Historic · K–12 history and social studies · In development · early access
History taught from the document, not the summary.
Historic is the K–12 history and social studies flagship. It starts at the source, not the chapter. The engine is still being built.
Historic has no engine of its own yet. That is the honest headline. What is live today is free social studies material from our FreeSchool network. Historic will build on it, not replace it.
Two things, and we keep them apart
This page describes two different things. One is live. One is not. Blurring them would be the exact dishonesty a history course is supposed to teach students to catch.
Live, free, and not ours. Our sibling FreeSchool network publishes real social studies material right now. Founding documents in full. Lesson plans with named standard codes. Original historical plays. Every link on this page resolves. Historic did not write that material and does not own it.
In development, and not shipped. Historic’s own work — the timeline, the source workbench, the document-question studio — does not exist yet. Not in beta. Not behind a waitlist gate. It is being designed. Everything below about it is direction.
Read the pills. Live now means you can open it today. In development means we are describing a plan.
The founding documents, in full, free
Most history products hand a student a summary of the Constitution. We would rather hand them the Constitution. These three units are published and free at the addresses below. They belong to our sibling FreeSchool network, not to Historic.
Live now · free
The Declaration of Independence
Grades 6–8
The complete 1776 engrossed text, with an original glossary for its harder words. Public domain, verified basis and verified edition. Free to read and print.
Live now · free
The U.S. Constitution
Grades 9–12
The complete official engrossed text, with an original reading guide that walks each article. A federal government work, so it carries no copyright at all.
Live now · free
Reading a primary source
Grades 6–8
An original worksheet for sourcing, close reading, and questioning any document. Aligned to both the C3 Framework and Common Core. Works on a source we never published.
Browse the social studies lane → freeschoolcurriculum.com. Each unit records where its text came from and which exact edition we host.
Four strands, one method
Social studies is not one subject. The C3 Framework names four dimensions, and a good course works all of them. Below is one free, original, classroom-ready lesson for each, spanning kindergarten to senior year. Every one is live, and every one is published by the FreeSchool network rather than by Historic.
Live now · free Civics
Roles of people in authority
Grades K–2 · aligned to D2.Civ.1.K-2
Students sort picture cards of a classroom, a school, and a town. They match each person to a role and one responsibility. Then they talk about why rules exist.
Live now · free Geography
Reading maps to explain a place
Grades 3–5 · aligned to D2.Geo.2.3-5
Students compare a physical map, a road map, and a photograph of one region. Then they write two sentences on how the land shaped where the town went.
Live now · free History
Reading a primary source
Grades 6–8 · aligned to D2.His.10.6-8
Students read a short public-domain document from the 1800s. They work out who wrote it and when. Then they separate what it reports from what it argues.
Live now · free Economics
Needs, wants, and scarcity
Grades 6–8 · aligned to D2.Eco.1.6-8
Students sort household items into needs and wants. Then they role-play a family on a fixed budget. The trade-off is the lesson, not the list.
Live now · free History
Evaluating historical context
Grades 9–12 · aligned to D2.His.1.9-12
Students read two accounts of one decision, written decades apart. They name what each writer’s own era pressed into the account. Interpretation stops looking neutral.
See all five lessons → freeschoollessonplans.com. Each lists its objectives, its minutes, and the exact standard code it maps to.
History a class can stand up and perform
A document tells a student what was written. A staged scene tells them what it cost to write it. These eleven one-acts are original scripts, live and free today, published by the FreeSchool network. They are not adaptations of anyone else’s work, and each one records the public-domain sources its facts came from.
Live now · free Read any script in full before you assign it. There is no signup and no download gate.
- 480 BCDateline 480 BC: The Hot GatesA news-desk reenactment of the pass at Thermopylae, told from two sides of the same war.
- 1066Dateline 1066: HastingsThree claimants, one throne, one afternoon. The succession crisis played as breaking coverage.
- 1429Dateline 1429: The Maid of OrleansThe siege lifts and nobody on stage agrees on why. The disagreement is the point.
- 1519Dateline 1519: Two Worlds MeetTwo anchor desks, Seville and Tenochtitlan. The Quetzalcoatl story is flagged in-script as disputed.
- 1776Dateline 1776: The SigningPairs directly with the Declaration text above. Read the document, then stage the room it left.
- 1849The Gold-Rush Claim Mix-UpA disputed claim, a crowded camp, and a lesson in how property rules get made.
- 1869The Golden SpikeThe transcontinental railroad meets in the middle, and the labor that laid it gets named.
- 1880A One-Room Schoolhouse, 1880Eight grades, one teacher, one stove. Social history a class can feel in its feet.
- 1900sArrival at Ellis IslandThe inspection line, the questions, the chalk mark. Immigration policy at eye level.
- 1903The First Flight at Kitty HawkTwelve seconds of powered flight, and the four years of failure that bought them.
- CivicsHow a Bill Becomes a Law (The Play)The legislative process staged as a story, not a flowchart. Pairs with the Constitution guide.
