Using the events calendar - Teachers' Toolbox

This feature of NZHistory.net.nz provides students and teachers with quick and daily access to stories relating to New Zealand history. Entries range from the big themes to the quirky and unusual, and the relevant links allow you to explore the story further. Users can access these stories through Today in History or through the Calendar on a month-by-month basis, by the term or throughout the year.

There are a number of ways that you can incorporate this calendar into your own teaching practice, such as:

• an introduction to your lesson or day. Incorporating that day's story into your teaching can give your lesson some added flavour.
• a support for units of work you are currently teaching. Stories that relate to your teaching units can be incorporated into your teaching plans.
• the basis of small research topic work. For instance, in junior classes the stories covering a particular month or term could be allocated to different students who would be required to make some form of presentation to the class, either verbally or in some other form, as a piece of ongoing research or homework. Alternatively, students could present a piece of research based on the event from the Calendar relating to their birthday.
• a springboard into a wider study. For instance 25 April can be used to help launch an in-depth study of the Anzac story, Gallipoli, New Zealand in the First World War or the place of war in shaping national identity.