Extra: 12-26-2013 The Grain Chain

grainchain.com is a comprehensive educational resource providing a wide selection of teaching materials exploring farming, food, and healthy eating within the context of the wheat growing and flour milling industry. 

 

grainchain.com is a resource to enable teachers and parents to inform children about the story of grain-based food - from farm to mill to plate. Find teaching materials, worksheets, videos, quizzes, recipes and activities about farming, milling, and baking. 

 

 Watch The Grain Chain: An introduction

Browse lesson plans by age and topic. Each topic provides a full lesson plan plus other ideas for lesson structure, content, and discussion. Search the database to find resources, worksheets, and videos to supplement your lesson.

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Featured: 10-24-2013 UClass

UClass is a global lesson exchange created by teachers for teachers.

UClass taps into an abundance of experience and knowledge by gathering, sharing, and crowd-sourcing planning globally. A huge collection of authentic classroom assignments is readily accessible.

When teachers connect on UClass, their classrooms can participate in dynamic global exchanges. Teachers may choose to open access to a global audience, allowing students to receive feedback from students around the world, thus fostering a powerful sense of global citizenship.

UClass lessons each consist of:

• a lesson outcome
• directions
• Common Core standard tagging
• a full lesson plan
• a worksheet
• an assessment
• and a multimedia link

Lessons are searchable by grade, subject, category, strand and standard.

 Watch a video introducing UClass

A teacher who has joined UClass can access lesson previews, but must purchase lesson credits to download the entire lesson. If a teacher creates a lesson, that teacher gets paid for each time it gets downloaded.

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Featured: 9-16-2013 National Constitution Center

Constitution Day, September 17, commemorates the formation and signing of the US Constitution on that date in 1787.

The National Constitution Center is the first and only nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to the US Constitution. The Center strives to illuminate constitutional ideals and inspire active citizenship through a state-of-the-art museum located on Independence Mall in Philadelphia.

The National Constitution Center website offers innovative, standards-based lesson plans, activities, and other resources to connect the Constitution with your curriculum and bring American history to life for your students.

Give your students a Constitution Hall Pass to explore America’s civic holidays and constitutional history. Created and produced by the National Constitution Center, this webcast and live chat series features the Center’s education staff, distinguished scholars, and even some famous faces who bring America’s democracy and the stories of “We the People” to life.

The Interactive Constitution on the Center’s website makes it possible for students to search the United States Constitution and find relevant passages and explanations.

In To Sign or Not to Sign: The Ultimate Constitution Day Lesson Plan students will examine the role of the people in shaping the US Constitution.

 Watch a photostory describing the highlights of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia

You can download and view the text and high-resolution images of the Constitution and other historical documents from the National Constitution Center.

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Featured: 6-12-2013 TeachEngineering

TeachEngineering is a digital library of standards-based* engineering curricula for the use of K-12 teachers to make applied science and mathematics interesting and engaging.

The TeachEngineering collection provides educators with free access to a growing resource of multi-week units, lessons, activities, and living labs. The collection continues to grow and evolve with new additions from universities, and input from teachers who use the curricula in their classrooms.

Click on Search Curriculum or Browse Curriculum to find what you want for your classroom from the more than 900 lessons and activities currently available.

In most cases, TeachEngineering activities use ordinary materials that you can find in your classroom, school, home, grocery store or hardware store.

Use of curriculum found in the TeachEngineering collection is free to teachers using it in their classrooms. There is no fee or membership requirement (There is an optional MyTE workspace you may use to keep track of favorite lessons and activities, or to submit reviews). No special kits or materials are needed.

TeachEngineering is a collaborative project between faculty, students, and teachers associated with five universities and the American Society for Engineering Education, with NSF National Science Digital Library funding.

*Every lesson and every activity is aligned to the science and math educational standards of the state in which it was first developed and classroom tested. From that information, TeachEngineering provides rough alignment to other state and national educational standards.

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Featured: 2/27/2013 Common Curriculum [Planning]

Common Curriculum is meant to streamline the lesson planning process so you can stop wasting time and go teach. Common Curriculum makes it easy to build, organize, and share your lesson plans.



View your lessons for the entire week at a glance, and plan with Common Curriculum in the context of the unit and week. Teachers are able to customize templates to suit their lesson plans. Changes to templates affect your entire course

Rearrange the sections of your lesson using a clean drag-and-drop interface. Add activities with the click of a button. Upload student materials to any section of your lesson.



