TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Mar 21, 2021
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
Radiooooo - Benjamin Moreau
Grades
K to 12
1 Favorites
0 Comments
Discover music from all over the world and from over 100 years back in time! Visit Radiooooo and start listening immediately (no registration required) or download the iOS or Android...more
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Discover music from all over the world and from over 100 years back in time! Visit Radiooooo and start listening immediately (no registration required) or download the iOS or Android app. Just select a country (all countries in yellow have music), decade, and mood (from tabs at the bottom) the music will begin. Create a thematice playlist from different countries and decades using "Islands Mode. Create an account to save your favorites, or upload your own favorite music. There are different subscription programs for a cost. This review is for the free version
tag(s): 1900s (59), countries (68), DAT device agnostic tool (135), radio (22), songs (44)
In the Classroom
Social studies teachers will have a heyday with this program! Complement any period in time with its music. Use music from the site as an anticipatory set or "activator" to introduce a unit or lesson on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Play music from the period you are studying during reading or research time. Use during current events for students to hear the music and language of the country of the article. Allow students to explore the site on their own, and then share their findings with classmates. Ask students to exchange paper journals and write about their impressions of the music and make comparisons to their favorites of today using a blog tool like Telegra.ph, reviewed here. With Telegra.ph you just click on an icon to upload images from your computer, add a YouTube or Vimeo, or Twitter links. This blog creator requires no registration. Redefine classroom technology use by challenging students create multimedia timelines (with music, photos, videos, and more) using Timeline JS, reviewed here. Any teacher will appreciate Radiooooo. Play music selections quietly during any subject and student work time. Filter distractions by finding instrumentals to play during silent reading time, test taking, lab activities, or any other quiet time during class. World language teachers can use this tool to introduce music from all the countries whose population speak the language they teach. This tool would also be perfect for performance groups such as drama clubs or musicals that need background music. Use background music for poetry readings during poetry month.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Music in Schools Month Resources - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12
3 Favorites
1 Comments
Bring the beat into your classroom with this editor's choice curated list. All of these reviewed resources from TeachersFirst are all about music! Prepare for Music in our Schools Month...more
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Bring the beat into your classroom with this editor's choice curated list. All of these reviewed resources from TeachersFirst are all about music! Prepare for Music in our Schools Month or share these tools throughout the entire year. Find tools that incorporate history, drama, dance, and more.
tag(s): dance (25), music theory (43), musical instruments (42), musical notation (34), rhythm (19), sound (69)
In the Classroom
Use this site during units on sound in science class. Share the virtual instrument sites with students in music class, as they are learning to play a new instrument. If you are teaching (or learning) the piano, check out the virtual one. Consider displaying it on your interactive whiteboard.Comments
Kim, TN, Grades: 0 - 5
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Art in Schools Month Resources - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12
2 Favorites
0 Comments
This curated list of reviewed resources from TeachersFirst is all about art! Prepare for Art in our Schools Month or share these tools throughout the entire year. Find tools that ...more
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This curated list of reviewed resources from TeachersFirst is all about art! Prepare for Art in our Schools Month or share these tools throughout the entire year. Find tools that incorporate history, math, science, and more.
tag(s): art history (79), artists (74), drawing (61), museums (42), painting (57), sculpture (20)
In the Classroom
Get your students geared up for Art in our Schools Month. Show the connection between art and math using various tools listed. Share tools on your interactive whiteboard or allow students to explore independently.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Of the People: Art and History of the White House - Discovery Education
Grades
6 to 12
1 Favorites
0 Comments
Go behind the scenes for an in-depth video discussion of the art and history of the White House with White House Curator William Allman. The actual discussion begins after the ...more
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Go behind the scenes for an in-depth video discussion of the art and history of the White House with White House Curator William Allman. The actual discussion begins after the 14-minute mark on the video with an interview led by a high school student.
