Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

This Library of Congress collection has information on Jackie Robinson and lots more. As always, the images are the star of the show, and there are pictures of early teams, documentation about Robinson's entry into the big leagues, and much more. Students can click on a time period (1860s-1890s, 1900s-1930s, 1940-1946, 1947-1956, 1957-1961, or 1962-1972) to learn more about the history of African-Americans and baseball.

tag(s): 1800s (90), 1900s (87), africa (162), african american (131), baseball (28), black history (133)

Take me out to the ballgame.... This website provides unique vocabulary activities that all correlate with baseball! Some of the activities are interactive (word puzzles) and other activities are printable. There is also a few historical and reference facts. So take your students out to the ballgame and teach them some new science vocabulary terms.

tag(s): baseball (28), crosswords (22), puzzles (176), vocabulary (261)

As part of their extensive site for vocabulary, roots, and more, MyVocabulary.com has added a themed area for Earth Day. Find interactive vocabulary activities using Earth Day vocabulary words. You will also find printable crosswords, fill in the blanks and more, all using the same theme words. This and other "themes" available on the site will make vocabulary development fun.

tag(s): earth (188), earth day (62), vocabulary (261)

This site provides a basic lesson plan for students to work in groups to locate cardboard eggs hidden throughout the classroom. This lesson was originally designed for ENL or ELL students, but could be used in any language arts or foreign language class. The objective of the lesson is for students to describe (both orally and in writing) the precise locations of the eggs.

tag(s): easter (8), holidays (292)

This site provides a great deal of Easter activities. There is information on dying Easter eggs, coloring pages, crafts, online games, recipes, puzzles and more. They also offer numerous educational worksheets including math, writing and other challenging pages.

tag(s): easter (8), eggs (4), holidays (292)

Create maps -- for multiple reasons -- with ease. As you 'travel' through your geography or history course, create an ongoing map of the places you've visited and embed/post it on your blog or any webpage. Simply type in the title of your map, choose the land masses you wish to include, and then click on the correct boxes for your particular locations. When finished, click the You're Ready box at the bottom of the screen. Now scroll to the top to see what your map will look like. The embed code (geek-speak term for computer gobble-dee-gook that tells your computer how to find and display the map you have made) for your map is ready to copy and paste into your webpage. You can find the embed code to the right of the map. There is also a button to Reset and Start Over.

tag(s): maps (223)

This Spanish language program features TV segments of popular children's stories in Spanish. The TV episodes include puppets, animation, live action and music characteristic of Hispanic culture. Besides transcripts, the website includes an intro, vocabulary, and more. In some episodes, the action is translated into sign language for the hearing impaired, as well! Complete transcripts in Spanish and English allow the instructor to pre-teach vocabulary and set up the situation before showing the video. One of the main advantages of using this program in a mixed language class is that the Spanish-speaking students suddenly become the authorities in the classroom; they can assist the instructor with the episodes and activities.

tag(s): hispanic (53), preK (342), resources (79), spanish (114)

In spite of the annoying ads, the rich choices of writing ideas, prompts, exercises, and "widgets" on this site are well worth the time to digest and wade through. There's so much! There are 17 "widgets" for curing writer's block: Electronic Poetry, Haiku-a-Tron, Character Name, Text Collage, Creative Writing Prompts, Random Line Generator, and MANY others. There are also 7 links to post your fiction and poetry, 2 sections on creative writing and prompts (including 60+ writing experiments by Charles Bernstein), poetry links, visual inspiration, and a long list of authors you can click on to read articles or see questions answered, plus more articles and extras.

To post any stories or poems at Language is a Virus you must be registered. The log-in process does require an email address. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service.

Before having students post anything on this site, check your school's Acceptable Use Policy and BE CERTAIN to obtain parental permission. Be aware this site has several advertisements and includes X (formerly Twitter) Buttons, Badges, Backgrounds, and Images. Be sure to provide students with specific instructions of where they MAY and may NOT go. Or make this site a whole-class activity (too bad, though, since writing is so individual).

tag(s): poetry (197)

Use this site to create polls for your students (or have students create their own). The polls are embeddable in your wiki, blog, or class website. The site is still in beta. You can create a name, an expiration date for the survey, questions (multiple choice, yes or no, and ranking), and input your email address to be informed as results come into the site. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service. Registration is not required to use this site. There are some advertisements and external links at this site (all appropriate at the time of this review). So if you allow students to use this site on their own, be sure to watch carefully.

tag(s): data (213), polls and surveys (44)

This great interactive site takes students on a trip back in time to ancient Greece. They will study the theatres, the players, the playwrights, and the plays. There is a lot here to explore. Please note that the "Stage your own Tragedy" is no longer working, as it requires Flash.

tag(s): greece (47), greek (46), plays (32)