Common Curriculum will automatically generate class websites from your lessons, keeping students and parents informed about homework, tests, and projects. Any sections of your lessons you mark public are published to your own class website.

Watch the video: Common Curriculum -- Plan the way you teach

Be better organized with all your courses in one place. Any lesson created and stored on Common Curriculum can be printed with the click of a button.

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Featured: 2/25/2013 JumpRope [Assessment]

JumpRope is a tool designed to help teachers, schools, and districts move from traditional grades towards standards-based assessment.



Educators using JumpRope's web-based platform can implement standards-based grading through innovative assessment and feedback. JumpRope strives to enable teachers and schools to “engage students with active pedagogy, purposeful planning, and authentic learning experiences.”



JumpRope provides easy, fast, and powerful access to current, accurate information about attendance, character, and standards-based performance. Standards-based grading for every classroom is practical with JumpRope. Teachers can write their own standards, use state standards, or align to the Common Core.

Main features of JumpRope:

• Take attendance for each period of the day, and the data is visible in real time to other teachers.
• Stay up to date on student behavior and character development. Any teacher can write anecdotes on student behavior, assign a category and value, and request follow up from another staff member.
• Design curriculum based on the principles of backwards planning, and your curriculum plan automatically populates your standards-based gradebook.

Jumprope is free for teachers. JumpRope also offers a full suite of tools to help school staff and administrators with school-wide reporting needs, schedule creation, and management.

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Featured: 11/12/2012 Library of Congress Teachers Resources [Standards]

The Library of Congress Teachers Resources provides primary source-based, ready-to-use resources for teachers. Find lesson plans and other materials that meet Common Core standards, state content standards, and the standards of national organizations.

Search the Library of Congress Teachers Resources classroom materials for resources aligned to Common Core, state, or organizational standards. Refine your query by selecting your state, grade level, and subject. Once you’ve found a lesson plan or primary source content that you’d like to use, one click will show you which standards that particular item addresses.

Ready-to-use materials created by teachers provide easy ways to incorporate the LoC’s primary sources into your instruction.
 Classroom materials that align with Common Core state standards include:

• Lesson Plans-Teacher-created lesson plans using LoC primary sources.
• Themed Resources-One-stop access to the best exhibitions, activities, primary sources, and lesson plans on popular curricular themes.
• Primary Source Sets-Sets of selected primary sources on specific topics, available in PDF format, as well as background information, teaching ideas, and tools to guide student analysis.
• Presentations and Activities-Media-rich historical context or interactive opportunities for exploration to both teachers and students.
• Collection Connections-Historical context and ideas for teaching with specific LoC primary source collections.

The Library of Congress Teachers Resources offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the LoC's huge digital collections.

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COD - 9/20/2012 - EducationWorld [Resources]

EducationWorld is a free and comprehensive resource for educators, a place where teachers can gather and share ideas, and find high-quality lesson plans and research materials.

The original content offered at EducationWorld includes lesson plans, practical information for educators, information on how to integrate technology in the classroom, and articles written by education experts.

Other resources at EducationWorld:

• Website reviews
• Special features and columns
• Employment listings

EducationWorld was founded in 1996, to create an Internet home for educators. It is funded by corporate sponsors and advertisers in order to keep the site free for all teachers.

EducationWorld has received many awards and recognitions, including the Parenting Journal's "Editor's Choice Award" and USA Today's "Best Bet for Educators."

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Science of the Summer Olympics

Engineers, athletes, and TV have teamed up for a 10-part video series that explores "Olympic-size subjects" ranging from biomechanics to split-second timers.

"Science of the Summer Olympics" is the latest collaboration of the National Science Foundation, NBC Learn, and NBC Olympics. The series continues from earlier educational videos that focused on the sports of the Winter Olympics as well as football and hockey.

In this series, engineering is the focal point, illustrating how engineers can influence both sports and society.

Lesson plans tied to the videos will be made available via the NBC Learn website in August. 

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COD - 4/5/2012 - Teachbuzz [Lessons]

 

Teachbuzz is a nonprofit project of Open Equal Free, an organization that spreads open educational resources to the entire world. Teachbuzz is designed to provide teachers everywhere with the necessary resources to create and teach great lessons.

Teachbuzz is keyword searchable by criteria such as Age/Grade, Subject, Cost, and Duration. Search results can even be filtered to show lessons specifically designed for the developing world. All Teachbuzz lessons are fully viewable without the need to download them.

