TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Jan 10, 2010

Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive

 

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Nutrition Explorations - National Dairy Council

Grades
2 to 12
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Find activities, nutritional information, recipes, physical activity ideas, and more at this colorful and interactive site. Click on "Nutrition" to tour the food groups, learn how much...more
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Find activities, nutritional information, recipes, physical activity ideas, and more at this colorful and interactive site. Click on "Nutrition" to tour the food groups, learn how much you should eat, and more. At the "Activities" link you will find several action packed "nutrition" interactives. Don't miss the "Kids Kitchen" to find some excellent (healthy) recipes.

tag(s): myplate (18), nutrition (134)

In the Classroom

Allow students to try the activities and collect the information learned for discussion in class. Create conventional or multimedia posters about nutritional facts that others may not be aware of. Use an online bulletin board, such as Padlet, reviewed here, or interactive magazine creator like Calameo, reviewed here. Analyze current diets of students with what is recommended. Analyze commercials for foods for truth and untruth to learn to make good choices. Set goals for a nutrition campaign in your classroom.

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DLTK's Custom Chore Chart - DLTK

Grades
K to 6
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DLTK's Custom Chore Chart provides an easy, quick way to create any type of chart. Charts can be created for chores, homework, behavior, reading, math facts, and any other type ...more
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DLTK's Custom Chore Chart provides an easy, quick way to create any type of chart. Charts can be created for chores, homework, behavior, reading, math facts, and any other type of information that can be monitored and displayed as a chart. Creating a chart is so simple that students can create their own and choose a theme that interests them. The site allows you to choose the theme (or create your own), the text color, text size, font, color or black and white for printing, what specifically goes into the columns and rows, and more. Since the themes are more juvenile, you may want to suggest the "create your own" option with older students. This site does not require any registration. Be aware there are minor pop-up ads which are rather annoying, but worth it for this free tool.

tag(s): behavior (43), charts and graphs (169), preK (254)

In the Classroom

Create charts for a variety of needs. Charts always come in handy for students who struggle to stay on task or to complete assignments. Charts are a fun and tactile way for students to monitor their success and stay on target with responsibilities. Use a chart system to teach organization and self monitoring for things such as homework, chores or daily jobs, morning or end of day tasks and behavior, backpack organization, reading books, math skills, and whatever else you or your students can "chart." Use this tool in the beginning of a new school year to help with expectations or recording. Special ed and gifted teachers will want to have students create their own charts to take ownership for individual goals. This is also a great tool for students to use to record their success for specific New Year's resolutions. This is definitely a link you want to list on your class website for parents to use at home.
 This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.

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Pre-Cal 20S - Darren Kuropatwa

Grades
9 to 12
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Wish you could find out what a pre-calculus class does on a daily basis? Read this blog and the diary entries, conversations, and reflections from students within the class. Students...more
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Wish you could find out what a pre-calculus class does on a daily basis? Read this blog and the diary entries, conversations, and reflections from students within the class. Students are assigned as scribes responsible for reporting on the day's events down to the reminder of the homework assignment. This blog is a great way for students to recap learning for the day, correct misunderstood information and continue class conversations. Use their musings as a great review of material covered in a pre-calculus class. Be sure to check this site at school as many filters will block blogs.

In the Classroom

Allow students the opportunity to review posts of related information being studied. Teachers, find a great variety of different ways to introduce, explain, and enhance the learning of pre-calculus topics. Many of the ideas use an interactive whiteboard and computers for students to access. Why not start your own Pre-Cal wiki. Want to learn how? Check out the TeachersFirst's Wiki Walk-Through.

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Chemistry: Challenges and Solutions - Annenberg Media

Grades
8 to 12
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This 13 unit video instructional course teaches essential topics in introductory chemistry. Topics include energy, materials development, biochemistry, and the environment. In addition...more
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This 13 unit video instructional course teaches essential topics in introductory chemistry. Topics include energy, materials development, biochemistry, and the environment. In addition to video demonstrations and discussions, this course provides several interactives that provide exploration through simulations.

tag(s): matter (47), molecules (40), simulations (8)

In the Classroom

Use these interesting videos as an introduction to a unit or as a review at the end. Use the videos and interactives as an exploratory activity to get students thinking and to highlight information to help in the understanding of lab results. Assign cooperative learning groups specific topics to "watch" and report back to the class using a multimedia presentation. Have groups create podcasts demonstrating their understanding of one of the concepts. Use a site such as podOmatic, reviewed here.

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FluxNow - fluxnow.com

Grades
8 to 12
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This blog style book review source, aimed at teen readers, offers annotated listings of the newest "literature" on the teen scene. Many are done by teen writers, with cover illustrations,...more
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This blog style book review source, aimed at teen readers, offers annotated listings of the newest "literature" on the teen scene. Many are done by teen writers, with cover illustrations, summaries, author info, and selected chapters available. Although it is a sales site, the information about the literature is free. The store is accessible only by clicking on "Trade." Archives of other blog entries about older books offer more breadth in book descriptions. Be sure to advise students to avoid clicking "Trade." Since the content of teen literature is gritty and can include many controversial topics (sex, drugs, alienation, family problems, etc.), you may want to use this site as a library/media specialist without recommending it directly to students. Teachers should make that decision based on their local school community.

tag(s): literature (217)

In the Classroom

Offer this site only to your most discriminating readers. Look at this site frequently since its offerings change weekly. Offer this site only to your most discriminating readers. Look at this site frequently since its offerings change weekly. Share selections on a projector or interactive whiteboard for "quicky" book talks or take a screen shot (with credit, of course) to display a selected review on a digital picture frame in your library/media center. Set the frame to cycle through a slide show of new book selections! Other options for cycling book reviews would be to paste them into PowerPoint slides to run in a looped show on selected media center computers or to run the screenshots as screensaver images.

Now sure how to take a screen shot? Press the PrtScrn button on a Windows computer (sometimes combined with SHIFT or Ctrl key, depending on the computer), then CONTROL+V to PASTE the screen image into an image program such as Paint so you can save it. Screenshots are even easier in Vista using the Snip tool. On a Mac, the screen shot function is Command+Shift+4 (the number 4), and the "picture" (a png image file) gets saved to your chosen location, usually your desktop. Be sure to copy the URL of the page you are "shooting" to give proper credit and place a label with your frame providing this information.

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