounts of the darkest days are written in a sensitive and straightforward way that will spark classroom discussion in Topics like this one.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates