Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

This website provides five lesson plans (ranging in grade levels K-12). A brief history of the holiday is provided, followed by five unique lesson plans. How about incorporating math with your Mother's Day lessons (see "Motherhood Math: Mothers in the Workforce"). Lesson plans are aligned with national standards and include language arts, math, technology, visual arts, social studies, and more. These lessons are ready to go and easy to use.

tag(s): mothers day (23), sociology (23), statistics (120)

This site provides a list and a basic description of over 30 lesson plans. There are lessons and activities for students in elementary, middle and high school. Math, language arts, history, science and more are included.

tag(s): easter (10), holidays (194)

Developed with the cooperation of the man who began it all, this site offers lots and lots of detail on every facet of the Kwanzaa observance and celebration. This makes it a great resource whether you're planning your own celebration or developing a lesson about the holiday. For students with Kwanzaa questions, this would be a great resource.

tag(s): cross cultural understanding (178), holidays (194), kwanzaa (12)

Use this website to "clear out the cobwebs" in your students' minds. The site offers several interactive logic activities. Many require no reading. A few examples include Tetris, Rubik's Cube, Sliders, Towers and more.

tag(s): gifted (64), logic (160), problem solving (233), puzzles (148), substitutes (25)

This website provides word problems in an interactive format for students of all ages. The levels are groups by K-1, 2-3, 3-4, 5-6 and 7+. These programs use fun and unique graphics, sound and other motivational tools. There are numerous activities available for each age level.

tag(s): decimals (85), division (96), money (112), multiplication (119), percent (59), vision (42)

Help your students to uncomplicated the intricate world of algebra. This engaging and interactive math website is sure to challenge, educate and entertain your students. Thinking Blocks presents students with video tutorials, interactive activities, virtual tutors, and more. Topic choices include addition/subtraction, multiplication/division and ratio word problems. Blocks are used to represent numbers within the math problem. Students are guided step-by-step as they solve the multi-step problems. Each lesson includes only eight questions, so they could easily be completed during one regular class period. There are six lessons in each of the mathematical areas. FLASH is required for some of the activities.

tag(s): addition (127), division (96), multiplication (119), ratios (47), subtraction (108), vision (42)

Find information on this site, not only for Washington State educators but for all teachers. This site has four Learning Goals that can apply to any student in any state. From the left menu, find resources like Talking to Young People About Race, Racism, and Equity, Open Education Resources, Special Education, Learning Alternatives, and others. Explore Learning Standards by subject and year of adoption.

tag(s): OER (43), racism (83), Special Needs (52)

Home page for the state's Curricular Standards.

Indiana Department of Ed standards.

Idaho content standards in both Word and pdf formats. RIGHT-click on the version you want to download and choose "Save Target as" or click to open either version. You need to have either Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat software.

Home page for the state's department of education.

I tried shortening the URL to the root, but got a message to contact the webmaster. If you still want this reviewed we need to Google the Florida standards. sm

Delaware Content Standards

This interactive "zone" consists of 25 math games. At the introduction page, students are asked to choose a level and game piece. Each game is interactive, "kid-friendly," and quick. There is a feature that the students can "log-in" if they are returning. So, this would be a great practice activity for computer lab time. Since there are eight difficulty levels, there are a variety of math skills/operations included in the games, allowing you to differentiate for student levels.

tag(s): addition (127), division (96), logic (160), multiplication (119), subtraction (108), vision (42)

This website focuses on the Abacus. There are numerous interactive activities, explanations of the Abacus, information about the history of the Abacus, how to calculate math problems using an Abacus, lesson plans and more! The website also shares how the Abacus is used today in other parts of the world.

tag(s): latin (21)

This multi-faceted site is simply designed but extremely useful to students and adults of all ages. It does assume that they can read. The purpose of the website is to help individuals solve math problems. The user actually chooses the math topic and enters the specific math problem. The answers provided include a detailed description. There are seven general areas (Math for Everyone, General Math, K-8 Math, Algebra, Plots & Geometry, Trig. & Calculus and Other Stuff). At the "Math for Everyone" page, the topics include calculating a tip, estimating retirement, loans and more! All pages and activities are interactive and individualized for the user.

tag(s): conversions (37), decimals (85), fractions (159), ratios (47)

Engineering Resources is a K-12 website that contains a multitude of information including lessons correlating to national and state standards. Search for activities and ideas by grade level and curriculum topic using the Search and Advanced Search buttons. Narrow choices provided in the curriculum section by filtering options to include lessons, activities, complete units, and more. Maker Challenges offer a variety of experiences for hands-on learning with topics including titles like A Doghouse Design Project and Create and Control a Popsicle Stick Finger Robot. Other site options allow you to search by educational standards and provide information and resources for teaching engineering to students in grades K-12.

tag(s): amazon (11), architecture (84), bridges (11), cells (82), density (18), engineering (137), environment (250), forces (37), friction (8), heart (27), human body (91), latitude (10), light (56), longitude (9), map skills (64), marine biology (31), mars (26), medicine (57), motion (47), pollution (53), robotics (26), rockets (12), simple machines (20), space (219), STEM (312)

A nifty collection of math and health games, and at the bottom of the site find a link for activities, printables, parents, videos, games, and teachers. The teacher link will take you to PBS Learning Media which has lesson plans and follow-up activities to reinforce the concepts featured in a particular game. Math strategies are cleverly disguised as sports challenges, invention making, puzzles, mazes etc. Math topics include patterns, deductive reasoning, budgeting, decimals, negative numbers, place value, elapsed time, measurement, operations, probability, geometry, and more. Start from this teacher page to select the game most appropriate for your students.

tag(s): puzzles (148), video (267)

Create photo trading cards using images you upload or store on Flickr, Instagram, or Dropbox. Imagine having your students create study aides about famous people using images they draw and scan or photos of themselves impersonating the famous people, such as presidents, explorers, authors, and more. If you celebrate reading by having an "author's tea," why not follow up by asking students to make trading cards for the authors they "met"? Use a similar approach for famous historical figures or even for geometric shapes you photograph with the digital camera. If students write their own "biographies" of the shapes to study from, they will learn for sure! They can even trade each other for favorites.

tag(s): book reports (28), famous people (28), images (263)

Find a problem of the week for elementary, middle and high school (algebra) as well as archived past problems on this simple site. You can submit your correct answer and get your name listed as a winner for that week. New problems appear on Mondays.