Reading in the Content Areas
TeachersFirst offers this collection of web resources well suited to teach reading in the content areas, especially in science and social studies classes, but in almost ANY subject area. See "In the classroom" ideas and strategies for teaching reading across the curriculum and find texts to use on the computer, in print, or in interactive whiteboard/projector. Sometimes using web-based texts can be more engaging, and often these are more up-to-date. Practice with these resources is certain to help student mastery of informational texts.
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DOGOnews - Meera Dolasia
Grades
2 to 12
15 Favorites
0 Comments
Need kid-friendly online news? This safe site, written for kids, by kids, offers news from a younger point-of-view. You can create a class page where you can load a variety ...more
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Need kid-friendly online news? This safe site, written for kids, by kids, offers news from a younger point-of-view. You can create a class page where you can load a variety of articles, add a book list, a calendar, favorite sites list, add lesson plan instructions, monitor student comments, and more. DOGOnews is kid-friendly, colorful, and flexible. After all, DOGO means young or small in Swahili. You can select articles from a number of categories (Social Studies, Science, World, Current Events, etc.). There is an integrated dictionary for challenging words and maps for geographical context. Some of the articles include short video clips. Students may leave brief comments about each article (no login required). Also, typing the word "video" in the search box will bring up the Video of the Week for the past several weeks. The videos reside on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. In addition, find a Book and Movie section with a brief summary for the book or movie, and comments. You don't have to join to read the articles, but you do need to join to create a class page. There are many benefits to creating a class page, and it's all free! Don't want to create a class page? You can also embed articles on your current web page.
tag(s): journalism (74), news (229), reading comprehension (148), sports (82)
In the Classroom
Non-fiction reading and background knowledge have found a new emphasis with The Common Core State Standards. It is more important now than ever to help connect students with quality, non-fiction reading and viewing material. Find great news resources and videos of the week to create assignments for your class at DOGOnews. You may want to create a class page and load several news articles. Have students choose from the articles, and email it to themselves. Have students print out the article and complete a "close reading" of the article by annotating it. Then have students who chose the same article get together in groups to discuss their reactions about the article, create a summary together, and create four or five open-ended questions about the article. Lastly, create groups of four, with each student having a different article, and have them present their article to the others in the group and ask them their open-ended questions to trigger a discussion. Create a class magazine from the articles. Or better yet, have students create a multimedia presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint Online, reviewed here. This site allows you to narrate a picture. Challenge students to find a photo (legally permitted to be reproduced), and then narrate the photo as if it is a news report. Strengthen reading comprehension by having an 'article du jour' on your interactive whiteboard or projector as students arrive. Link this site on your homepage.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Print what you like - printwhatyoulike.com
Grades
K to 12
6 Favorites
0 Comments
Hate to waste paper? Use this free resource to print web pages without wasted white space, ads, or extra pages. Enter the URL (web address) of the website you wish ...more
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Hate to waste paper? Use this free resource to print web pages without wasted white space, ads, or extra pages. Enter the URL (web address) of the website you wish to print, rearrange the elements, and print! To rearrange, edit the items on the left navigation bar. Choose to show or hide the background, images, or margins. Change the font or font size. Save your changes as a pdf for later viewing. Create an account for more features such as "change sets" which allow your formatting options to be applied to other pages from the same website and clips. Use the clips or pieces from various web pages to create a simple page that houses them all. Add the bookmarklet to your browser by simply dragging it to your toolbar. Be sure to check out the demo and videos.
tag(s): conservation (100)
In the Classroom
Use in the classroom to save paper and printing ink. Teach students to remove unwanted images and change margins to fit the content on a page. Be sure students save the page as a pdf to view and print again later if needed. Model an environmentally friendly classroom with the use of this resource. Be sure to check with your tech department on the ability to add bookmarklets to the browser toolbar. This resource can be used without signing up - a bonus for the classroom! Use this when technology access is low or you want to print an activity for students to do when you are not there to supervise the technology use. Create in-class reading from blogs or other websites appropriate for your classroom. Make a pdf that can be opened on your interactive whiteboard without all the ads and clutter of the web page so students can annotate, highlight, and even practice reading comprehension skills such as "main idea." List this link on your class website for families to try at home! Use it to share articles with parents, as well--as long as you model proper behavior by giving credit. Best practice ALWAYS includes a url and title/author on any printed article from the web.
