Insightful Thinking, Real Resource Solutions!

How on earth did we teach without the internet? Sitting up for hours at night creating fun resources to keep learners engaged in class and keep them talking more than you do – all work and no play makes teacher a very dull girl/boy. Lesson planning and resources are thankfully made easy in this crazy digital age we find ourselves I and it is a much easier task to keep the classroom running smoothly and engage the little darlings.

Except the usual thumbs-up, thumbs-down game that can be used to measure how learners are doing during a lesson when you ask them to indicate if they agree or disagree with something. The world wide web makes things so much easier to generate cost effective classroom resources that keep things fun and interesting. You can’t go wrong with the following tips from Hannah Trierweiler Hudson at Scholastic:

• Best for young readers: The Stacks
  At The Stacks, students can post book reviews, get reading recommendations, play games based on the latest series, watch “Meet the Author” videos and more. It’s like Facebook for reading and it’s safe for school, too.
• Best for finding books: Book Wizard
  Use Scholastic’s Book Wizard to level your classroom library, find resources for the books you teach, and create reading lists with the click of a button. You can also plug a title into the BookAlike feature to find books with an easier, similar, or more difficult reading level.
• Best for craft projects: Crayola for Educators
  With hundreds of lessons for every grade level, you’re guaranteed to find a colourful idea for your class, such as the “Chinese Dragon Drum” for Chinese New Year or the “What Do You Love?” project for Valentine’s Day.
• Best Way to start the day:Daily Starters
  Establish a morning routine with Scholastic’s Daily Starters – fun, fast math and language arts prompts and questions, including Teachable Moments from history and Fun Facts, such as “Before erasers, people used a piece of bread!” Sort by grade (PreK-8), and project them onto your interactive whiteboard or print copies for your students.
• Best for writing: Education Northwest
  The creators of the 6+1 traits of writing offer a terrific overview of the model on their site, with research to support the program, lesson plans, writing prompts, and rubrics. You can also find writing samples to practice scoring and see how other teachers scored the same piece.
• Best Online Dictionary: Wordsmyth
  Add the beginner’s version of the Wordsmyth widgetto your toolbar, and students can look up new vocabulary no matter where they are online.
• Best for Geography: Google Earth
  Zoom over the Sahara Desert. Fly past the streets where your students live. Take a tour of the Eiffel Tower. You can do it all with Google Earth, the tool that makes the world feel a little bit smaller with its map-generating capabilities. If you’re new to Google Earth, the tutorialsoffer a great introduction.
• Best for History: Federal Resources for Educational Excellence
  This fantastic site acts as a clearinghouse for all of the educational materials developed by government organisations. You can find primary sources, videos, and photos for just about any topic. And it’s all free!
• Best for Science: National Science Teachers Association
  The National Science Teachers Association site is a goldmine for classroom teachers who may not feel as comfortable teaching geology and astronomy as they do reading and arithmetic. You’ll find journal articles, experiment ideas, and a roundup of the latest science stories in the news.
• Best for Current Events: Scholastic News
  For topics too current for textbooks, Scholastic Newsclassroom magazines offer engaging nonfiction reading online, drawn from the latest headlines. Subscribe to receive news-related, age-appropriate Common Core lesson plans and skills sheets, and free access to the app that comes with each issue.
• Best for the Interactive Whiteboard: SMART Exchange
  Go to SMART Exchange before creating any lessons for your interactive whiteboard from scratch. Chances are you’ll find an existing lesson ready to grab and go, or inspiration from other teachers who’ve taught the same material. Plus, the customizable Whack-A-Mole gameis a must-have for test prep and review.
• Best for Interactive Whiteboard Help: Promethean Planet
  Even if you’ve deemed yourself an interactive whiteboard pro, Promethean’s teacher community offers a boatload of tips and practical advice you’ll find useful. Find help the next time your toolbox goes missing, or if you want to punch up a lesson with cool graphics.
• Best for Online Classroom Workspaces: Wikispaces Classroom
  Wikispaces Classroom walks you through process of creating an online classroom workspace that’s private and customizable. It works across browers, tablets, and phones, and can be used for day-to-day classroom management, tracking formative assessments in real-time, and connecting with students and parents in and out of the classroom.
• Best for Video Clips: TeacherTube

TeacherTube is the best source for instructional videos in a safe environment. We especially love the clips of teachers showing off the catchy rhymes they’ve made up to teach certain topics — check out the “Mrs. Burk Perimeter Rap” and the “Mr. Duey Fractions Rap.”

So, pull out that laptop, check out these awesome suggestions and say goodbye to headaches stressing about resources to keep your lessons interesting and interactive. Just send out a big PS I love you to the World Wide Web!