Browse the whole library → freeschoolplays.com. Cast sizes, run times, and the rights note sit on every script page.
What Historic is being built to be
None of the eight below exists yet. Not one. They are the shape of the product, written down early. Tell us where it is wrong while it is cheap to change. If you want one of them, that is worth an email.
In development
A timeline you can open
Not a picture of a timeline. Every node opens onto the documents behind it and the events it caused. Contested dates render as a range, never a false point.
In development
A source workbench
Zoom, crop, spotlight, and annotate a document. Set two sources side by side. Tag what kind of source it is. Generate a citation the student can actually use.
In development
A document-question studio
Scaffolded claim, evidence, reasoning. The format an exam essay asks for, practiced with real documents. Rubric scoring runs on our own grading engine.
In development
An interpretation lab
The same event, read by three eras. Students see how the reading moved and ask who benefited from each framing. All original synthesis, never a textbook’s analysis.
In development
A causation mapper
Build the cause chain as a graph. Weight the causes. Flag the usual traps: single-cause thinking, presentism, post hoc reasoning, and cherry-picked evidence.
In development
A time-indexed atlas
Borders that move with the year. Trade routes and migration as layers. Our own simplified outlines of public geographic facts, so nothing here is licensed from anyone.
In development
Civics simulations
A mock legislature and a mock trial, wired to the actual bills and cases in the unit. Structural process, not opinion. The civics sits inside the history, not beside it.
In development
A skill record over years
Sourcing and argument tracked across grades, not just across a semester. Consent-gated like every student record on the platform, never public and never sold.
Everything on this list is design. If a card ever becomes real, its pill changes and this paragraph goes away.
Every source has to say where it came from
A history product that hides its sources asks for trust it has not earned. Withholding that trust is the skill the subject teaches. So provenance is not a policy note here. It is a field on the record. It is also a function that refuses to publish without one.
Three kinds are allowed. A modern copyrighted narrative is not one of them.
- OriginalWe wrote it. The worksheets, the reading guides, the glossaries, the plays. Ours to publish and ours to answer for.
- Public domain, verifiedTwo checks, not one. The work is out of copyright, and the exact edition we host is the one we say it is. Both are recorded.
- Linked, never hostedGood material we may not republish. We link it and say who owns it. We do not copy it and we do not relicense it.
The gate is real code, and it already runs. A publish check filters the curriculum catalog before anything reaches a page. A unit that cannot prove its basis and its edition does not ship. It is listed as in review instead. That gate governs the free curriculum today. It is not a Historic product, and Historic has no corpus of its own for it to govern yet.
The reason to say this now is simple. The corpus is the part that takes years. Building the rule first, in code, is how it stays true at ten thousand documents.
When the record does not agree with itself
Some of what a history class covers is settled. Much of it is not. A product that flattens the difference is not neutral. It is just quietly wrong.
So the rule is structural, not editorial. Where historians disagree, the disagreement is shown as the finding. Where a date is uncertain, it renders as a range. Where an account is one person’s framing, the page names whose.
That rule is already visible in the free scripts. One play covers the 1519 meeting at Tenochtitlan. It carries the story that Moctezuma took Cortes for a returning god. It also flags that story, on stage, as disputed by modern scholars. The class gets the legend and the argument about it together.
Two things follow, and both are limits on us rather than promises. We do not write a verdict on a live political question into a lesson. And we do not describe the past as harmless when the record says otherwise. The same script names the Cholula massacre plainly.
Who this is for
Historic is aimed at people who teach history for a living and at the students they teach. Right now the useful thing it can hand you is the free material below. The engine comes later, and we would rather say that than dress up a plan.
The social studies teacher
You need something to teach on Tuesday. Today that means the founding documents in full, five lessons with codes attached, and a script your class can stage.
The department chair
You have to defend the material to a principal or a board. Every source records its basis and its edition. Every standards claim is a crosswalk you can check.
The student
You are being asked to argue from evidence. Start with a real document rather than a summary of one. The worksheet walks the sourcing questions in order.
The homeschool family
You want serious material without a purchase order. All of it is free, printable, and readable in the browser. Nothing above asks for an account.
Standards, stated the honest way
Social studies has no single national standard. The C3 Framework is a voluntary inquiry framework, and every state writes its own. Any product claiming one universal alignment is overselling.
So the claim we make is narrow and checkable: aligned to. That means we mapped a lesson to a published code and will show you the mapping. It does not mean anyone reviewed us.
| Code | Dimension | Grades | What it asks for |
|---|---|---|---|
D2.Civ.1.K-2 | Civics | K–2 | Roles and responsibilities of people in authority. |
D2.Geo.2.3-5 | Geography | 3–5 | Maps and photographs to explain a place and its environment. |
D2.His.10.6-8 | History | 6–8 | Limits and point of view in a primary source. |
D2.Eco.1.6-8 | Economics | 6–8 | Decisions made under scarcity, and who they affect. |
D2.His.1.9-12 | History | 9–12 | How circumstances of time and place shaped an event. |
The C3 Framework is stewarded by the National Council for the Social Studies. They have not reviewed, endorsed, approved, accredited, or partnered with us, and this page never suggests otherwise. We do not reproduce their standard text. We cite the code and let you read it at the source.
