Try Kids.gov or the text book company for teacher resources.

You might check out materials from a resource center in a university library for example.

How old are your students? I’ve used Flat Stanley very successfully and it’s very low cost. We made Stanleys and mailed them out to various areas of interest. They went with family members on vacation, they went to businesses. The President got one, NASA got one, various television shows got one, we sent them to city governments, etc. We sent letters with them asking questions about the area our Stanley was visiting, and the response was tremendous. We put a map on the wall and marked where our Stanley had visited and we made a scrapbook with photos sent in and postcards, etc. This was a very young classroom but I imagine it would work with most elementary school groups.

Just a tip, if you do this, be sure you go to your local Cracker Barrel restaurant to drop off a Stanley. Ours donated a United States map for our classroom and one for every child in the room along with a pass for a free child’s dinner! They did an outstanding job with their Stanley, took lots of pictures and send a great note explaining what’s involved in running a restaurant business!

I got some free posters from this website:

http://www.webspawner.com/users/pumpkintwopost/

Also, a free message board with other links:

http://teachers.net/mentors/high_school/posts.html?

(it’s for high school, though…)