TeachersFirst: Resources for K-12 Teachers

The Monticello Classroom Grades 4 - 12

Invite your students to step into Thomas Jeffersons Monticello and experience colonial life. This educational website is beautifully designed for both students and teachers to use the extensive resources to learn about Jefferson, Monticello, and daily life. The Monticello Classroom provides a student portal with fact and resource sheets, an image gallery, online activities, and a saved favorites section. Web pages offer information by reading levels: elementary, middle, and high school. The image gallery contains a slide show builder for students to create a presentation using the images and copies of primary source documents. The presentations can be saved, printed, or emailed. Students can register for an account to save favorites and other resources. Registration requires a user name, password, first name and last name. Check your schools policies before allowing student accounts, especially with full names! (See more hints below). TeachersFirst Toolbox page..

IN THE CLASSROOM: This site can serve a a hub for your unit on colonial life, Jefferson, or even inventors. If you wish your students to register for accounts, be sure to check the students acceptable use policies or get parent permission in writing. Instead of students using their real first and last names, have students create their own colonial names for registration. Be sure to keep a list of these names to be able to review and assess student work. Give a class introduction to the Monticello Classroom using an interactive whiteboard or projector. Be sure to help your weaker readers and ESL and ELL students by sharing the vocabulary words prior to reading, either on a handout or by projecting on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Highlight the vocabulary words in the text as you come to them.

Bunyips Grades 2 - 8

This entrancing graphic site portrays the cultural and literary history of the fictional Australian characters, the Bunyips. Students and teachers will enjoy learning about all the manifestations of its appearance on stamps, in books, and in folk lore. There are links for Education, Aboriginal Stories, Imagination, Evidence, and Fun & Games. This site requires Flash. Get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.. Although, a non-flash version is also available.

IN THE CLASSROOM: Use this when doing a unit on Australian history, folk lore, or creatures of fantasy like the Loch Ness monster or the Wisconsin hodag. To encourage children to read books about the bunyip, show them this site projected on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Ask ELL and ESL students in your class to share similar legendary characters from their cultures. Conclude your folklore unit by having students write their own tales of fantasy creatures that lurk in the corners of your school.

ESL Podcasts Grades 5 - 12

This site offers a continually updated variety of podcasts on news subjects at a level appropriate for ESL and ELL students. A short description tells the subject of the podcast as well as other extras like quizzes, speakers, and creators or originators. Students and teachers can listen from the Internet or download to an MP3 player or local computer. A "Read the Web Page" link takes viewers to the news article or other special feature mentioned in the broadcast. Be certain to preview the podcasts that you plan to use in your class. Some are not appropriate for elementary students and young adolescents. This website requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..

IN THE CLASSROOM: Use this page to listen to current events news in simple English. Play them on your speakers for an entire class or provide headphones for individual listening. Have the students try to write the main points of the podcast they listen to and then check their listening against the webpage with the original article. Special education teachers may want to use this resource as an adapted way for students to read and submit weekly current events articles. Mark this site as a favorite on your classroom computer so students can use it during their free time with headphones. Share the link on your teacher web pages for parents and students to access quickly from home, but be sure to suggest that parents of younger students monitor the topics for appropriateness.

Mike's Math Club Grades 0 - 7

This website presents math activities in a clever format. Although this math link is mainly PDF files that are printable, many of the activities could be projected on a screen or interactive whiteboard while students work independently at their seats. This website offers "ready to print," motivating practice pages in vibrant color. Activities are also available in Spanish. Topics include addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, coding, puzzles, fractions, factors, and many more. This site requires Adobe Acrobat. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..

IN THE CLASSROOM: Project the activity on an interactive whiteboard or projector while students work independently (or in pairs) at their seats. There is also a Teachers Corner with many lesson ideas - check it out!

Footprints Science Grades 4 - 12

Footprints Science consists of simulations and interactives on many key concepts that are difficult to visualize and understand in Science. The site offers purchase of different modules or the complete collection. Samples, however, are free to use. Biology samples include "DNA drag and drop," "Kidney animation," "Fertilisation animation," and "Breathing animation." Chemistry samples include "Periodic Table interactive activity," "States of matter animation," and "Atomic structure activity."Physics samples include "Forces animation," "Power Station animation," and "Phases of Moon animation." Coursework includes "Variables," "Planning," "Graph," and "Line of best fit." More animations and interactives for each subject are available. The items are designed to be used with instruction to make the concepts more engaging. Interactives use drag and drop labeling with immediate feedback and allow pausing to stop the animation. Quizzes and games are also available. Graphics are very well done and easy to see, making difficult concepts much easier to understand. Interactives can be viewed as a large screen. This site requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..