tag(s): art history (79), presidents (116), video (247), white house (15)
In the Classroom
Before viewing this video, challenge students to brainstorm what a curator's job is and what kind of artifacts they might find in the White House. After viewing, extend learning by having students create a simple infographic of important White House artifacts sharing their findings using Venngage, reviewed here. Ask students to curate their own collection of items such as things found in their room at home, a collection of items from your school, or a collection of artifacts from your hometown. Create a book featuring these items using Ourboox, reviewed here. Ourboox creates beautiful page-flipping digital books in minutes, and you can embed video, music, animation, games, maps and more truly redefining learning.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Walters Art Museum - The Walters Art Museum
Grades
K to 12
1 Favorites
0 Comments
The Walters Art Museum opened in 1934 in Maryland. This site has information about the museum, its founders, the long history, and more. Take a deeper dive by looking at ...more
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The Walters Art Museum opened in 1934 in Maryland. This site has information about the museum, its founders, the long history, and more. Take a deeper dive by looking at exhibits and the pieces of art found there.
Use this link to find the PreK-12 Educators page. Scroll down the page to find resources to support your classroom. You will also find Art Lessons for Integrating the Arts to teach cross-curricular lessons in any of the core subject areas. Use the Search bar to find the Teacher Resource Kits with integration lessons for ancient civilizations such as China or Islam. Also, there are quite a few lesson plans that include different topics such as Ancient Storytelling, Egyptian Symbols, Coat of Arms, Warhol Stained Glass, The Nutcracker, Mapping the Past - Mapping the Present, and many more.
tag(s): art history (79), artists (74), museums (42)
In the Classroom
Find printable lesson plans to create cross-curricular lessons. The lesson plans include objectives, multiple activities, examples, and a wrap-up. Students can then use the site to find other pieces of art that demonstrate or support the same concept.Connect middle and high school students to the museum through one of the prescheduled video conference calls to learn about specific topics. Be sure to prepare students for the conference call, and encourage students to participate with comments and questions to enhance the learning experience. After the conference, have students navigate through the pieces of art on the site that relate to the topic from the video conference. Enhance student learning by posing questions on Flip, reviewed here, for students to answer and comment on each other's answers.
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Philadelphia Museum of Art Teacher Resources - Philadelphia Museum of Art
Grades
K to 12
2 Favorites
0 Comments
This tool is a great lesson plan resource for correlating art with other curricular areas! First, scroll down to Featured Resources, Resources by Subject Matter, or Resources by Grade...more
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This tool is a great lesson plan resource for correlating art with other curricular areas! First, scroll down to Featured Resources, Resources by Subject Matter, or Resources by Grade Level. Curricular Areas include Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, STEAM, Social Justice, Critical Thinking, and several others. Click the resulting lessons to view a PDF that includes links to artwork images at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Common Core standards, and a detailed lesson plan.
tag(s): art history (79), artists (74)
In the Classroom
Bookmark and save this site as a resource for art projects throughout the year, especially if budget cuts have taken away your art teacher! Use this site as a way to get students interested in art and its relationship with other subject areas and its relevance in our life.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
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Drama Notebook - Janea Dahl
Grades
4 to 12
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0 Comments
Find free plays, drama games, and help for teaching a drama class at Drama Notebook. Click on the Free Stuff in the menu at the top and find hundreds of ...more
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Find free plays, drama games, and help for teaching a drama class at Drama Notebook. Click on the Free Stuff in the menu at the top and find hundreds of short plays and over forty classic games for kids and teens. Search through the play categories such as Fairy, Folk, Tall Tales, Scripts Based on Children's Books, Holidays, Free Plays for Ages 12 and Up, and several more. Each play states how many parts and the approximate time for the duration of the play. Plays open in a new link in PDF. View any and all of these with no registration.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): acting (19), plays (28), readers theater (10)
In the Classroom
Mark this one in your favorites. Take advantage of the free activities (labeled as drama games) in any class to create a positive class environment. Get drama students warmed up and then challenge them to come up with a game that is similar. Use this site as the starting point for group projects like having the students write and produce their own play(s). Let student groups select from the scripts, to record their own audio podcasts of a play, illustrated with a selection of copyright-safe images or student drawings. Use a site such as PodOmatic, reviewed here. Challenge cooperative learning groups to create videos of the plays they write and produce. Share the videos on a site such as TeacherTube, reviewed here. Create audio of ESL/ELL students performing the plays to practice English speaking skills.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
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Sketch Toy - Hakim El Hattab
Grades
K to 12
2 Favorites
0 Comments
Sketch Toy is an intriguing, online drawing tool. No membership is required. Click in the blank graph paper to begin drawing. Click buttons/menus to adjust the line size and color,...more
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Sketch Toy is an intriguing, online drawing tool. No membership is required. Click in the blank graph paper to begin drawing. Click buttons/menus to adjust the line size and color, undo, or erase. Note that you must click Erase a second time to turn it off! Set your line to vibrate using different options. One of the best features of this site is the ability to take an image from your desktop and drag it onto the drawing screen. Once your image is on screen, use the image to trace and create a stencil. Then choose "SAVE" to view your artwork in a step-by-step replay. Copy the image URL and/or share using social networks. Going to the URL will "play back" the drawing process. Click Refresh to watch it over again. You can also download your image. This tool works nicely on tablet browsers. Important: Be SURE to save your image URLs in Favorites or paste them somewhere so you can find them again later. With no registration, you have no way of "saving" your works of art within the tool!