Teachbuzz is designed to be useful for teachers working anywhere, on any budget, even in "the most underfunded classrooms on earth." Teachbuzz can help teachers in even the poorest places provide their students with quality education.

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COD - 2/21/2012 - Creating a Cell Phone Plan [Lesson]

From The Innovative Educator blog, Creating a plan with students to use cell phones for learning presents a complete lesson plan in which your students will address cell phones as learning tools.

Starting with a discussion of the potential uses of cell phones as learning tools, students will then decide for what educational purposes their cell phones may be used.

Teachers will have students use their own phones to participate in a Poll Everywhere multiple choice poll and a free-text poll, thereby modeling what they are presenting.

Students will develop a plan for educational uses of cell phones and design a contract for cell phone use in the classroom.

The lesson includes a sample planning worksheets, NETS standards, and research-based instructional strategies.

Catch of the Day - Teach Primary - 7/19/2011

The Teach Primary website is the online component of Teach Primary Magazine, a magazine for KS 1&2 teachers in the UK.

The Resources section of the Teach Primary website points you to free resources for KS1 (ages 5-7) and KS2 (ages 7-11) primary learning, lesson plans, and continuing professional development content to help you with your teaching career. The resources can be filtered by category and author.

The Tried & Tested section  includes links to proven third-party products, searchable by keyword.

See an online sample copy of Teach Primary Magazine

A subscription to Teach Primary Magazine is £14(UK) for four issues (about $22(US)).

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Catch of the Day - TeachersFirst - 7/8/2011

TeachersFirst is designed to save teachers time by providing lessons and web resources in a user-friendly, ad-free, feature-rich format.

TeachersFirst is written and edited by experienced educators. All resources are reviewed by teaching professionals. TeachersFirst's original lessons have been developed by or in conjunction with practicing professionals.

Teachers can find resources using TeachersFirst's comprehensive search tools with keywords or phrases and grade levels or browse all resources by Subject/Grade.

Some of the features of a free TeachersFirst membership:

• Customize your landing page to see exactly what you want at log in
• Mark resources as favorites and tag them
• Remember recent searches
• Share your experiences and lesson suggestions with other teachers
• Rate resources and see other's ratings

Visitors to TeachersFirst can sign up for weekly update emails to learn about the latest additions and features.

TeachersFirst is offered as a service to teachers by The Source for Learning, a non-profit learning and technologies corporation.

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Catch of the Day - Discovery Education Free Teacher Resources - 6/13/2011

The Free Teacher Resources provided by Discovery Education include a wide selection of free classroom resources to complement and enhance learning in any classroom.

The Discovery Education Free Teacher Resources offer programs and contests, interactive games, puzzles,  lesson plans, videos, and more. Resources are grouped by grade levels: K-5, 6-8, and 9-12.

Within these grade level categories are resources such as lesson plans, worksheets, brain boosters, and learning adventures for science, English, math, and social studies.

Visitors to Discovery Education Free Teacher Resources can sign-up to receive the monthly Discovery Education newsletter as well as free resources and promotions from Discovery Education.

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Catch of the Day - MimioConnect - 6/2/2011

 

MimioConnect is an interactive educators' community offering lesson plans, activities, and more to teachers.

Browse the library of lesson plans at MimioConnect or search using filters for grade level, subject, contributor, newest, and more.

Other MimioConnect features:

• Forums to communicate with colleagues from around the world
• Join and create groups to share content
• Pose a question, raise an issue, or explore a situation on any topic in Ask a Master
• Get the latest news and events
• View and search profiles of other members

Create a freeMimioConnect account to become a member. Members are able to connect with other educators to build interactive resources and classroom technology skills in subject-related groups.

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Catch of the Day - 6+1 Trait® Writing Lesson Plans - 4/21/2011

Education Northwest has compiled this collection of 6+1 Trait® Writing Lesson Plans that should be useful to any teacher at any grade level.

Teachers, evaluating student writing at all grade levels, identified common characteristics of good writing. These qualities became the framework for the 6+1 Trait® Writing model. Common language and scoring guides are used to communicate the characteristics of writing and define "what 'good' writing looks like."

The traits are:

• Ideas
• Organization
• Voice
• Word Choice
• Sentence fluency
• Conventions
• Presentation

Organized around the traits and grade level, teachers can use the 6+1 Trait® Writing Lesson Plans search form to find lessons that will work with their students and are specific to their students' needs.

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