Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Find inspiring, age-appropriate, real-life stories, videos, and projects to share with children and teens. The site hopes to help these students take positive actions and become the best people they can be. Stories offer great examples of values like courage, determination, honesty, humility, kindness, responsibility, and tolerance. The stories range from incredible kids inspiring other kids, to amazing animals demonstrating admirable qualities, to the invention of inspirational social causes. Stories are searchable in several ways - by values, topics, age range, and format. Formats include articles, podcasts, reference, and videos. Under Educators investigate the lesson plans categorized by grade levels. You can also sign up for the site's newsletter including updates and new article information.
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tag(s): behavior (43), bullying (48), character education (82), disabilities (32), diversity (46), identity (37), school violence (10), service projects (17), tolerance (8)

Create a podcast using audio and videos clips featuring NASA scientists! Follow the steps to create the podcast, including writing a production script, downloading clips, recording your narrations, and editing. Use a digital recorder, camcorder, or your computer to record the audio. Download a brochure or bookmark to remember the links for creating the DIY Podcast. Click on the links along the right side of the page for great resources such as the DIY Podcast Blog for some great ideas. Several examples along the side include creating a fitness podcast, lab safety, Newton's Laws, Rocket Science, and Solar Arrays.

tag(s): podcasts (118), scientists (71), space (220)

Global Handwashing Day (GHD) was created by the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing in 2008 to foster and support a global culture of handwashing with soap, shine a spotlight on the state of handwashing in every country, and raise awareness about the benefits of handwashing with soap. Their website offers several tools and activities to help students and teachers become involved in supporting this initiative. Younger students will enjoy the interactive "Hand Washing with Soap" game that teaches the importance of washing with soap. Teachers and school nurses can use the "Planners Guide" loaded with facts, activities, and suggestions as a resource for teaching students the importance of hand washing. Many resources are also available in French, Spanish, Japanese, and Arabic.

tag(s): diseases (66)

The Enhanced Calorie Calculator allows you to count calories by searching a food type by keyword. The calorie calculator (and fat gram calculator) provide the fat grams and calories associated with the keyword. To use the site, enter a food item and see what options are shown. Some fast food calorie counts are included, for example, enter the keyword hamburger and counts are provided for lean and regular beef hamburgers, hamburger rolls, and McDonald's hamburgers. Individual items can be added to a list to provide a total calorie count for an entire meal. If your first search does not work, try shortening to fewer keywords.

tag(s): calories (6)

Use Disney's Healthy Living for kids to learn more about different foods and energy. View videos and enoy activities to learn about balancing food, portion control, recipes, healthy habits (proper hand-washing), and exercise for a healthy lifestyle. Directions are spoken and written for many types of learners. Use the search box to find a food quiz.

tag(s): fitness (39), hygiene (9), myplate (18), nutrition (140)

This eclectic site has something for everyone about the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. For younger students, be sure to meet the mascots of the site, view the interactives, and more. Students of all ages can use this site to learn about the schedule, view photos and videos, learn about each sport in the winter 2010 Olympics, trace the torch relay, view a spectator guide, meet the athletes, view the interactive map, and more.

tag(s): olympics (46), sports (85)

This collection, provided by the National Fire Protection Association is amazing. Here you will find fire prevention facts, products to help families stay safe, special materials for parents (and teachers, too), an online quiz for both students and families, and more! At the time of this review, the message for the year was "Protecting Your Families and Loved Ones From Fire." The approach, at the time of this review, is multimedia; in addition to the quiz, there are audio public service announcements, a blog, an upcoming webinar, and safety videos. For younger children, the familiar Sparky the Dog offers fun activities. Accompanying safety tip sheets benefit everyone, and a focus on high-risk populations assures you that everyone will have a fighting chance against fire.
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tag(s): fire prevention (17), fire safety (17), homes (5)

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.
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tag(s): diseases (66), listening (92), news (226)

This site offers media (found on YouTube, Vimeo, and Flickr) on a broad spectrum of topics, not created for kids but appropriate and interesting for children 3 years old and up. Media isn't divided into categories. The newest items appear first. However, you can search the site by keyword. Information ranges from animal stories of a dog without legs to video of Ella Fitzgerald scatting. Obviously, this site is updated frequently, so contents will change. Students and adults alike will love browsing for interesting stories and information.

