About Us 

Created to boost skills in English, Science, Mathematics and Social Studies, the Upstairs in the Past module from Stories Past is an interactive web site for children aged 10-13.  

Students explore a family's living quarters and in each room gather virtual items--toys, photographs, letters, diaries, household accounts, and other materials--related to the residents of the house. Returning to the present, students investigate the things they have collected. Each item has one or more associated pages that might include a problem to be solved,  related links, a set of discussion questions and enrichment exercises, and a history note. 

Items also help to solve four broad interrelated problems that students address in the module: What's the Year? Where are You? Who's Home? and What's Happening? A final problem, Tell the Story, invites children to summarize their findings through news articles, editorials, book reviews, obituaries, or cartoons in an issue of the virtual (and fictitious) local newspaper. Their contributions can then be posted on the site (see Gazette from home page). [Next]