TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of May 24, 2020
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
Education for the Real World - EVERFI
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): cross cultural understanding (156), financial literacy (91), literacy (106), mental health (33), social and emotional learning (80), STEM (259), Teacher Utilities (146)
In the Classroom
Discover the many free resources on this site to provide individual lessons or complete learning units for your students. As students complete assignments, use the many offerings found at Class Tools, reviewed here, to enhance learning through creating timelines, completing graphic organizers, and more. For activities that include new vocabulary, use a digital game creation site such as Baamboozle, reviewed here, to review and practice new words and terms. Have students show what they know upon completion of any of the activities using Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, reviewed here, to create a collage, poster, flyer, or multimedia presentation sharing their knowledge of the subject.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Coronavirus Lesson Plans and Resources - Share My Lesson
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Be sure to see the many free resources found on this site for use during health lessons. Add the ideas for implementing remote learning to your toolkit of ideas to use for unexpected school shutdowns due to weather, power failure, or any other unforeseen circumstances. Use Wakelet, reviewed here, to create templates for student lessons and responses, then copy the template and edit to fit the needs of your remote lesson. Incorporate the coronavirus lessons into your current health and science lessons to teach students about the spread of disease. Enhance learning by using Google My Maps, reviewed here, for digital storytelling to demonstrate the flow of diseases across the globe. Ask students to use an animated video creation tool like Powtoon, reviewed here, to share their understanding of the spread of disease. Create your video together with younger students, or ask older students to create videos to demonstrate learning.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Teacher Self Care: Resources to Help You Make Time for You - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12tag(s): mental health (33), professional development (388)
In the Classroom
Incorporate the concept of intentional self-care into your remote learning routine. Choose one or two tips to start with, then return to add new ideas every few days. Use these ideas any time you need a stress reliever. Share this advice with students to help them adjust to new remote learning situations or with stressful events in the classroom.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Twitter Chat: Using Technology to Strengthen Social Emotional Learning - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12tag(s): emotions (46), mental health (33), social and emotional learning (80), social skills (22), twitterchatarchive (172)
In the Classroom
Find resources and explore ways to build and strengthen social emotional learning (SEL) within the classroom. Share this chat with your colleagues looking for sites and information related to social emotional learning (SEL).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Teach With Movies - TeachWithMovies.com, Inc.
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): difficult conversations (58), essays (20), movies (51), questioning (32), social and emotional learning (80), social skills (22), worksheets (70), writing (315)
In the Classroom
Movies offer an entertaining format for history and thematic studies. Use a video to add to the learning experience of students who are visual and auditory learners. Use this site to find videos in a wide range of topics to share on an interactive whiteboard or with a projector. Take advantage of the free lesson plans for classroom use. Preview the lessons before viewing and convert those that can be to a real-time discussion to engage students WHILE they watch a video! Enhance classroom learning and technology use and achieve this by setting up a backchannel chat using GoSoapBox, reviewed here. Alternatively, if you are distance or remote teaching or have a blended classroom, use VideoAnt, reviewed here, to ask questions and have students respond directly on the video.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Storyberries - Jade Maitre
Grades
K to 5tag(s): book lists (159), poetry (188), short stories (18), stories and storytelling (40)
In the Classroom
Bookmark Storyberries as an excellent resource for short read alouds or as a source for stories relating to many different emotions and themes. Share a link on your class website or newsletter for parents to use at home. Use this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector as you read aloud for students to follow along; occasionally stop and allow students to read portions of the book. Use this site as a resource for additional reading materials in the classroom by creating a link on classroom computers. Share Storyberries on your classroom website or in your Google Classroom for parent and student use at home during distant learning or extended absences.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Iris the Dragon - Gayle Grass
Grades
K to 6This site includes advertising.
tag(s): adhd (28), aspergers (7), autism (13), difficult conversations (58), ebooks (38), empathy (26), french (73), mental health (33), social and emotional learning (80), Special Needs (53)
In the Classroom
Download books from Iris the Dragon for use in mental health lessons or to address specific classroom concerns. Use books as a read-aloud and display on your interactive whiteboard or projector during class meetings. Again, use the books to raise student awareness and empathy levels for differences in people inside and outside of class. Print and laminate books for use in guided reading lessons. Share this site on your class website for students (and parents) to read together at home. You may want to use the books in conjunction with the Empathy video series at Big Ideas Video Series, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Voices of Youth - UNICEF
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): disabilities (29), environment (238), hiv/aids (16), inequalities (23), mental health (33), school violence (10), sustainability (44)
In the Classroom
This site is an excellent resource to bookmark and use throughout the year when discussing current events, specific countries or geographic areas, or for non-fiction reading. Find informational texts that matter to your students. Spark informational writing, as well. Allow students to browse the site to find interesting articles. Have students enhance their learning by creating magazine covers of information found on this site using Magazine Cover Maker, reviewed here. Elevate learning by challenging students to create a newspaper article using articles found on this site as a model by using the Newspaper Clipping Generator, reviewed here. World language teachers will find this useful when viewing articles in French or Spanish to practice translation skills. If you have a blended learning classroom or are teaching remotely you may want to try adding the reading to Fiskkit, reviewed here, to annotate and analyze text and measure reading activity through sharing and commenting on texts. For the videos you could use VideoAnt, reviewed here, to ask questions and have students respond directly on the video.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Stories Behind the Songs: Introduction - Jonathan Chase
Grades
8 to 12tag(s): lyrics (15), media literacy (102), poetry (188)
In the Classroom
Many students' favorite past time, when not texting or social networking, is listening to their music. Why not use that venue to hook them into understanding the 'music of poetry?" Stories Behind the Songs; Introduction includes the music, lyrics, song-based lessons, projects, and activities for many popular songs and ballads that express universal themes of poverty, hunger, discrimination, and hope. Students listen to the music and examine the origins and inspiration for contemporary lyrics. Popular songs can be used in a classroom setting to facilitate meaningful discussions on a particular theme or topic. Songs also create an emotional hook and may be used as a springboard to introduce poetry, literature, and historic documents. Students enter the Song Guide by clicking on the song's title to enjoy the full authentic cultural experience the music and lyrics offer. Follow up with asking students to write poems or short essays describing their feelings and impressions of the lyrics, or have them create new poetic verses and images to accompany the music. Enhance learning by challenging students to label their image by using Image Annotator, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Crawford the Cat - Perennial Pictures Film Cooperation
Grades
K to 2tag(s): audio books (23), dental health (15), hygiene (9), preK (254), social skills (22)
In the Classroom
This site works really well with an interactive whiteboard or projector. Students can view the videos on the board and then play the games on the interactive board. The printables can be used by an entire class or for individual students who need skills reinforcement, and the books can be used as a center. The students have the choice of having the books read to them or reading on their own, so the site addresses the abilities of all students. During times of remote or distance learning, put a link to this site on your class web page for parents and students to use at home, with directions for what you want them to do, of course. Then ask students to create a video response about what they learned using Flip, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Kid's Health - The Nemours Foundation's Center for Children's Health Media
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): body systems (40), difficult conversations (58), emotions (46), fitness (49), sexuality (15)
In the Classroom
Health teachers will want to share this site on their teacher web page or in class as part of sex ed units and study of disease. Younger students wondering about illnesses such as cancer will also be able to find good information, written at a level they can understand.This site contains open discussion of topics. We suggest that you preview it to be sure it is in compliance with your school's policies. Some portions discuss topics that will cause great giggles among less mature students, so preview and set the tone before trungin students loose.
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