Where the build is, honestly
Historic’s own build state is zero. In development There is no timeline to open, no workbench to log into, and no essay for us to score. Every card in the development section is a plan on a page.
What is settled is the posture. Source before summary. Provenance recorded, not assumed. Disagreement shown rather than smoothed. No model writing history. And no pretending an unfinished build is finished.
There is no price on this page and no checkout. Nothing here charges a card. The FreeSchool material is free and stays free. Historic early access is a conversation about what your department actually needs, not a purchase.
If a history tool built this way should exist, the useful next step is an email. Tell us the grade you teach and the unit that fights you hardest.
Questions worth asking
If a question you have is not here, it is worth an email. We will answer it plainly, including when the answer is that we have not built it.
Is Historic available to use right now?
No. Historic has no engine of its own yet. There is nothing of ours to open. What is live is free social studies material from our FreeSchool network, linked above. Early access is the way in while the product is built.
So what exactly can I use today?
Three things, all free. The Declaration and the Constitution in full text with original guides. Five C3-aligned lesson plans, one per strand, K–2 through 9–12. Eleven original historical one-act plays. All published by the FreeSchool network.
Is that material yours?
The FreeSchool network wrote and hosts it, and it is part of the same family. Historic did not author it. We link it because it is the kind of material the product will be built around. We never present it as a Historic feature.
Is any of this certified or approved by a standards body?
No. Nothing here is certified, approved, or accredited by anyone. The only standards claim made is “aligned to” a published code. The National Council for the Social Studies stewards the C3 Framework and has no relationship with us.
Does AI generate the history?
No. There is no model writing history anywhere on this page or in the plan behind it. A student arguing from evidence learns nothing from a machine that hands over the answer. That is the whole reason the product exists.
How do you handle contested history?
We show the disagreement instead of resolving it for you. Uncertain dates render as ranges. Disputed accounts are labeled as disputed, in place. One free script flags a well-known legend as contested while the scene is still running.
Will this take a political side?
No lesson writes a verdict on a live political question. The civics content covers structure and process, which are facts. Where the past was ugly, we say so plainly. Neither of those is a partisan position.
How do I know a document is really what you say it is?
Each unit records two separate things: why the work is out of copyright, and which exact edition we host. A publish check refuses anything missing either one. Those units are listed as in review rather than shipped.
What does it cost?
Nothing on this page is for sale. The FreeSchool material is free. Historic itself is in early access, and the next step is a conversation about what you need. There is no price and no checkout here.
Can I use the plays without paying or signing up?
Yes. Every script is readable in full before you assign it. There is no account and no download gate. Cast size, run time, and the rights note sit on each script page.
Why the name Historic?
It is the plain word for the subject, chosen for exactly that reason. Its sibling flagships are named the same way: Mathematic for math, Linguistic for language, Scientia for science. A plain name is easier to trust than a clever one.
How is this different from a document archive?
An archive stores sources. It does not teach the reading of them. It does not track whether a student improved. It does not connect a document to what happened around it. Historic is being built to add that connection.
Related surfaces
Historic is the history and social studies flagship. These are the sibling subject flagships, the wider platform, and the free network material that is live right now.
scientia.software
The science flagship. Same family, same honest posture, a different method: observe, measure, and explain.
mathematic.software
The math flagship, built on a deterministic worksheet generator. Different subject, same refusal to overclaim.
linguistic.software
The language and English-learner flagship. Where Historic weighs a source, Linguistic weighs a sentence.
homeroom.software
The wider school platform this family belongs to, including records, publications, and rosters.
freeschoolcurriculum.com
The free social studies lane: founding documents in full, each with a recorded basis and edition. Live today.
freeschoollessonplans.com
Five free C3-aligned social studies lesson plans across all four strands, kindergarten to senior year. Live today.
freeschoolplays.com
Original, rights-verified classroom plays, including eleven set in real historical moments. Live today.
What this page claims, and what it does not
Historic is the K–12 history and social studies flagship. It is in development, with no engine of its own yet. The live material linked here is free content from the FreeSchool network. That means the Declaration and the Constitution in full. It means five C3-aligned lesson plans. It means eleven original historical plays. That network published all of it. Historic did not.
Historic’s own timeline, workbench, question studio, interpretation lab, causation mapper, atlas, simulations, and skill record are in development. They are direction, and they are not shipped.
There is no AI writing history here. There is no certification claim: “aligned to” is the ceiling, and no standards body has endorsed us. There are no invented statistics, no named schools, and no testimonials. No competitor is named anywhere on this page. There is no pricing and no checkout.
Every count above was taken from the material itself, not estimated. If any of it stops being true, this band is the first thing that changes.