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): creative writing (120), creativity (91), drawing (61), geometric shapes (131), images (254), perspective (11), writing prompts (56)
In the Classroom
Use Sketch Toy to demonstrate symmetrical drawings. This tool is great for enhancing, creating and visualizing math concepts from basic geometric shapes and area to complex constructions and trig. Use on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Use for hands-on work with any geometry or trigonometry functions. Since this tool works on such a variety of devices, it would be ideal to use in a BYOD (or 1:1) geometry class. Art teachers who want to "draw in" their more mathematical students can offer this as a design option, especially when teaching about perspective. Drag in images of alphabet letters for younger students to practice tracing. In art class, pull in images of artworks (even students' own work) and have them highlight design principles such as the path of your eye in viewing this image. Annotate any image using freehand drawing and writing. Use this tool as a visual writing prompt. Transform learning by creating drawing stories where a small group adds to the drawing as they pass it around on a tablet, narrating the story among themselves. Save it and play it back for them to write down their own versions of the story. Drawing stories would be a great way to practice world language skills or for ENL students to master vocabulary!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Artyfactory - Artyfactory.com
Grades
1 to 12
2 Favorites
0 Comments
Learn to draw, paint, or design following step-by-step tutorials from Artyfactory. Discover basic techniques of drawing and painting through Still Life lessons. Practice perspective,...more
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Learn to draw, paint, or design following step-by-step tutorials from Artyfactory. Discover basic techniques of drawing and painting through Still Life lessons. Practice perspective, proportions, drawing animals and portraits, and more. Artyfactory's slideshows are an engaging way to increase your knowledge of art, art appreciation, and design.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): africa (134), art history (79), artists (74), bulletin boards (14), design (85), egypt (45), perspective (11)
In the Classroom
In the art classroom, find ways to add technology to instruction using your projector or interactive whiteboard and demonstrating different techniques found on Artyfactory. For project based learning in any class, share this tool as a resource to add visual impact to students' research projects. Social studies teachers can include lessons about making African masks during units about that continent. Include Egyptian Hieroglyphic Alphabet, Cartouche, and Gods during a unit on the Egyptians. Science (or geometry) teachers will want to explore the lessons on visual patterns in nature as a way to capture the interest of your visual learners. Use these tutorials to integrate visual arts into any topic. Encourage your artistically inclined students to explore on their own. Explore this site before a trip to an art museum or to find inspiration for a display or culminating project in any teaching unit. You may even find some bulletin board ideas for your classroom! Ask students to extend their learning and document the stages by taking photos of their art and editing them and making a collage with Photopea, reviewed here. Encourage older students to keep their work in a portfolio for future use with Spaces, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Drama Resource - Creative Ideas for Teaching Drama - David Farmer
Grades
K to 6
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Find drama instruction including lessons, games, and strategies. Choose the Games link to find a game of the week as well as many other activities for icebreakers, improvisation,...more
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Find drama instruction including lessons, games, and strategies. Choose the Games link to find a game of the week as well as many other activities for icebreakers, improvisation, storytelling, and more. Explore many different dramatic strategies through brief descriptions, videos, and downloadable templates. Choose from several primary drama lessons including one on anti-bullying. There are also history-related "dramas" such as World War II Evacuees to bring historical events to life. A new addition to the site is Making Drama Out of a Crisis - teaching drama online or socially distanced. The site was created in the UK, so some of the pronunciations and spellings may differ from those in American English.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): acting (19), back to school (63), bullying (53), digital storytelling (138), stories and storytelling (36)
In the Classroom