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ESL Bits - Skip Reske
Grades
5 to 12
3 Favorites
1 Comments
Don't let the title mislead you! Find listening and reading activities for any listener who enjoys audio stories at a teen and adult level, including the advanced English language learner....more
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Don't let the title mislead you! Find listening and reading activities for any listener who enjoys audio stories at a teen and adult level, including the advanced English language learner. There are short stories, books, radio scripts, and songs to listen to and read, as well as English idioms, sayings, and slang. You'll also find a Reading Comprehension and Test Preparation area with interactive activities to help students read and understand English and prepare for reading exams. Unlike many audio book sites, this one includes recent and popular selections for almost anyone, including teachers and parents! Don't miss classic radio shows perfect for discovering life in 20th century decades past.
tag(s): listening (93), radio (20), reading comprehension (148), short stories (18), test prep (69)
In the Classroom
Project a story or song on an interactive whiteboard or projector for group listening, reading along, and discussion. Literature teachers can use the site for a class novel, so lower readers can have audio support at home for listening and review. You could have small groups of students listen to different short stories, and make up Bloom's type questions for the next group of students to answer, or they could turn the story into a Reader's Theater piece and video tape it, or perform it live for the class. Share the videos using a tool such as SchoolTube reviewed here. This is a terrific site to list on your class website for students to use for at-home practice or enjoyment. For elementary and middle school students, you will want to provide the specific url for the selection you want them to use so they are reading articles appropriate in content for their age group. If you supervise a study hall, keep this link handy as a listening option for students who "don't have any homework."Comments
Excellent resource!alma grimaldi, , Grades: 7 - 9
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Defenders of Wildlife - Defenders of Wildlife
Grades
7 to 12
0 Favorites
0 Comments
Defenders of Wildlife is chalk full of useful, current information about wildlife conservation, threats to the natural environment, and fact sheets about specific species of animals,...more
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Defenders of Wildlife is chalk full of useful, current information about wildlife conservation, threats to the natural environment, and fact sheets about specific species of animals, as well as much more! Explaining concepts such as climate change, off-shore drilling and renewable energy this site is an invaluable environmental resource. Plus, all information comes with interesting photos and an easy to navigate menu of further information.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): animals (295), conservation (100), endangered species (27), environment (247)
In the Classroom
This would be an excellent resource for an environmental science class. Add to online course sites as an alternative to textbooks. Create assignments where students are directed to this site to read for understanding of the topics that are being discussed. For students in more advanced environmental studies, the section on Policy and Legislation is great. It is far more understandable than reading through the actual laws and policies. Have students read the website information on a specific policy or law, and then have the students find the actual law to "check up" on the site. This will encourage students to make comparisons between the reading that they could easily understand and the more complicated language of the actual laws. This simple exercise could be incorporated in an English or reading comprehension classroom or a science classroom (what a great way to do a little cross curricular teaching!). Students will learn to read more analytically in the process!
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ESL Holidays Lessons - Sean Banville
Grades
1 to 8
3 Favorites
0 Comments
Look no further for holiday activities for your ESL and ELL students (or for reading/listening comprehension activities you can use with all learners! This site lists conventional and...more
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Look no further for holiday activities for your ESL and ELL students (or for reading/listening comprehension activities you can use with all learners! This site lists conventional and unusual holidays by month. Click the holiday you would like to feature to find a complete lesson including a tape script, an oral recording of the script, and a variety of review exercises. The printable activities include matching, several varieties of fill-in-the-blank, word choices, spelling, reordering events and sentences from the holiday information, and writing activities. An online clickable reading activity presents parts of sentences, so students must select which sentence part comes first. The screen changes when the correct part comes up, and students select the next part.
tag(s): holidays (187)
In the Classroom
Use this site to help ESL/ELL students improve listening, reading, writing, and cultural knowledge. Invite an ESL/ELL student to present a holiday from their home country to the class using an interactive whiteboard or projector. Many of the review activities would also work well as reading comprehension practice on interactive whiteboard, especially if students use highlighters and pens to mark up the text passage to locate key terms, etc.Have students create online holiday posters on paper or do it together as a class using a tool such as Web Poster Wizard, reviewed here or PicLits, reviewed here. Share this site with families of your ESL/ELL students to learn more about American holidays.
