Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Curriki is a nonprofit organization that encourages teachers and learners' to collaborate in developing quality educational materials in a global community. Click What We Do from the top menu and slide to CurikiStudio, and click Creators to create a free account and find resources like questions, photos/images, multimedia, and more for interactive lesson creation. Next under Solutions is CurrikiGo, where you will publish your lessons, etc. Last on the dropdown list is the CurrikiLibrary, where you can search by subject area, grade level, or resource type (interactive, video, or podcast). For a thorough summary of Curriki click the Explore a CurrikiStudio Activity. Join different groups for a more involved way to explore new areas in online learning, subject area interests, or focus questions. Create collections of your resources to keep private or share with others. This site focuses on providing free access to teachers, schools, students, or parents to many new creative ideas for in-class learning, digital learning, and hybrid or blended learning in a global community. Free membership includes monthly newsletters. Follow Curriki on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), or blogs.
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tag(s): graphic organizers (57), literacy (124), OER (52), operations (71), resources (80), rubrics (38)

Easily convert Microsoft applications to PDF with the installation of CutePDF onto your computer. Follow the directions and system requirements to install. Once installed, select print for any Microsoft document that allows printing, then select to save as a PDF.

tag(s): conversions (38), Microsoft (55), worksheets (71)

The Common Sense Education Cyberbullying and Online Harms topic page offers educator-tested lesson plans, videos, and activities that help students recognize, prevent, and respond to cyberbullying and other online harms. Resources focus on topics such as identifying harmful behaviors, understanding the impact of online actions, building empathy, and learning strategies to navigate complex interactions safely in digital spaces. Organized by grade level and aligned to standards, these materials are designed for use in technology, health, ELA, social studies, or advisory lessons to help students create a safe, respectful online community.

tag(s): cyberbullying (44), digital citizenship (108), empathy (68), internet safety (121)

CyberSafe AI: Dig Deeper is a free, immersive lesson that uses Minecraft gameplay to help students think critically about artificial intelligence and digital citizenship. Through narrative-driven challenges, students explore real-world issues such as AI responsibility, academic integrity, data privacy, and evaluating information sources, learning that AI tools require human judgment and oversight. The lesson includes classroom-ready resources, such as educator guides and family toolkits, making it easy to integrate AI literacy and safety conversations into your curriculum.

tag(s): artificial intelligence (316), digital literacy (36), evaluating sources (45), internet safety (121), STEM (369)

Promote reading by encouraging school-wide participation in the Drop Everything And Read campaign. If not school-wide, then definitely set aside 30 minutes on April 12 (or a nearby date if April 12 falls on a weekend) to show that reading comes first. At this site, families are encouraged to read for 30 minutes, but teachers will glean essential information to make the event effective. This date has been chosen in honor of Beverly Cleary's birthday. Find information about some of her famous book characters, books suggestions, D.E.A.R. activity suggestions, reproducible pages, and more at this site.

tag(s): independent reading (83)

View four short videos of a teacher and her first-grade students as they practice the Daily 5 routines. These videos give a great beginning overview of how this structured literacy time functions in the classroom. Each video is six minutes or less. Also find a Pacing Guide for the first 23 days of a Daily 5 routine. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

tag(s): literacy (124), reading comprehension (146), reading strategies (93), vocabulary development (102), word study (58)

If you are a primary or elementary teacher looking to include technology into your Daily 5 routine, look no further. At this primary teacher's blog investigate the tabs across the top for Videos, Word Work, iPad Creating, SMART Notebook, QR Codes, Listening to Reading, Skype/FaceTime, and Web. Under Videos find a link to a Play List of YouTube videos for literacy, and a video showing how to set up iPods for the Listen to Reading component. Under each of the other tabs find sources and "how to's" for all sorts of technology to incorporate into your literacy lessons. This blog also has a section about incorporating Chrome Books (under the New tab) and iPads into the primary curriculum. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

tag(s): listening (117), literacy (124), reading comprehension (146), reading strategies (93), vocabulary development (102), word study (58), writing (307)

Do you need ideas for integrating technology within each component of your Daily 5 instruction? Are you new to the Daily 5? This site offers two resources for each portion of the program, providing you with a quick look at different online tools to use.

tag(s): literacy (124), reading comprehension (146), reading strategies (93), word study (58)

Do you need new ideas to spice up your Daily 5 instruction? Try browsing through this Pinterest board for ideas from all over the web. Choose the links provided to find many free ideas for strategy charts, scheduling, posters, and tips for use throughout the school year.

tag(s): bookmarks (34), literacy (124), reading comprehension (146), reading strategies (93), word study (58), writing (307)

This Prezi is a K-3 lesson plan for the Daily 5 using several different apps for the iPad. The majority of the apps are free. Find apps for Read to Self, Partner Read, and Listen to Reading. There are Word Work apps, and Work on Writing apps, as well as a slide on possible challenges and solutions for using these tools in the classroom.

tag(s): listening (117), literacy (124), reading comprehension (146), reading strategies (93), sight words (22), vocabulary development (102), word study (58), writing (307)

Daily Lit offers short clips of literature sent to you daily by email or by RSS feed. You can receive the episodes on a Blackberry, RSS reader, email, web-enabled cell phone, or any "connected" device. You students would find it "cool" to read their daily lit excerpt on the cell phones! Most offerings are classics and in the public domain, but some recent selections are available for free due to Creative Commons licenses. Most books are free but some have a charge. Since only a few pages arrive in your email at intervals you select, it takes quite a while to read a complete book. You do have the option of receiving another section when you finish your daily reading. Students can browse for books by category or search by title, author, etc. Currently hot titles are displayed on the home page. There is a Children's book category, as well, so you can have a daily reading "arrive" on your desktop RSS reader without using email, thrilling your young readers! There are also books written in various world languages.

Because this is a site for the general public, there may be some books with content not desirable for your classroom. Avoid sending students directly to the home page to see "Featured" books without previewing the page that day and/or announcing a policy about which books they are allowed to investigate.

RSS feed to a classroom RSS reader account such as Google Reader might be the safest way to control the content that "arrives" without safety/policy concerns. If you want students to receive emails from this site, check with your school's Acceptable Use Policy AND be sure to check with the parents! You may want to consider creating a Gmail account (rather than your personal or work email). 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.

tag(s): literature (214)

Using the works of Emily Dickinson, William Blake, and Langston Hughes, this lesson plan introduces students to figurative language and encourages them to create poetry using personification. After learning about the characteristics of personification and identifying examples, students discuss how figurative language affects the reader, collectively form a word list, and independently compose an original work. A peer-editing worksheet is included. Aligned to National Standards.

tag(s): figurative language (19), poetry (195)

Join four year old Daniel Tiger, Mom Tiger, Dad Tiger, and Tigey in games, videos, and printables. Topics explore socio-emotional themes: sadness, anger, and bedtime anxieties. There are also activities about doctor visits, music, exploring around the house, daily health routines, riding the trolley through the neighborhood and more. The collection of videos has many different segments from the television series.

tag(s): dental health (15), difficult conversations (52), disabilities (37), emotions (71), preK (322), social and emotional learning (197)

This is one of Life's Little Lessons featuring Daniel Tiger. Use it to help young children "work on feelings about separation and independence, memory skills, developing self-control, and expressing feelings." There are three videos to watch and discuss, as well as resources for classroom use, and resources to share with parents about separation.

tag(s): emotions (71), social and emotional learning (197)