Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

The Achievery is a free digital learning platform created by AT&T in collaboration with Warner Brothers that pairs video clips with lessons to engage students in learning across seven subject areas. Create an account to access activities such as a poetry scavenger hunt with Amanda Gorman or learn reading and writing skills from Wonder Woman video clips. Begin at the "All Units" link to find content by grade level, standards, subject, and additional filters. Most lessons are part of a larger learning unit; however, they are ready to use as individual teaching activities. Each lesson includes correlations to teaching and CASEL standards (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning), highlights relevant vocabulary, activity directions, and links to the featured video, and is available in PDF format. The Achievery lessons and activities are available in English and Spanish. This site would be a good one to leave for your substitute to use; it's high interest, no sign-in, and has lesson plans & video clips.

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Put down the pencil and paper and bring algebra to life with Graspable Math. Use the site's activities, or open the whiteboard to create algebra expressions. Use visual gestures to drag or tap parts of the expression and move to the other side of the equation. Follow the directions to move multiple terms with one move. Use the dropdown boxes within the workspace to add videos, insert commonly-used formulas, and share with students. Take advantage of Graspable Math's tutorial videos to learn more about the many features available with this site. Creating an account isn't required; however, it allows members to save and share boards. Share boards within Google Classroom, by email, embed into a website, or use the unique URL provided.

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Expii is a free resource for learning about math and science topics creatively through video and written explanations provided by different expert contributors. Math content begins with pre-algebra and moves up through advanced topics. Many units also offer options for practice. Expii also encourages students and teachers to add their content. Search for topics by keyword or choose from the different math and science topics to begin learning. Use Expii without registering; however, free registration allows you to save favorites for later use. If your district blocks YouTube, then the videos may not be viewable.

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Explore and find math activities for middle school students (grades 5-8) aligned to Common Core Standards at this comprehensive site. Find materials through several different search avenues; browse standards, search by grade level, choose a domain, or use a keyword search. Content includes lesson plans, interactive activities, and videos.

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Illuminations offers this library of interactives specifically for teaching the Algebra strand in 6th through 8th grade. The large variety of activities provides opportunities for learning content through many different methods including problem-solving, open-ended and multiple response questions, and real-world situations. Each interactive includes complete instructions, an exploration, and correlation to standards.

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Pixar and Khan Academy team up to offer an interesting series of learning tutorials demonstrating math, science, and engineering concepts faced by animators as part of the animated film-making process. Examples include the use of digital pixel painting using algebra and creating blades of grass in Brave with parabolic arcs. View a short video explanation of the program, then choose from the learner's or educator's guides for specific details on each activity. If your district blocks YouTube, then the videos may not be viewable.

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Math = Love is a blog by a high school math teacher specializing in Algebra with a goal of making math fun for all students. Frequent posts detail specific lessons and student work along the way. Most posts include a link to download the lesson file. Choose the Free Downloads tab to find a large assortment of downloadable files for posters, bulletin boards, and forms for classroom use. Find specific topics by clicking on the tags on the right side of the page or use the search bar to explore the entire blog.
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This YouTube channel includes a growing selection of math instruction videos for Algebra through AP Statistics. Browse through videos on the home page or go to the site's playlists for videos grouped by topic. If your district blocks YouTube, then they may not be viewable.
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SolveMe Puzzles is an excellent collection of Algebra-related puzzles. At the time of this review mobile puzzles (mobiles to hang and balance) are the only option; however, Who Am I? and Mystery Grids are coming soon. Mobile puzzles come in categories from easy to more mathematically complex. Create your own mobile puzzles using the Build option. Use the many tools provided to annotate your work, learn how to use the puzzles, share, and save your work. Login is not required but is an excellent option for saving progress through the different puzzle options.

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Cambridge IGCSE Mathematics (wasteachMathematics) offers many activities, simulations, lessons, videos, and more for upper elementary through high school math instruction. Choose from the topics of Numbers, Algebra, Geometry & Measure, and Statistics & Probability. Although this is a subscription site, a large amount of free content is available. Find "Free Stuff" by topic by clicking on the button at the top left of the home page. When on a topic page, click "Free Pages" near the top right of the page.
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Art of Problem Solving offers its own videos as part of an extensive collection aligned to Prealgebra, Introduction to Algebra, and Introduction to Counting & Probability textbooks. It also curates other video sources, such as smaller collections created by MATHCOUNTS and Math Olympiad competitions that share problem-solving strategies. Choose a textbook (or series) to begin; then view videos indexed by chapter and content. Most videos run under 10 minutes in length. If your school blocks YouTube, they may not be viewable.
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Would you like to "flip" your Algebra, Geometry, Algebra 2, Pre-Calc, or Calculus classroom but just aren't sure how to get started? Flipped Math has everything you need! Choose a course to view video lessons and download practice problems, corrective assignments (additional practice for misunderstood concepts or incomplete mastery), and a complete pacing guide. Flipped Math also includes many student resources as well as Teacher and Parent FAQ's. Even if you aren't flipping your classroom, Flipped Math offers valuable teaching tools to use in any Algebra or Geometry classroom.