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News English Lessons - Sean Banville
Grades
4 to 12
7 Favorites
0 Comments
This site, created by Australian Sean Banville, has high interest, "easier" news for students to read and many teaching materials to go with them. Though the look of the site ...more
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This site, created by Australian Sean Banville, has high interest, "easier" news for students to read and many teaching materials to go with them. Though the look of the site is cluttered with advertising and plain text, the content is worthwhile. Developed for ESL/ELL students and teachers, the site would also work well in a subject area, learning support, or reading classroom. There are MANY articles "ready to go," including mp3 audio files to listen to the articles. At the time of this review there were 200+ new additions! Each article includes several types of activities such as "online gap fill" (a Cloze reading activity), vocabulary flashcards, and hangman, and matching. A full script is available in PDF form. There is also an online, interactive quiz for students. The articles, and a lot more activities, can be downloaded and printed, too.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
The articles are short and interesting, a perfect match for non-fiction reading comprehension. With so many different activities to choose from, it will be easy for the classroom teacher to differentiate. There is an mp3 audio version of each article so students can listen as they read. Assign small groups of students to present the news each week, using the interactive whiteboard to show others the country and city from which the article originated. Make the newscasting experience even more real by having students read scripts of these news stories or their own original stories using a EasyPrompter, reviewed here. Students can then go to another news source such as News for Kids, reviewed here, to see what else is happening in the news. For a project and to enhance student learning, have the small groups create a "talking map" using a site such as Zeemaps, reviewed here. This site allows students to create audio recordings AND choose a location (where their article/story took place). What a fabulous way to share the article with the rest of the class!
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Environmental News Network - Environmental News Network
Grades
8 to 12
1 Favorites
0 Comments
View and read top stories about aspects of environmental education from wildlife, agriculture, and ecosystems to green building, lifestyle, and health. View top stories in each section...more
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View and read top stories about aspects of environmental education from wildlife, agriculture, and ecosystems to green building, lifestyle, and health. View top stories in each section or search for articles related to a specific topic. Click on the orange RSS button to receive automatic feeds to a reader. Articles feature clickable definitions which help in understanding.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): agriculture (47), climate (82), conservation (100), environment (247)
In the Classroom
Use these articles as a springboard for further research, participation in the creation of editorial articles by students, and topics for public service announcements either created conventionally (posters, bulletin boards) or using technology (blog or wiki posts.) Use this site as a resource when planning environmental education topics and activities. Follow a specific topic over time and discuss how new procedures and techniques of obtaining data can change how a topic is viewed. Use for reading comprehension practice. Encourage the use of WordItOut, reviewed here, or mind mapping to identify known and problematic words. Students can work in groups to ferret out important information which can be presented and discussed with the class.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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WordSift - Stanford University
Grades
4 to 12
10 Favorites
0 Comments
WordSift helps anyone easily sift through texts -- just copy and paste any text into WordSift and you can engage in a verbal quick-capture! The program helps to quickly identify ...more
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WordSift helps anyone easily sift through texts -- just copy and paste any text into WordSift and you can engage in a verbal quick-capture! The program helps to quickly identify important words that appear in the text. After entering text several items will appear, first a word cloud will display the 50 most frequently used words in the text. The most frequently used word will display as a word web in a visual thesaurus. Google image and video search results are also shown. One interesting feature is the ability to click on any of the words in the word cloud to display it in the thesaurus and Google image and video searches. A great way to understand the WordSift tool is to try one of the sample texts offered, such as Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Be sure to check out the "About" link to discover many ideas for use in the classroom. Tips and videos are also available as guides. If you type in a shorter sentence, the site still creates a word cloud using their own related words (not in your original text). Be aware of the advertisements that appear with the word clouds. Advise students not to click on the ads.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): dictionaries (47), reading comprehension (148), reading strategies (96), thesaurus (22), vocabulary (238), vocabulary development (94), word clouds (13), word study (60)
In the Classroom
This is a classic tool to promote "before reading" strategies and vocabulary development. Use WordSift to preview text to be used in class and define vocabulary before reading to increase reading comprehension. Have students use WordSift with different portions of text to identify key words and vocabulary for class presentations. Use WordSift to discuss different meanings of words using images presented through the site. This site isn't only for English teachers, share with Science and Social Studies teachers to use in their classrooms with reading texts in their content areas. ENL/ELL and learning support teachers will want to share this as a support for any reading assigned in regular classes. Be sure to show students how to copy/paste to WordSift texts from informational web pages and news stories on the web, as well. Share this link as a Favorite on your public page so students can use it anytime.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Science Daily - ScienceDaily LLC
Grades
6 to 12
3 Favorites
0 Comments
Looking for collection of current science research articles? This is your one stop shop! Science Daily is current, searchable, and interesting! Encompassing many, if not all, areas...more
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Looking for collection of current science research articles? This is your one stop shop! Science Daily is current, searchable, and interesting! Encompassing many, if not all, areas of science, this site could make your classroom science research easy. The major categories are: Health & Medicine, Mind & Brain, Plants & Animals, Earth & Climate, Space & Time, Matter & Energy, Computers & Math, and Fossils & Ruins.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): animals (295), brain (56), climate (82), computers (108), data (151), earth (184), energy (131), fossils (41), matter (47), medicine (56), news (229), planets (111), plants (147), space (218), time (91)
In the Classroom
Use this site as a research tool or to provide practice reading informational texts in the content areas. Choose an article relevant to what you are teaching, post it on your website or wiki, and have your students discuss what the article means and how it made them think. Since the articles are heavy with text, you may want to have students work in small groups to read the article you have selected for them, and use a tool such as Mindmeister (reviewed here) or bubbl.us (reviewed here) to create a concept map of the important ideas and their details for the article. Each article has several related links. Have each group choose a different one to explore, and create a concept map to share on your interactive whiteboard or projector so all can benefit from the related articles. Once created, the concept maps can be posted as links or embedded on your teacher website or wiki for review and to share with parents. If the text of the articles is simply too challenging without some "before reading" help, show students how to preview it using WordSift, reviewed here.
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Books Should Be Free - Loyal Books
Grades
K to 12
7 Favorites
0 Comments
Acquaint student's with the classics (and more) with these free public domain audio books. Most of these novels are written by authors such as: Mark Twain, L. Frank Baum, Lewis ...more
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Acquaint student's with the classics (and more) with these free public domain audio books. Most of these novels are written by authors such as: Mark Twain, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austin, J.M. Barrie, Hugh Lofting, and Beatrix Potter. Some audio tracks are available in different languages. The most significant collection appears to be in French and German. Download MP3 files for each chapter in one zip file (333 MB) or directly into iTunes. Search for books by genre or language. Suggest this site to students who have difficulties with reading, including ENL/ELL students. Be sure to include this site on your class web page for students to access both in and outside of class for further practice. Share this site with your teaching colleagues who work with your learning support, foreign language, or ENL/ELL students.
tag(s): DAT device agnostic tool (146), ebooks (43), fluency (26), french (75), german (49), independent reading (82), literature (222), spanish (108)
In the Classroom
Upgrade your literature circles and include e-readers that are speech enabled. Share the stories (or full text) on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Books Should Be Free - Loyal Books provides links to the free text that accompanies the audio track. Sites such as Project Gutenberg, reviewed here, contain free versions of the full text. Students can simultaneously listen and read books on either a classroom computer, iPad, Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, iPhone, Android, or other mobile or cell phone. These recordings will also boost fluency instruction by serving as an oral reading model. Audio-assisted books will encourage students to read with expression, improve reading comprehension, stimulate vocabulary development, and provide a way for students to read text beyond their reading level.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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5 Minute Mystery - Mystery Competition, LLC
Grades
4 to 12
14 Favorites
0 Comments
This mystery reading game helps increase reading comprehension and critical thinking skills in an innovative way. The basic game is free. You can sign up to have two mysteries a ...more
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This mystery reading game helps increase reading comprehension and critical thinking skills in an innovative way. The basic game is free. You can sign up to have two mysteries a week sent to you, or you can use their archive. There is an indepth "How to Play" section, on the top menu bar, where you can read the instructions. After reading a mystery you select the correct sentences that are clues, and select a character that the clue either exonerates or implicates. Points are awarded for each clue you get correct. You can set up a leaque or several leagues to track students' performance and progress.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): critical thinking (123), mysteries (23), reading comprehension (148), short stories (18)
In the Classroom
