Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Purpose Games is an exceptional resource for educationally specific activities. Practice learning anything from the bones of the human skeleton to the countries of Europe. Want something even more tailored to your needs? Register with your email and create your own game with learning goals that are designed by you. Some of the activities have comments. You may want to preview the comments, if sharing with the class. This site has many advertisements.
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This lesson explores a large amount of debris that washes up on the most remote islands in the world and the effect of this garbage on ocean animals. The lesson features the video, "Trash on the Spin Cycle" and includes pre-viewing activities, focus questions, and post-viewing questions. Be sure to also check out the many additional resources included on the site. Viewing the video requires flash which is not available on all browsers; however, the lesson plan can be modified by using other available videos.

Internet4classrooms is a free web portal designed to assist anyone who wants to find high quality, free Internet resources to use in classroom instruction, developing project ideas, reinforcing specific subject matter areas both in the class and at home. Information is organized by grade level, or subject area. Web 2.0 tutorials include links for information on: apps for iPod, iTouch, blogs, audio/pod casting, collaboration, graphic organizers, file converters, html editors, open source, organization tools, PLN tools, presentation tools, social bookmarking, survey makers, web browsers, video/photo, Wiki, and Word Cloud Generators. Links for Assessment Assistance give extra ways to assess in a fun technological twist. A daily dose section offers quotes, brain teasers, question of the day, and intersecting trivia. Join an RSS feed to get the latest updated information. Up to date, active links are reviewed continually. At the time of this review the Interactive Test Resource for 7th grade assessment had several broken links.
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This site allows you to create and print different types of graph paper in a PDF format. The site is easy to use and takes you through each step needed. First choose the type of graph paper from the eight different offerings including Cartesian (the most popular) and hexagonal. Next choose paper size, measuring units (inches or millimeters), then choose the paper created from the list offered. Just print after the graph paper is created.
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Share a number of URL's easily with just one link. Simply enter a title, enter the URL's, and click "Create Link." BridgeURL makes it easy to share the URL's.

Find Streaming Videos from John Stossel to engage your students in discussions about interesting and thought-provoking issues. Each month this site posts a new video for your use, and all videos come with suggested discussion questions and quizzes. Also, you will find lots of discussion topics in the archived section titled with categories like the environment, celebrities, and consumer issues, just to name a few. Registration is free; you need to log in to view the teacher's guide and discussion questions! There are some items of interest on the top menu bar: Both Sides of the Issue, Features, Video Library, and Teacher Resources.

This phenomenal website is all about levers. The website provides information about levers and how we use them everyday. It also has an awesome interactive challenge that requires Shockwave. The interactive is a challenge to use a lever to raise one end of an obelisk three feet off the ground. There is a teacher's guide that provides a detailed lesson plan. Check it out! Be sure to look at the non-Shockwave version.

This site discusses the aftermath of the South Asia earthquake in 2011. There is an extremely thorough and detailed section that details what an earthquake is and how/why they occur. If you do not have the time to check out this entire site, at least visit the earthquake information! This site also provides pictures, web chats, quizzes, and a wealth of information. The quiz requires Flash; however, nothing else does and there is plenty to learn and discuss at this site.