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Making Stopmotion Movies - Kevin Hodgson
Grades
2 to 8In the Classroom
Encourage your students to revise and edit their writing by turning their stories into stopmotion movies. Have students work in small groups to visually re-create events from their own writing. This will help develop stronger characters, dialogue, and draw attention to the elements of time and place. The planning sheets are a helpful tool to help students examine story structure and sequence. Alternatively, develop reading comprehension and fluency by asking students to re-create a fable or folktale. The new term for this is "Readers stopmotion." Teachers may want to be comfortable using a digital camera and movie making programs before embarking on this project."Challenge students to share their videos on a site such as TeacherTube reviewed here or post them on your class website. Get parent permission before posting any student work on this sharing site and check with your school administrator to be sure that your school allows students to post videos on-line. Teachers may want to be comfortable using a digital camera/webcam and movie making programs before embarking on this project.
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Best of the Year for Young Adults - American Library Association
Grades
7 to 12Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Children's Literature - Web English Teacher
Grades
1 to 8In the Classroom
Save this site as a favorite and use it as a resource in a literature class. Before introducing a new book to the class, check this site first for information under the author's heading. There you'll find lesson plans, resources, activities, etc. Great for teachers using a new novel or in need of some fresh ideas on teaching an old lesson.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Books in Spanish: Children & Adolescents - California State Univ.
Grades
2 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as a resource in searching for books that could benefit your ELL classroom. Books are recommended in various reading levels, making it easier to find things to fit specific students in your class.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Word Morph - WordPlays.com
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site as a learning station for students who may finish work early, and need something productive to do to avoid bothering other students. To make it competitive, keep a record board near the computer where students can log their high scores. Competing against each other may make students more interested to play for a new minutes at a time, and less likely to disturb others in testing situations.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Learn English Kids - British Council
Grades
K to 8This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Primary grade and preK teachers will find many useful interactives for basic skills like colors and phonics on this site, even though it is intended for learning English. Share the activities as a center or for extra practice for struggling students. Check with your administration about whether students can register individually for the site. Introduce this site to your class on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Make a shortcut to this site on classroom computers and have your ELL/ENL students use it as one of your learning stations. Teachers can print flashcards for survival English vocabulary such as clothes, food, parts of the body, jobs etc.; accompanying activities provide reinforcement for vocabulary. Learn English Kids changes weekly, offering weekly activities, opinion polls, learning through songs, playground fun, and more. The read-aloud stories are a wonderful option for beginning readers and even non-readers. Speech/language clinicians will join ESL and primary teachers in using the many activities on this site. It even has sorting activities such as fruits/vegetables (see "Food"). Although the interface is graphically appealing, by clicking on "Topics," you can find activities, songs, and games all organized by subject. There is also a large section for parents to help their child at home. Short stories and other interactive features of the site would work well with special education students, too. Be sure to share this link with parents of your ELL students if they have Internet access at home.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Timeline of Art History - Metropolitan Museum of Art
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Art teachers will find it easy to search for themes. History teachers can access items by date. Any of the "thematic essays" could be projected on an interactive whiteboard (or projection screen) to accompany a lecture in class. Or have students use this excellent resource for independent research or to illustrate their own presentations. Challenge groups to choose a time period and create blogs about the "mood" of the art. If you are beginning the process of integrating technology, have students create blogs sharing their learning and understanding using Telegra.ph, reviewed here. This blog creator requires no registration! Or have students make a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Classic Books/Vocabulary - Myvocabulary.com
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Use these word lists to accompany a unit on any of the book titles available. Students could use these lists along with their own additions, to create ongoing personal or whole-class multi-media or web-based vocabulary notebooks. Try tools such as a wiki or Bookemon (reviewed here).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Poems = Word Comics - Austin Kleon
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Visual thinkers sometimes experience difficulty expressing their thoughts in words and when asked to write a poem, they literally fall apart. Poetry has images inherent in its form; therefore, spark your students' creativity by enabling them to think of a line in a poem as a frame in a cartoon. By jumping from image to image, the poem takes on a comic-like element, where the words and images are dependent upon each other. Rather than getting jammed up on words that rhyme, this approach offers a clever and amazing way to "write a poem." This activity would work well for pairing visual learners or artistically inclined students with the stronger writers in the class, or by using individual computers and modifying technology use to combine the Poems = Word Comics concept with Make Beliefs Comix, reviewed here, to create professional looking poetic comics.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Spezify (beta) - Spezify
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use Spezify on an interactive whiteboard or projector as you introduce a new topic in science or social studies or when the class asks "What is ____?" . With very young students or non-readers, use Spezify to help them find information they can understand and to inspire them to try to read some of the short text excerpts alongside the images. Activate students' prior knowledge as they recognize the images and remark, "I didn't know Edison was the one who invented that!" Visually show the "big picture" on any topic. As you teach research skills, try a comparison of Spezify results with Google results for both functionality of the search engine and reputability of the results. NOTE: Preview any search terms you plan to display in class if the terms could possibly bring up inappropriate images. You may need to adjust your terms. Of course your students know what they are supposed to do if something inappropriate comes up when using a search themselves, right? If you have not discussed this, now is the time!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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ESL Bits - Skip Reske
Grades
3 to 8In the Classroom
Since the subtitle for this page is "Reading Comprehension and Test Preparation," recommend this site to ENL and ELL students preparing for standardized tests. Save it in your favorites on class computers and provide the link on your class website for students to access both in the classroom and out. The activities would also work well on interactive whiteboard.Share the "Signs" link with your students. Challenge students to create their own signs, similar to those used at this site. Have cooperative learning groups create interactive posters featuring their signs using a tool such as PicLits - reviewed here. Share the "PicLits" on an interactive whiteboard or projector.