Use your projector or interactive whiteboard to show your students the directions for getting points by selecting the correct clues and solving the mystery. To begin with, as a class, read a mystery and discuss what the clues might be and whether they implicate or exonerate each suspect. Once the students have volunteered their ideas for which sentences are clues, submit them to see the score. The program will highlight the answers you should have had, if you got any wrong. Model for your students a discussion about why those are the correct answers and why the ones they submitted weren't. Eventually they can have this discussion by themselves in small groups. Those of you with multiple classes will want to create a league for each class. Eventually you can have small groups of students compete against each other by creating leagues. Have your students come to consensus about the clue sentences and who the real perpetrator is by voting using Tricider, or Vevox.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Kids Know Your Rights - American Library Association
Grades
6 to 12
3 Favorites
0 Comments
This PDF document explains in clear language the concept of intellectual freedom. Use this site as an extra resource when teaching the Bill of Rights. It is an excellent reference ...more
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This PDF document explains in clear language the concept of intellectual freedom. Use this site as an extra resource when teaching the Bill of Rights. It is an excellent reference resource for ideas that older Americans assume kids know about. Subtopics include the history of intellectual freedom, the first amendment, an explanation of the role of libraries in exercising intellectual freedom as it applies to written materials and records of who's reading what, how the concepts of privacy and confidentiality apply to the use of intellectual materials, and what respecting the needs of others means. It ends up with an well-researched bibliography of further materials on the subject of intellectual freedom and the right to read. These books are fiction and non-fiction and focus on ages 10 and older.
tag(s): bill of rights (31), constitution (93)
In the Classroom
Share this pdf on an interactive whiteboard or projector as part of a class discussion (great for reading comprehension in the content areas, too!). Then allow students to use it and other resources for a class debate on the pros and cons of intellectual freedom. The consitution will come to life in a context students care about.
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CNN 10 - Journalists and Educators at CNN
Grades
5 to 12
17 Favorites
0 Comments
The CNN Student News WEB site is the companion to the daily CNN Student News show and is offered free of charge with no subscription. These ten-minute programs and commercial-free ...more
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The CNN Student News WEB site is the companion to the daily CNN Student News show and is offered free of charge with no subscription. These ten-minute programs and commercial-free streamed videos produced by journalists and educators at CNN provide a great alternative to YouTube. A wealth of teacher materials accompanies each video, such as transcripts for each show, discussion questions, the Media Literacy Question of the Day, detailed learning activities, downloadable maps, and additional support materials to help students understand the news. A selection of documentaries is also accessible, with discussion guides for educators. You can sign up for emails to receive Daily Education Alerts to see what information and major stories are being covered that day or choose from previous dates and news stories from the archives. Remember to preview the program before showing it to your class.
In the Classroom
Choose whatever fits your curriculum or as a daily warm-up for current events. This provides a great alternative to reading news articles and is especially motivating for visual learners and students who struggle with reading comprehension. After your class views the video, use the daily discussion activities designed to promote critical thinking. You are also able to print the learning activities to assign as group work or for homework. There is even a news quiz. You may want to distribute copies of the transcripts for ESL students to refer to, for use as a research source, or to use for practicing reading comprehension for state exams and other assessments. Enhance learning by challenging cooperative learning groups to research one topic at this site and share their findings with the class by creating an interactive online poster (infographic) using Canva Infographic Maker, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Vocab-u-lous! - Education World
Grades
7 to 12
1 Favorites
0 Comments
Use Education World's Vocab-u-lous! features to help build your students' vocabulary. There are numerous word banks for students to use as they figure out which of the challenging...more
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Use Education World's Vocab-u-lous! features to help build your students' vocabulary. There are numerous word banks for students to use as they figure out which of the challenging words fits in the context of the sentences. The activity sheets are arranged by the words' beginning sound, and by holiday categories, such as Thanksgiving words and Presidents' Day words.
Be aware: this site has several advertisements, some pop-up.
Be aware: this site has several advertisements, some pop-up.
tag(s): sound (73), sounds (43), vocabulary (238)
In the Classroom
Just try to take the dictionaries away from your students when you project a Vocab-u-lous activity sheet on your whiteboard (or projector) or hand them the printable version of the worksheet. These are useful for SAT preparation and other tests that assess vocabulary, as well as building a strong vocabulary necessary for better reading comprehension and oral and written communication. When using this activity with a class set of computers, provide a link from your class web page to a reputable online dictionary. For additional practice, provide this link on your class website for students to access at home.
