Weekly Core Subjects Resources

Here is another edition of Weekly Core Subjects Resources. 

English
1.) The Poe in the Pit is an interactive comic that allows you to click on icons to view images, videos, and information about Edgar Allen Poe. 

2.) Vocab Genii is a site that offers users the ability to play a game to learn vocabulary.  The game will switch up the letters and you have to put them in the right order based on the definition provided.

3.) Grammar Bytes has several features for teaching grammar.  You will find detailed definitions, exercises, handouts, presentations, and tips and rules about grammar.

4.) Creative Writing Prompts provides just what you think; prompts to help write stories, poems, blogs, etc.  There are over 300 possible prompts...almost enough for every day of the year.


5.) The National Writing Project focuses the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation's educators on sustained efforts to improve writing and learning for all learners.

6.) The Poetry Archive exists to help make poetry accessible, relevant and enjoyable to a wide audience.You will find resources for teachers and students as well as valuable resources for teaching poetry.

7.) Poetry 180 is designed to make it easy for students to hear or read a poem on each of the 180 days of the school year.  

Mathematics
1.) Math Learning Games for Kids is more of a site for elementary and middle school teachers.  It seemed promising so I thought that I would share it here.  Some interesting games to learn about common math
concepts.

2.) Real World Math is designed for educators who wish to extend the concepts of the math curriculum beyond the pages of the text. Within this site you will find lesson ideas, examples, and downloads for mathematics that embrace active learning, constructivism, and project-based learning while remaining true to the standards and all while using Google Earth.

3.) That Quiz are math activities for students and teachers to help prepare for various math tests and learn various math concepts.

Science
1.) DNA from PBS is a great site to learn about DNA.  The site has videos separated into five sections.  There is also a section for Teachers with resources for using the site. 

2.) 3D Solar System Simulation is a simple simulator to learn about the location of the planets and other aspects of the solar system.

3.) The Molecular Workbench is a free, open-source tool that creates and delivers visual, interactive simulations for teaching and learning science and engineering.

Social Studies
1.) European History Interactive Map is a great way to see how the continent of Europe changed over time.  There is also a lot of statistical data available for those changes as well.  A great resource. 

2.) Teachinghistory.org is designed to help K–12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom.  Resources are available for K-12 classrooms.

3.) History Matters serves as a gateway to web resources and offers other useful materials for teaching U.S. history and is designed for high school and college teachers and students,

4.) HyperHistory is an expanding scientific project presenting 3,000 years of world history with an interactive combination of synchronoptic lifelines, timelines, and maps.

Tools for the 21st Century Teacher - Volume 2

This is volume 2 in what I will become a series of Tools for the 21st Century Teacher eBooks.  I have made this available through Issuu again and also made this document available for download.  So if you visit My Library where this is stored, you will see an icon to download it as a PDF at the bottom.

Happy Reading!

Open publication - Free publishing - More web 2.0

SPENT - Experience Life on a Low Income

SPENT is a great interactive for Practical Living and Economics classrooms.  The site comes through a Faith Based Ministry called Urban Ministries of Durham, so if that is an issue for your school, I wanted to let you know that.  However, I hope that it is not an issue because this could be a great lesson for students who don't have a grasp of reality.

Students will go through a process of seeing if they can make $1000 a month last while trying to take care of a kid, daily issues, bills, make a paycheck last, etc.  The goal is to finish the interactive with positive money in the account after 30 days.  Each selection that a student makes in the interactive, it provides a scenario for making that decision and information about homelessness and poverty.  It is a great way for students to gain a "realistic" view of life on a low income.

I highly recommend doing this as a class and letting students choose options as a class and see if as a class they can succeed.

IDroo - Intergrated Whiteboard for Skype

IDroo is a collaborative whiteboard for educators.  There are several other options for collaborative whiteboards: Twiddla, Flock Draw and CoSketch to name a few.  What sets IDroo apart from those options is that it integrates directly with Skype, so it uses your Skype Contacts to collaborate on the whiteboard.  With IDroo, not only will you be able to video conference with others, but you will be able to also draw with each other.  You also have an unlimited number of participants that can participate in the collaborative drawing.

For math teachers, there is a professional math typing tool that you can use for integers and functions.  There are also several geometrical sheets that you .  You can easily add pictures through upload and drag and drop as well.  For homebound students and absent students, IDroo offers a great service for supplying those students with notes and other aspects of a daily classroom lesson.

Weekly Core Subjects Resources

Hope everyone is having a great President's Day.  Our district will be in session because we are using it as a snow day make up, so no celebrating George Washington's birthday for me.  If you are off, then take this time to check out some great resources for the subject area that you teach.

English
1.) VocabAhead has a great Study Room where students can go to learn about critical vocabulary that you would see on the GRE, SAT, and ACT test.  The Study Room provides a short video providing the definition of each word and a real life example of its use.  There is also the text available for the video for students with special needs.  A great resource and possibly an even better tool for Bellringer activities.

2.) Readability is a web & mobile app that zaps online clutter and saves web articles in a comfortable reading view. No matter where you are or what device you use, your reading will be there.  It does cost $5.00 a month to use the service, but for those of us that read on the web a lot, it would be a great add on.

Mathematics
1.) Math-Drills.com is a site that provides various worksheets for mathematics classrooms.  There are several to choose from and are available in links at the top of the page.  Each worksheet is available in PDF format.  Another option is The Math Worksheet Site.

2.) Math TV is a website for sharing video tutorials for explaining various math concepts.  You can choose from videos for basic math, algebra, geometry, calculus, and trigonometry. 

3.) AplusMath is a site for students who need a little extra help learning math.  There are several activities, games, and even a homework helper.  There is even a flashcard creator. 

Science
1.) The Apollo 13 Mission Transcripts is a site that provides all students would need to know about the Apollo 13 mission.  You can get the transcripts that are divided into 6 difference phases of the mission.  An excellent personal and primary document resource.  The site Spacelog also has transcripts for other missions as well that are worth checking out.

2.) The Encyclopedia of Life is a valuable resource for science teachers and students in the science classroom.  Students can learn about the various species as well as get the latest news on life sciences. 

3.) The Arthropod Story takes you on a tour through the amazing evolutionary history of arthropods. Along the way, you'll get a healthy dose of taxonomy, paleontology, natural history and principles of evolution.  Looks like a great webquest from the Understanding Evolution website that has other valuable resources for science teachers.

4.) The Plant List is a working list of all known plant species. Version 1 aims to be comprehensive for species of Vascular plant (flowering plants, conifers, ferns and their allies) and of Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts).

5.) The Science Museum provides a great website with resources, activities, interactives, simulations, and games that students can participate in to learn science concepts.  There is an educators section that has classroom resources, one if which is a game called Thingdom, a fun game about genetic inheritance and selective breeding – adopt a thing, care for a thing, make baby things!

Social Studies
1.) Time Zone Converter is a valuable tool when teaching geography to help students understand time.  It is always a struggle for students to understand how it is a different time and day in other parts of the world.  This would be a great supplement. 

2.) 65 Twitter Feeds for History Teachers is a great blog post for teachers looking for ways to integrate Twitter into the Social Studies classroom.  A great list of hashtags and usernames. 

3.) The CIA World Factbook and Google Earth are great resources for teaching Geography.  Now thanks to a one man project by David Tryse he has combined the two into the KML Factbook.  Awesome is an understatement.  You might be interested in checking out his other Google Earth Projects.

4.) Legistalker is a great website for staying up to date on what legislators are up to.  Always good to see current events in real time.  A great resource for studying government trends and happenings. 

5.) The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features sets of primary documents modified for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities.