Performance Education ToolBooks are comprehensive teaching tools with imaginative, hands-on, reproducible lessons based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning, providing the facts as well as practice in all six levels of learning from Recall through to Evaluation.

The ToolBooks are designed for individual, cooperative groups, and whole class learning. There is no need for each student to purchase a ToolBook—you’ll only need one book for the entire class!

They are easy to use―simply open the book and start teaching! And they are available in hard copy OR digital download formats.

P-E Toolbooks provide a general knowledge base, student-centered activities, games, and hundreds of practice test questions at the end to assess what your students have actually learned as well as preparation for the end-of-grade State test.

Each Performance Education ToolBook has four basic components, organized into individual lessons and test questions. While most lessons take just 15 minutes to complete, the material can be customized to your curriculum and fill a typical 90-minute block schedule.

  • Lectures and Stories―provide the basic facts behind the subject being covered and help establish a framework for further learning.
  • Interactive Exercises―develop higher level skills through graphic organizers, maps, charts, timelines, and important documents. ToolBooks also provide links to films, videos, political cartoons, and other thought provoking materials that are updated on a regular basis.
  • Games―Unique Action Games, Brain Games, and Board Games are fun, exciting, and encourage fast-paced thinking. Students are challenged to really learn the materials and become proficient in all 6 levels of Bloom.
  • Tests―Consistent with P-E’s Teaching Materials, hundreds of practice questions, located at the end of each ToolBook, are also written based on Bloom―enough to let you test weekly, check progress, and make adjustments where necessary.

We’ve divided the ToolBooks into the four major Social Studies subjects, each with a unique set of learning objectives:

Key Learning Objectives for U.S. History and World History ToolBooks:

  • Discover how major events are related to one another in time.
  • Develop a “mental timeline” of key events, people, and historical eras.
  • Using maps, identify physical and cultural features, and explain migration, expansion, and disintegration of empires.
  • Distinguish relevant from irrelevant information.
  • Explain the central issues and problems of the past.
  • Distinguish cause and effect, sequence, and correlation in historical events.
  • Examine the sources of historical continuity.
  • Discover how a combination of ideas and events explains the emergence of new patterns.
  • Recognize the role of chance, oversight, and error in history.
  • Discover how our interpretation of history changes as new information is uncovered.

U.S. History ToolBooks at a Glance:
Browse U.S. History ToolBooks and click on ToolBook to view Table of Contents and sample lectures, games, exercises, and test questions.

World History ToolBooks at a Glance:
Browse World History ToolBooks and click on ToolBook to view Table of Contents and sample lectures, games, exercises, and test questions.

Key Learning Objectives for U.S. Government:
The student will demonstrate mastery of the social studies skills citizenship requires, including the ability to:

  • analyze primary and secondary source documents
  • create and interpret maps, diagrams, tables, charts, and graphs
  • analyze political cartoons, political advertisements, pictures, and other graphic media
  • distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information
  • evaluate information for accuracy, separating fact from opinion
  • identify a problem and prioritize solutions
  • select and defend positions in writing, discussion, and debate.

U.S. Government at a Glance:
Browse U.S. Government ToolBooks and click on ToolBook to view Table of Contents and sample lectures, games, exercises, and test questions.

Key Learning Objectives for World Regions (Geography): 
The student will become proficient in world cultures, geography, economies, and demographics by:

  • using maps, globes, photographs, and pictures in applying them to various types of lessons
  • analyzing how selected physical and ecological processes shape the Earth’s surface
  • understanding physical, economic, and cultural characteristics of world regions
  • analyzing past and present trends in human migration and cultural interaction as they are influenced by social, economic, political, and environmental factors
  • distinguishing between developed and developing countries and relating the level of economic development to the standard of living and quality of life
  • identifying patterns of urban development
  • applying geography to interpret the past, understand the present, and plan for the future.

World Regions (Geography) ToolBooks at a Glance:
Browse World Regions ToolBooks and click on ToolBook to view Table of Contents and sample lectures, games, exercises, and test questions.

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