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Explore the Cosmos - The Planetary Society
Grades
6 to 12
0 Favorites
0 Comments
Become part of space exploration via The Planetary Society's activities, the place to go for space enthusiasts. The society's mission is "To inspire the people of Earth to explore...more
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Become part of space exploration via The Planetary Society's activities, the place to go for space enthusiasts. The society's mission is "To inspire the people of Earth to explore other worlds, understand our own, and seek life elsewhere." Although the site is text-heavy, the society offers many ways to engage with the latest space news, images, and experiences related to space and space exploration. The various projects range from working with space images to following blogs and news of various space projects. The content is quite up to date and covers projects rarely reported in mainstream media. Click the dropdown Explore menu at the top to see featured projects and more. Check out the Multimedia drop down tab at the top for a Weekly Planetary Radio Trivia Contest. If Carl Sagan is one of the founders, you know the society is serious!
tag(s): inventors and inventions (80), nasa (30), planets (111), space (218)
In the Classroom
Make this site a link on your class web page during a unit on space or all year round. Gifted students and those with a passion for space will find endless discoveries. Include this site as a research source when assigning projects about space or the planets. If you have more able students in upper elementary or middle school, use this site as a differentiated alternative for them to research at a higher level. Inspire students to read in content areas by sharing space-related "current events" articles from this site. These selections would work well on interactive whiteboards for practice using highlighters to find main idea, context clues, and other comprehension skills. No whiteboard? No problem! Use your projector and eMargin, to highlight and annotate as a class. If you assign portions of the site to the entire class, you may need to assign "reading buddies" for weaker readers and they can use eMargin together. Challenge students to narrate space image galleries (search for the blog entry on the "New Flickr collection of historical NASA photos") or design and explain their own devices for space exploration on Thinglink.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Just Free Books - justfreebooks.info
Grades
2 to 12
4 Favorites
0 Comments
This site is a wonderful search engine for most of the known digital libraries including Gutenberg, Google Books, Wikibooks, and archive.org. Entering search terms like "children's...more
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This site is a wonderful search engine for most of the known digital libraries including Gutenberg, Google Books, Wikibooks, and archive.org. Entering search terms like "children's audio books," for example, leads to a list of links that offer free online reads. Listing other features in your search will bring up the spescifics that you want This can include books in other formats including those that upload to many different players including PDF, TXT, MS Reader, MS Word and ODT, RTF, Palm Reader eBooks, Html, Epub, Kindle, Mobipocket, Isilo, Audio books, Plucker, and more. Besides searching in "only English," you can also select Spanish, French, and/or Portuguese to search for books in those languages.
tag(s): audio books (25), book lists (166), ebooks (43), literature (222), reading lists (77), search engines (48)
In the Classroom
Offer this site to students who wish to use digital devices to read. Keep in mind that many of the selections are older, in the public domain due to the expiration of copyright. ENL/ESL and SPED students may benefit from being able to hear or see books in a different way. Use the texts you find as language to analyze or manipulate on your interactive whiteboard to teach reading comprehension skills, parts of speech, transition words, vocabulary study, and writing style. Allow students to copy/paste text into the whiteboard software so they can "work with words" from literary works instead of worksheets.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
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Physics To Go - APS, AAPT, and NSF-NSDL
Grades
7 to 12
2 Favorites
0 Comments
Physics To Go is an online, biweekly magazine with great ideas for physics related teaching, experiments, and pictures. The site is easy to navigate and is formatted much like a ...more
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Physics To Go is an online, biweekly magazine with great ideas for physics related teaching, experiments, and pictures. The site is easy to navigate and is formatted much like a page out of a newspaper. Archives are accessible through issue and topic organization, subjects under browse, and are fully searchable within the site. Many additional links for more research are available. This could prove to be indispensable for the high school physical science and physics teachers.