tag(s): news (226), speaking (26), video (267), writing prompts (60)

These multi-media lessons provide an alternative approach for young elementary students or ESL/ELL students trying to learn body parts. With song files and a video, this site makes it easy for language learners to acquire body part name knowledge easily. The video and song lyrics make the "Body Part" lesson entertaining and memorable. There is also a "Make a Face" interactive. To use the video part, download the "Realvideo" player. This is about the only items that are FREE at this site, but they are still worth a look if teaching body parts or expressions of the face.

In order to get the "free" printable cards, worksheets, and acompanying language games you must buy the Teacher's Set, Superpack, or Download Pack. However, the video and songs ARE free and fun!
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tag(s): faces (5), human body (91), preK (291), video (267)

View excellent information from an organization of doctors dedicated to publishing the truth about the way our nation eats. Learn about fast food, issues with various types of foods, and characteristics of different types of diets. View issues of the day, current notes, and videos of hot topics.
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tag(s): fitness (39), myplate (18), nutrition (140)

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.
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tag(s): dictionaries (47), reading comprehension (152), reading strategies (97), thesaurus (22), vocabulary (241), vocabulary development (96), word clouds (13), word study (58)

Learn about the body, food, fun, and nutrition with this great site! Take quizzes, find recipes under "Eat," games under "Move," and read bits of information through the "bright papers" under "Learn."

tag(s): cooking (33), fitness (39), nutrition (140)

This webpage provides weekly answers to student submitted questions. Answers are student friendly, and offer pictures to help explain the answer.

tag(s): questioning (36)

This is a series of easy-to-use exercise videos, coloring pages, this site makes taking care of young bodies interesting for all. Learn about a healthy diet and fitness for young students. Don't miss the link for The PDF document for the Teacher's Guide.

tag(s): dental health (14), fitness (39), preK (291)

This wonderful collection of interactive whiteboard activities is designed for students ages 3 to 18. Topics include Math, Literacy, Science, Physics, History, Art, Music, and Religion. Within each topic are categories to help narrow down search results. Activities contain a short summary, a link to the resource, and some have objectives. Because this is a British site, be aware that some vocabulary and content may be unfamiliar to American students, so preview carefully before using.

tag(s): descriptive writing (41), energy (133), environment (251), forces (37), grammar (138), literacy (122), literature (221), map skills (64), maps (224), novels (34), persuasive writing (58), poetry (195), preK (291), religions (113), rhythm (22), rivers (16), seasons (37), shakespeare (99), speeches (23), spelling (98), water cycle (22), weather (160)

This site is the ultimate resource for any measurement or conversion need. Calculators are included for Math, Science, Cooking, Time, and much more. Categories are listed in alphabetical order from Acceleration to Weight/Mass. Within each category are the different converters/calculators. For example, after choosing volume, choices include acres, barrels (dry, federal, liquid, and wine), cubic units, gallons, quarts teaspoons, yards, and more. Other interesting conversions include your weight on other planets, your age in dog years, and translations to and from Pig Latin. You are sure to find exactly the conversion for any need within this site along with others to use just for fun!
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tag(s): conversions (37), measurement (123), temperature (34), time (91)

This site offers suggestions and examples of different types of questions to include in classrooms. Each type of question is explained and sample questions are included. For a visual explanation of how questions work together, choose the Essential Questions link and scroll down to the diagram showing that this is center of all questions, then all other types of question serve to illuminating the Essential Questions. Links are included to additional information on each of the topics.

tag(s): critical thinking (137), questioning (36)

Finding fun and varied activities to keep students moving isn't always easy. The Teacher Toolbox on this site is the perfect find for quick and easy daily activities. After finding the toolbox, scroll down a bit to find the page with the link to calendars. Here is where you will find monthly calendars (in English and Spanish) and divided by age levels - Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary - with a quick and easy physical activity to accomplish for the day. Calendars are also archived back to 2016 so there are several options for each month.

tag(s): calendars (37), fitness (39)