Resources to Start Off Your Week 39

     Today is our first day back student teaching at “S-School” but instead of only one week, we are now here teaching full time for 5 full weeks! (I am actually still at our school as my fiance is assisting with the volleyball tournament going on this evening.) I am very excited about being back in the school and will be posting about my classrooms later this week (including pictures) and sharing some of my lesson plans (yay for freebies). Until then, here are some resources that I found this week. As always, I will be adding them to my lists of resources under the Fav Websites heading.

1 ) The Why Files: The Science Behind the News
– This website features different stories each week that explore the science behind
   everyday news stories. In addition to these feature stories, the website also houses
   archives of science interactives and “cool science images” that are the perfect
   accompaniment to science lessons.
– I found that the best thing about this website is its ease of navigation. The archive
  is divided up by subject area and theme so if you would like an article on a specific
  subject it is right there at your fingertips. There is also a Classroom Activities Page
  that includes some interesting resources from a broad range of topics.
– http://whyfiles.org/

 

2 ) Harvey’s Home Page: SMART Board Lessons
– Harvey’s webpage features many great SMART Board lesson templates for
  teaching math and includes everything from numeracy and estimation to algebra
  and statistics. All of these lesson plans are free to download onto your computer
  and are really easy to use!
– There are also lots of fun and useful things to use under the “Utilities” heading
   including SMART Board calendars, game spinners, trivia games, character
   graphics, time clocks and more!
– This is a great website to explore if you want some more ideas or have just
   installed a SMART Board and want to see what you can create.
– http://harveyshomepage.com/Harveys_Homepage/Welcome.html

3 ) Ancient Egypt Review
– If you ever teach about Ancient Civilizations, this website is a good
  resource and you don’t HAVE to use it as a review! It takes students
  through a list of questions that are more than just the basic recall questions
  that you often find on many webquests. In addition to questions, there is
  also a mapping activity and video clips from National Geographic.
* The website asks students to use “their textbook” as one of their resources
   but doesn’t specifiy what textbook they used so you would have to read over
   the questions beforehand and make sure they are appropriate for the resources
   you have been using.
– http://ecplatz.wix.com/ancientegypt

4 ) Crash Course!
– If you haven’t already subscribed to the Crash Course! YouTube Channel
  you should go do so right now! John and Hank Green have created short
  (14 minutes or less, approximately) videos to teach about World History
  (John’s specialty) and Biology (Hank’s specialty). So far there are 81 videos!
– These videos give a breakdown of all of the important information on a topic
  through easy-to-understand lecture, videos, images, maps, neat graphics, etc.
  I like the fact that these videos explain the how and why and not just “this is
  how it is” explanation that you often find on the internet.
– These videos are definitely something that I am going to use in my class as a
  review tool or even as an activating strategy!
– http://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse?feature=watch