Use this site as the starting point for individual or group projects. If you are looking for ways to get students more involved with history lessons, drama may be just the thing. Take advantage of the free lesson plans included on the site. Use lessons and activities as part of your storytelling unit, for beginning of the year activities, or to promote higher level thinking skills. Have students create their own mini-drama moment: upload a photo they have taken and add voice bubbles for dialog using a tool such as Phrase.it, reviewed here. Have students create animated movies online demonstrating different drama techniques using Kizoa, reviewed here.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
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ArtsAlive.ca English Theatre - National Arts Centre
Grades
8 to 12
1 Favorites
0 Comments
Learn everything you ever wanted to know about acting, producing, directing and the theater in general. This site is focused on the English Canadian Theater, but is applicable to all...more
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Learn everything you ever wanted to know about acting, producing, directing and the theater in general. This site is focused on the English Canadian Theater, but is applicable to all dramas. Find an introduction to acting, biographies of actors, and video interviews with professional actors. For those interested in other theater related work, visit the design and production area to learn about sets and props, costumes, wigs, make up and all the physical details of the play and environment. Learn about script writing at The Playwright's Corner. Find activities for improvisation, Shakespeare, script creation, and study guides. Don't miss the FREE teacher, parent, and student resource links. Though the video interviews require Flash or QuickTime, they have transcripts and there is still a lot to be learned about the theater at this site.
tag(s): acting (19), design (85), plays (28), shakespeare (91)
In the Classroom
Use a projector or interactive whiteboard to present this outstanding site to your students. Students of drama, English, history, art, and architecture will find something of interest. Although the site is text heavy in places, you could employ a tool like From Text to Speech, reviewed here, for the interview transcripts to help weaker readers access information. Have students choose a category (design and production, playwright's corner, Shakespeare's plays, acting, etc.) of interest to investigate. Group students by interest. Within their small groups students can jigsaw, each taking a different facet of the category to learn about. After that they can put together a mini-presentation using one of many TeachersFirst Presentation tools reviewed here. Some tool suggestions are (click on the tool name to access the review): Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, Vevox, Animatron, Renderforest, and Presentious. Once everyone is done studying their categories, suggest producing a play by one of the scriptwriters from the group.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Old Radio World - OldRadioWorld.com
Grades
4 to 12
6 Favorites
0 Comments
Find a treasury of old radio shows from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. There are seven genres from which to choose (comedy, mystery, western, drama, etc.), and each genre has ...more
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Find a treasury of old radio shows from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. There are seven genres from which to choose (comedy, mystery, western, drama, etc.), and each genre has at least ten different old radio shows for your selection. There is a miscellaneous section that has such treasures as "Voices From History," "World War II News Broadcasts," and "Fireside Chat with Franklin D. Roosevelt." Downloading of the Mp3 files takes a while, so be patient.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): 1930s (18), 1940s (11), 1950s (7), listening (65), oral history (15), radio (22), world war 2 (140)
In the Classroom
As a class, listen to a couple of radio shows, taking note of the sound effects heard. Use your interactive whiteboard or projector to list the sounds. Have the class speculate about what objects could have created each sound. Post the radio site on your web page and assign the students to determine what household objects are responsible for the sounds for homework. Back in class the next day, use your interactive white board to share the student discoveries. From here it would be natural to have your students create a two or three minute radio show for a topic being studied in history or science. Students could also turn part of a short story into reader's theater (including sound effects) and record it as a radio broadcast. Use a site such as PodOmatic, reviewed here.Another idea would be to introduce a unit on the 20th century, the Great Depression, or WWII or by having the class listen to a broadcast from that time period. Have them experience radio as it was, with everyone huddled around to listen (and no multitasking!).Talk about how the changes in entertainment formats have changed the way we interact in our homes.
To hone in on listening skills, you could create a worksheet with questions to answer, or have students take two column notes, asking questions about what they are hearing in the left column.
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