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All About Treasure Island
Grades
6 to 12Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Father Figure - Lesson to Honor - Education World
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Take advantage of these FREE lesson plans to honor the dads in your students' life.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Service Learning - ASPCA
Grades
1 to 8In the Classroom
Use the classroom ideas in this class during a unit or lesson on persuasive speeches and writing. Animals are usually a soft spot for students, and animal care and cruelty may be an easy area to get students passionate enough to care about writing a good persuasive piece. Show students the information in any one of the packets, and have them write a persuasive speech or essay in partners about their topic. If having students write speech, take it to the next level and have students make podcasts of their speech. We recommend using a site such as PodOmatic (reviewed here).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Snoopy - United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Grades
3 to 8In the Classroom
Have students utilize and manipulate comic strips for dialog-writing lessons, summarizing, predicting and retelling stories. Use comic strips for literature responses. School counselors will also like the Peanuts strips as conversation starters about feelings. You could even use an online comic strip maker, such as Make Beliefs Comix to create your own class or student comic strips after looking at some examples from Peanuts. Use your interactive whiteboard or projector to share the Fun and Games . Then have students work on individual computers or with a partner to try some of the educational activities.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The History of Costume - Braun & Schneider
Grades
6 to 12The "History of Costume" was printed from 1861 to 1880 in Munich by the publishing firm of Braun and Schneider. It was originally published as individual plates in a German magazine. Later, these plates were collected and bound into book form. The total publication consisted of 125 pages, with four pictures per pages, for a total of 500 costume designs. These plates consisted of historical dress from antiquity to the end of the 19th century. This book is an excellent source for students who are studying the history of fashion and for costume designers. One must be aware though, that these illustrations have a Victorian perspective to their designs. The last 35 pages consist of contemporary folk dress (c.1880) from most European, Asian, and African countries. These provides a source for researching plays which take place during the Victorian period, such as "The King and I" or "The Sea Gull". The original book was published in German, so at times, the English translation is confusing. This is especially noticeable in the contemporary folk dress plates where many of the countries mentioned now have different names or no longer exist.
In the Classroom
Share some of the images on a projector as you read literature or study the cultures of these time periods. You should also make the link available as students create their own plays, presnetaions, or posters about people from history. FCS students could also use the images to help them plan advanced sewing projects.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Valentine's Day Resources - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Use these resources to connect Valentine's Day to your curriculum in almost any subject or select one or two ideas to highlight along with your regular lessons.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Learn 2 Type
Grades
5 to 12Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Native Tech: Native American Technology and Art - Tara Prindle
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Give students a scavenger hunt to learn the basics about the culture you are studying, then allow them to try some of the interactive games, ass based on the content of the site. This would be a great way to build background knowledge while studying American history or literature that deals with Native Americans.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Five Sentences - Five Sentences
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Adopt this idea in your professional life as you correspond with parents (or suggest it to your administrator). Try adopting Five Sentences as your New Year's resolution. Though students today rarely USE email, share emails with them -- and the Five Sentences limit -- as writing prompts for a five sentence response to teach concise, purposeful writing and 'netiquette. (Note that this review, not including this aside, is 5 sentences!)Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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