tag(s): experiments (55), motion (49), photography (122)
In the Classroom
Use this site to encourage your students to read about science outside of the classroom. Share the link on your website or class wiki. Start by assigning an article to students and have them highlight and annotate important information and questions they have and discuss it in class or on a blog. Have students use a digital tool like Hypothesis, reviewed here, for highlighting and annotating. If you are beginning the process of integrating technology, have students create blogs sharing their learning and understanding using Weebly, reviewed here. Or, if you are teaching a unit on something specific, such as Earthquakes, once students have learned essential vocabulary, have them read the issue and follow the links on the page. Have students discuss in class what they have learned. Then, have small groups create "Top Five Facts" to summarize what they have learned. Challenge students to create a talking avatar using a photo or other image (legally permitted to be reproduced). The avatars can be used to explain the "Top Five Facts" the group wishes to share with the class. Use a site such as Blabberize, reviewed here. Reading teachers can also use the articles on this site for reading comprehension practice with nonfiction selections.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
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Mr Nussbaum's Language Arts - Greg Nussbaum
Grades
K to 8
1 Favorites
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This site was developed with the idea that crucial concepts, themes, ideas, and fact sets taught in the classroom can be enhanced over the internet through interactivity. Furthermore,...more
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This site was developed with the idea that crucial concepts, themes, ideas, and fact sets taught in the classroom can be enhanced over the internet through interactivity. Furthermore, for teachers to have a reliable k -8 internet site to use in the computer lab or in the classroom, that likely covers one or many themes currently being taught. The Language Arts portion of the site contains several activities that can supplement any Language Arts program. Spelling Central allows teachers to input their own spelling words then converts the list into a word search, ABC order practice, missing letter practice, and a mixed-up word activity that can be printed or practiced by students online. In addition, there are Language Arts games, reading comprehension exercises, story units, practice with commas, ABC order, nouns and pronouns, and more. Students will need to be cautioned to ignore the ads on the right-hand side of the page when exploring the site.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): alphabet (53), alphabetical order (8), presidents (135), spelling (98)
In the Classroom
This site will work well for classrooms with individual spelling lists as students can input their own list to create printables and online activities for spelling practice. Watch the animated biographies on your interactive whiteboard as part of your President's Day activities. Make a shortcut to this site on classroom computers and use it as a center. Share the link to the site on your classroom website or blog for students to access from home.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Jewish - Holidays - Chanukah - Jacob Richman
Grades
K to 12
2 Favorites
0 Comments
This hotlist of Chanukah/Hanukkah sites has everything you might want to learn about the holiday, Jewish culture, and traditions. In addition to sites in English, there are sites in...more
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This hotlist of Chanukah/Hanukkah sites has everything you might want to learn about the holiday, Jewish culture, and traditions. In addition to sites in English, there are sites in Hebrew, Russian, and other languages, all about the holiday. You can even find sources for Chanukah/Hanukkah clip art. Although TeachersFirst does not normally review "hotlists," this collection is comprehensive and updated regularly as a "labor of love."
In the Classroom
Make this treasury a starting point for multicultural study of holidays around the world or for a more in depth study of Jewish traditions. Assign student groups to learn about specific aspects of the holiday and share their findings on a class wiki holiday guide. Not familar with wikis? Check out the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through. With younger students, share specific links on a projector or interactive whiteboard and give students a chance to share and compare their own holiday traditions with the ones mentioned. Use a tool like Padlet, reviewed here, to keep track of the comparisons. You could even use some of these resources in upper elementary or middle school as reading comprehension exercises during the holiday season: write a summary or formulate a statement of a text-based site's main idea.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Study English - Australia Network
Grades
4 to 12
2 Favorites
0 Comments
This site, produced by Australian TV, offers oral lessons for intermediate and advanced level English language learners. The TV productions are available online in their entirety; they...more
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This site, produced by Australian TV, offers oral lessons for intermediate and advanced level English language learners. The TV productions are available online in their entirety; they provide listening, pronunciation, and reading and writing practice for LES candidates. Although based on the Australian curriculum and testing called IELTS, the lessons, vocabulary, and practices are appropriate for any learners of English. The accent on the videos is, of course, Australian. Included in the offerings, in addition to the videos, are tape transcripts, study items, and quizzes.
In the Classroom
Use this site with ESL/ELL learners as designed. Share the lessons on your interactive whiteboard or projector. If individual computers are available, have students view the lessons independently (with headsets) and create multimedia projects to demonstrate what they have learned. Have students create an interactive online poster using Genial.ly, reviewed here. Better yet, if students get used to the video and exercise formats, have them produce similar videos teaching a few lessons about their home cultures! Share the videos using a tool such as SchoolTube, reviewed here.Special ed teachers and those seeking combination video/text lessons to use to teach listening/reading comprehension may find these lessons valuable, as well.
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