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Explore this free curriculum for applying algebra in the creation of videogames. Students create code and learn the basics of program design and not just writing code. Though workshops are available to attend, at a cost, materials for teaching are also found online in HTML or PDF form. After Bootstrap I, continue with Bootstrap II which applies the fundamentals of Trigonometry. The activities align with Common Core Math and Engineering standards. Code writing in Bootstrap uses a tool that requires a Gmail account. Some of the video clips are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, then they may not be viewable.
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Discover a huge collection of interactive illustrations to help explain complex concepts in science, technology, art, math, and a range of other topics. Use these activities to create interactive visualizations. There are thousands of Mathematica Demonstrations. A demonstration is a Mathematica notebook that takes advantage of Mathematica's manipulate command. Use the manipulate command to create sliders or buttons or check boxes to change the values of parameters in the displays in the demonstration. The result is you control the animation. View demonstrations on topics ranging from odd and even numbers to odd and even functions, fractions to fractals, and from linear functions to linear algebra and linear programming. In addition to mathematical topics, there are demonstrations illustrating the time in different cities around the world, global demographic information, the solar system, and art and music concepts. You need to download the Wolfram CDF player to use and interact with the demonstrations.
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MathFlix is a resource of over 1000 videos sorted by topic. The site also includes over 400 downloadable worksheets that reinforce concepts and provide additional practice. The videos themselves are hosted at many different locations on the web, but this index makes it easy to find them by math topic. Enter the site by choosing either the "I am a teacher" or "I am a student" icon. The teacher link lists topics by standards and content within each standard. Choose from Number & Operations, Algebra, Technology, and more. Each of these links leads to further subcategories listing video titles to view. The student link leads to clickable images or words, including topic and subcategory. Choose one of these links to go directly to the list of videos available for that topic. Be sure not to miss the links at the bottom of the page. They aren't quite as obvious as information for the videos; however, they include additional information relating to Common Core, assessment, and curriculum support.

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Yummy Math shares mathematics problems and scenarios based on things happening in the world today. In January, some of the topics related to the NFL playoffs. Yummy Math lists activities chronologically as well as by mathematics topic. Topics include Algebra, Number Sense, Geometry, Food Math, Sports, and many more. The site is sure to be highly motivational for students as they complete math problems based on items of current interest such as the Super Bowl, American Idol, and American candy sales. Most problems contain a printable word or pdf document with questions. Some also include video or audio clips. Especially helpful is the Contents link which provides an alphabetical listing of all activities on the site.

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This site offers tutorials, videos, publications, and more for users of GeoGebra (free downloadable software reviewed here). Links on the site include math modules with ready-to-use problems categorized by subject - Measurement, Algebra 1 & 2, and Calculus. Holiday and fun activities are also included. Be sure to check out the TeacherTube and YouTube videos with many explanations and tutorials of GeoGebra lessons and activities. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

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This site offers a full year's worth of Algebra 1 lessons including slides for the interactive whiteboard. Slides are offered in Keynote (for Mac) and Powerpoint. Slides also include teacher notes and answers to questions. The lessons are also offered in PDF form. Each week can be downloaded separately and includes handouts. Tags are included with each week's activities to make it easier to find other lessons with similar topics.

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This is a collection of interactive activities that teach mathematical concepts from algebra up through calculus, and well-written instructional modules that introduce scientific concepts, primarily in physics and life sciences from grades 3-12. Each module includes interactive elements that let students experiment with the topic concept. The presentation and subject matter are excellent for these high-interest interactives. A free acount gives you 20-40 free Gizmos, lesson materials, to teach with,

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Use this hip site to reinforce the need for algebra in today's world. Beyond architecture, view videos that explain how musicians, fashion designers, and video game designers use algebra in their work. View videos on the site or embed into a blog, wiki, or other site for your students. Though the Challenges use Flash, there is certainly a lot more to learn at this entertaining site. Teachers will find a video introduction on using the site with classes as well as lesson plans either as a word document or Adobe PDF format.

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