For a couple of years I taught an elective that was all about current events. That was one of my favorite social studies teaching assignments because I enjoy listening to what students have to save about the news. CNN Student News was one of my go-to resources when I was teaching that current events course. Today, CNN Student News is called CNN 10. CNN 10 provides good, short overviews of the previous day’s important new stories. Unfortunately, CNN 10 doesn’t offer the discussion question sheets that CNN Student News did.

Here are some other good places to find news stories that written and produced for classroom use. 

DOGOnews is a student news site that features articles for K-8 students. DOGOnews covers current events stories in the areas of science, sports, entertainment, and variety of topics that fall under the banner of social studies. Teachers can find stories by browsing the categories, filtering by grade level, or filtering by grade level.

Youngzine is a great service that provides teachers with current events articles written for classroom use. I first used the site in 2012 and it has only gotten better in the seven years since then. Youngzine articles feature a mix of news, sports, and entertainment stories for elementary school students. A new edition is published weekly. Most articles on Youngzine are accompanied by a supporting video. Articles that reference locations include a map so that students can quickly identify the setting for a story. All articles are accompanied by critical thinking prompts for students. Those prompts can be used in Youngzine online classrooms created by teachers.

Smithsonian TweenTribune offers articles written for students in grades five through eight. A version for older students is available as TeenTribune. A version for K-4 is available as TT Junior. All articles are accompanied by Lexile score label.

PBS NewsHour Extra is a good site for middle school and high school students. The site offers a searchable database of articles. A searchable database of lesson plans is also available on PBS NewsHour Extra.