IN THE CLASSROOM: The resource is an exciting add-on to teacher lessons and exceptional when used on an interactive whiteboard or projector. The samples can be used as a pre-lesson for students to obtain the general gist of the concept and brainstorm key points that they recognize from the simulation or interactive. Teachers can then use the student insights to discuss the content being presented and piece together the information. Teachers can also use the samples after original discussion of the content to reinforce material that students should learn and offer a visual representation of the topic. The simulation can also be used as reinforcement. Students can watch the simulation and then "explain the experiment" by putting the concept into their own words to demonstrate understanding.

Visual Ranking: Analyzing and Evaluating Information Grades 3 - 12

Engage your students in higher-order thinking skills with a collaborative activity using Intel Educations free Visual Ranking Tool. Visual ranking leads students though focusing, identifying, and refining criteria as they assign order or ranking to a list presented as a visual diagram. Students use a simple click and drag to organize ideas, explain their reasoning, debate differences, and reach consensus with each other. This web-based tool is accompanied by project ideas, instructional strategies, assessment tips, and research. There are also detailed lesson plans for grades 3-5, 6-8, or 9-12. Registration is free and creates a teacher workspace in which to build the class project. The password-protected workspace is accessed through the Internet where students log on with the teacher-created ID, team ID, and password. Teachers can use the comprehensive tutorial to learn the features of the tool. The Try the Tool section has a demonstration workspace for teachers to practice with ranking a sample list and then comparing it to other lists. Take advantage of the experiences of other teachers in six detailed unit plans that provide usable handouts and student work samples. Be sure to disable your popup blocker as the site needs to show popup windows during the project. This site requires Flash and Adobe Acrobat Reader. Get these tools from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..

IN THE CLASSROOM: Make a shortcut to this site on your desktop and student computers for easy access or simply add it to the Favorites on your teacher web page for access from there . Use the Visual Ranking tool to explore themes such as the role of friends, human migration, the impact of inventions, whats fair, and career choices with your students. Have student teams show and explain their diagrams to the whole class using an interactive whiteboard or projector. The Visual Ranking Tool can be used at any stage of a learning project. As a pre-activity or pre-assessment, it can help students discuss their prior knowledge and identify the things that they need to research or study further. As a mid-unit activity, it can help put new learning in a context that will be more useful in the next activity. At the end of a unit, Visual Ranking may be used to assess or reflect on learning. Students can access the project workspace from home or through other Internet access points such as the public library.

The Ozone Resource page Grades 8 - 12

Use this site to understand the ozone and how it affects our air quality and life here on Earth. Satellite imagery of ozone holes includes an updated daily picture and comparison over the last decades. NASA facts listed on the side include an opportunity to learn more about the information presented, watch satellite images from the last 7 days, view animations, compare year-to-date, and look at the annual records since 1979 using "Ozone Hole Watch." Information about the ozone and how it is measured is explained in detail here. "Explore the ozone with NASA" by viewing a short video that outlines the ozone and discusses new research and climate change. Use the "Resources for News Media" to view the Multimedia gallery for pictures of the largest ozone hole on record, the Arctic vortex, and Earth's Atmospheric Layers. Information about ozone depleting chemicals and ozone chemistry is also found here. View video of the ozone missions from NASA. "Ozone Hole 101" provides basic content about the ozone that is easy to understand for students. Read interesting information such as "Ozone levels drop when hurricanes are strengthening" and "Ozone hole is a double record breaker." This site requires Quicktime and animations require Flash. You can get both from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..

IN THE CLASSROOM: Students can use the resources in "Ozone Hole Watch" to determine the trends in the ozone either daily or over the years. Further research involving political, consumer, and environmental trends can bring insights into effects on the ozone layer. Using the wealth of material on the site, students can use the information to create a "Handbook of the Earth" (as an example) to understand how the ozone affects us in our current and future lives. Students can also work in groups and be assigned portions of the content to study. They can then present their findings to the rest of the class. Students can use this information in conjunction with environmental or Earth Day activities in or out of class.

Profile Publisher Grades 3 - 12

Reading literature with complex characters worthy of analysis and individual profiles? Do your students need practice creating their own polished profiles? This tool creates professional looking profiles of students or for a character in a book, historical figure, animal, or scientific object/concept. Amazingly, you may choose to set up a profile for nonliving creatures or even abstract concepts. You simply type in the requested information into the boxes, and immediately, you have a perfect profile layout, ready for photocopy publishing. (Saving your profiles is not an option, so all must be printed immediately.) This site requires Flash. Get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..

IN THE CLASSROOM: Teach Internet safety by having students create a mock profile to use on social networking sites. Printing out those profiles makes editing in small groups a breeze. Yearbook or newspaper staff may want to use this Profile Publisher to gain more information about people of interest. History comes alive when you profile historical figures or interview veterans and generate profiles of local heroes. Imagine students creating a blog entry by George Washington. Or ask students to profile a type of cell, an endangered animal, or a science concept such as climate change. With this tool and some creative thinking, anything is possible. Be SURE to warn students to PRINT before closing. The site does NOT save work. You may want them to draft their work in a saved document before pasting it into the profiler, just in case work is interrupted by a fire drill or the bell.