The middle of April is upon us. Kentucky will start testing in the coming months, so while your students are testing and you are covering classes, giving students a movie break, or whatever it is that you do because testing completely throws you off your schedule, check out these great resources for the subject matter that you teach!
English
1.)
Vocabulary.com, the quickest, most intelligent way to improve your vocabulary. Regardless of your education level or age, Vocabulary.com will help you to master the words that are essential to academic and business success. You can find synonyms by searching for a word and even how many syllables you want the word to have. You can also search for rhyming words as well. You answer multiple choice vocabulary answers and get more tips on how to use the site. This would be a great time filler.
2.)
One Word Riddle -
What nine letter word in the English language is still a word when eight letters are removed one by one (Not necessarily in order from right to left or left to right)? Take a few minutes to try and come up with a nine letter word that fits the bill, then watch the linked video.
3.) The Bookshelf Muse is a wonderful blog that I suggest English teachers follow. The blog provides "writing tools and musings about reading, writing, and other randomness." I suggest that you look at the right side of the blog for several various thesauruses.
4.) From TeachHub.com comes several video based writing prompts worth checking out and seeing how you can adapt them to your classroom. The writing prompts are available either elementary, middle school, and high school.
5.) The Writers Notebook is a website that provides several PDF files for creating a Writers Notebook. Seems to be a very complete resource for students. You will also find several videos of student samples as well as videos for the Writers Notebook.
6.) Your Next Read is a Book Recommendation web site. Good for students who are struggling to find books that meet their interest.
7.) Proust (Share your story, Preserve family history, Get to know the ones you love) is a website for users to answer a questions which helps tell people something about themselves. It is a way for people to store and share their stories and opinions. If nothing else, you could use the questions for providing reading prompts if not using the site as it is intended.
Mathematics
1.) Wolfram Demonstrations Project is a website that uses animations and videos to demonstrate how math and science is used in the real world. The purpose is to help bring ideas to life. So if you are teaching calculus and want to show how a formula is used in the real world, check out this site.
2.) What's Special About This Number? is a website that provides information and links to resources about hundreds of numbers. Many could be used for bonus questions on a test or for math brain teasers. Gain some numerical knowledge through this site.
3.) That Quiz provides math test activities for students and teachers of all grade levels. Click on a topic and users will be able to complete activities to learn about that topic. There are several categories and topics to choose from. Users can also determine length, add a timer, determine difficulty, and receive feedback. Great resource to use before the ACT or SAT.
4.) Interactive Games provides visitors the ability to play and create their own mathematics games. There are 6 different types of games that users can create with instructions for how to create them. There are also several games already made that might meet your needs. Worth checking out.
5.) Purplemath is a website that provides lessons for Algebra I. It provides links to math resources that have been categorized and researched by them. The lessons on Purplemath are written with the student in mind and they emphasize the practicalities rather than the technicalities
6.) Johnnie's Math Page provides games and activities for kids looking to learn math. You will find the games and activities for numbers, geometry, fractions, multiplication, etc.
7.) National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is a great resource for math teachers. They provide lesson plans and activities as well as provide visitors the opportunity to meet other math teachers.
Science
1.) Earthquakes for Kids from the USGS would be a great resources for lessons on Earthquakes. With the recent earthquakes in Japan and Earthquake preparedness being emphasized across the countries this would be a valuable resource.
2.) Wolfram Demonstrations Project is discussed in the Math links above, so check out what I said above.
3.) Learning Science is a free and open learning community for sharing newer and emerging tools to teach science. You will find the best interactives and resources from around the world separated by subject matter.
4.) Science Buddies offers science fair projects ideas, answers, and tools. You will also find information about careers in science as well as information on science camps. If planning a science fair, this would be a great first place to look.
5.) Sciencebob provides videos and ideas for science experiments, information on science fairs, and provides an area for questions and answers. There is even an experiment on the main page for all visitors to participate in and see results.
6.) Amazing Space provides teaching tools, videos, resources, activities, and even homework help for students that relates to exploring our universe. There are also online explorations where students can explore the universe. The Educators space provides tools to use with your students in the classroom.
7.) 50 Really Cool Online Tools for Science Teachers - a great list.
8.) First Orbit is a free film for you to download and share that was created to celebrate the first 50 years of human space flight. It is available on YouTube in five segments and is about 5 hours long. The iLearn Technology blog also has a great post on the NASA 50th Anniversary Flash Feature.
9.) The National Science Teachers Association provides links and resources for science teachers as well as provides a portal for science teachers to communicate with one another.
Social Studies
1.) Europeana enables people to explore the digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. It promotes discovery and networking opportunities in a multilingual space where users can engage, share in and be inspired by the rich diversity of Europe's cultural and scientific heritage.
2.)
Creating Your Own Constitution is a great fill in the blank interactive that allows students to create a Constitution using similar language and ideas to how it was created for the United States. A great activity.
3.) I have shared
Time Glider before, but never included it with my Social Studies resources, so I thought I would now. This is a great tool for creating timelines on the web. Highly Recommend.
4.)
American Rhetoric is a website of and index of over 5000 full text, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, and other recorded media events. A great primary resource.
5.)
Pros and Cons of Controversial Issues is a GREAT website for government classes and debate teams. A valuable resource if you have your kids discuss topics that are important and in the news. The site promotes critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting research on controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan, and in a pro-con format.
6.)
History Matters is designed for high school and college teachers and students and
serves as a gateway to web resources and offers other useful materials for teaching U.S. history.
7.)
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection provides TONS of maps from various time periods in history. There are so many different maps on this page. If looking to show change over time, this would be a valuable resource for geography and social studies teachers.
8.) Teaching the
Great Depression? Here is a great set of lesson plans and curriculum to look over before teaching the unit. There are 6 total lessons that you can choose from.
9.)
Google Map Maker is a great tool for geography teachers looking to make teaching geography more personal to the areas that they live. A great tool to make using maps more interactive and effective.
