Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Although this page has been archived and is no longer updated, all links are functional. A few links require JavaScript and Flash, but there is much more to this site. "BBC- Sing- Learn to Sing" gives you a step-by-step tutorial on how to properly stand, warm up, sing, and improve your singing explained through text instructions and images. This site gives you the basics; what you do with them is up to you! This a fun and interesting way to bring singing into your schools, especially where funding cuts have eliminated staffing for music.

tag(s): music theory (47), sound (71)

Join the writers and readers of obooko, the free site to publish and read eBooks. Readers' Choice Awards of 2011 winner for free eBooks, obooko offers a platform to share your work and read the works of others. Become a reviewer and write comments on other eBooks. As authors, you retain all rights with no charges or contracts. This site is legal and does not infringe on copyright laws. There are numerous categories to choose from: Romance and Women, Crime, Religion, Thriller, Mystery, Teens, and much more! This site is not intended for children under 13. Some of the content may not be appropriate for the classroom. So be sure to preview.
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tag(s): creative writing (126), ebooks (46), mysteries (24), novels (34), poetry (195), religions (114)

This PBS site is a reorganized collection of over 16,000+ public media offerings (including radio and photographs), arranged specifically for preK-12 teachers. You can search by subject (the landing page subject is physical education) and grade level across many subjects. After viewing three offerings, you must join (for free) to continue. Membership includes the option of saving favorites. Use the search box at the top to find correlations to state standards. The site is still in development, so material is being added frequently.

tag(s): alphabet (52), careers (182), dance (33), data (150), decimals (85), diseases (66), fitness (39), human body (91), mark twain (8), multimedia (55), music theory (47), percent (59), probability (99), problem solving (234), psychology (65)

World of Tales collects folk and fairy tales from various sources into one searchable location. Many are tales long past copyright and therefore available for use without copyright concerns. There are also links to animated or audio versions. Some of the animations are from YouTube so may be blocked by school filters. Search tales by geographic origin, theme, author, book, and more. You can also change the "theme" of the page display to make it easier to see on a projector. There are advertisements that clutter the page and slow it down a bit, but having such a searchable collection is very handy.
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tag(s): folktales (35), stories and storytelling (63), video (267)

Join YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum in recognizing a biennial review of the best online videos from around the world. As a form of modern and contemporary art, celebrate free access every day for your virtual field trip from a Webby award-winning nominee site for 2011. A panel of 20-25 experts chooses from a selection of over 23,000 videos submitted. Explore art, music, movement, poetry, and prose on this creative video site. The option of subscribing to recent uploads is available at no charge. Click "continue" to see thumbnails of all available winners. If your district blocks YouTube, then this site may not be viewable. Not all comments posted are appropriate and videos should be previewed before viewing in the classroom setting.

tag(s): computers (109), video (267)

Find one minute listening exercises on such common activities as babysitting, chickens, and exercise. The listening selections are alphabetized with several selections for each letter of the alphabet. Each listening selection has a multitude of activities you can download (along with the reading text) in Word and pdf formats. Find Cloze paragraphs, fill in the blanks, words to unscramble, and much more. Many activities can also be viewed online. Each selection has two interactive quizzes. Though targeted for the ESL/ELL student, listening is one of the language arts standards, and this is a good way for any classroom teacher to address listening skills.
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tag(s): dance (33), listening (93), reading comprehension (149), vocabulary (242)

This site, created by the Kennedy Center, offers a wealth of interactive lesson plans for grades K-12 dealing with a variety of topics, all with an "arts" spin. Search by subject, keyword, or grade level (K-4, 5-8, or 9-12). Some examples of topics include Native Americans, Civil War, Shakespeare, myths, melodrama, adjectives, monsters, baseball, and countless others! Be sure to check out the category "Our Best Resources Organized by Subject." After that click on the the top menu for Education and get even more resources. There are many interactive lessons: some with video, audio, or slideshows. The lessons provide an estimate of time required and complete, step-by-step instructions. There are printables included with some of the lessons.
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tag(s): african american (119), baseball (31), civil war (141), comics and cartoons (56), dance (33), folktales (35), greece (47), habitats (93), immigration (84), literature (221), mexico (46), musical instruments (54), myths and legends (42), native americans (116), painting (54), surrealism (2)

Royalty Free Sound Effects Library for Download by Soungle.com is a go-to resource to keep in your bookmarked favorites for easy, free downloads of sounds, and the best part is it is searchable! The sound effects are short, and there is no membership required. Cautionary advice would be to direct students to type in a search term and avoid clicking on word links which will actually lead away from the webpage.
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tag(s): sound (71), sounds (43)

This unique site by Multicultural Canada is part of a digitization project that aims to tell the stories of the cultures that make up Canada. Other modules include Chinese, Japanese, Scottish, Indonesian, Italian, Jewish, Vietnamese,and Pakistan collections are included in the learning modules. Detailed lesson plans, related resources, with rubrics are included. IN this module, Simon Fraser University shares their collection of Wayang Kulit, or shadow puppetry from Indonesia. Wayang Kulit often portrays moral or political messages. The university featured the exhibit, Crossing Oceans, Crossing Cultures, which includes the shadow puppets and stories about good and evil, respect, duty, friendship, and loyalty. The website shows some of the Wayang Kulit shadow puppets, as well as providing information on traditional stories. Photographs of several intricate shadow puppets are included. Ideas for projects using a variety of free downloads are suggested. There is also an introductory video.
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tag(s): canada (25), myths and legends (42), readers theater (12), stories and storytelling (63)

Full of scripts and related materials for reader's theater, this site offers a wealth of information for the teacher who wants to use reader's theater as a tool for reading or drama. Some of the links don't work, but many do, and you can find actual scripts as well as other ideas for making reader's theater a complete experience for students. There are also guidelines for setting up reader's theatre, rubrics for evaluation, and ideas for use with a range of grades and reading levels.

Editor's note: There is one group of links (to sites that start with "hometown.aol") that no longer work. Since this is only a small portion of the site, TeachersFirst continues to list the resource for its many GOOD links. Roll your mouse over the links before clicking and check the address in the gray bar at the bottom left of your screen. Don't bother with the hometown.aol links.
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tag(s): readers theater (12)

This Web site is an online library of The Internet Shakespeare Editions and more, with a goal to inspire a love of Shakespeare's works in a world-wide audience. Here you will find high standard multimedia materials, including thousands of searchable pages devoted to the politics, society, and history of Shakespeare's world. There are biographical details of his life, as well as one of the Web's largest collections of online texts of his plays, poems, and related resources.

Be aware: at the time of this review, a few of the links were no longer active. What remains is quite worthwhile, however.

tag(s): elizabethan (13), england (49), plays (32), shakespeare (99), sonnets (6)

This site allows you the opportunity to sample, interact, and mash-up music that is posted as well as upload original works. You are also given a URL where uploaded works and remixes can be located and shared. Note that the public can submit works, so -- although our editors have not seen any-- the submissions could include lyrics not appropriate for listening in school.

tag(s): podcasts (117), sound (71), sounds (43)

As part of their extensive site for vocabulary, roots, and more, MyVocabulary.com has added a themed area about music and the fine arts. Find interactive vocabulary activities using music-related (not limited to music) vocabulary words. You will also find printable crosswords, fill in the blanks and more, all using the same 18 theme words. This and other "themes" available on the site will make vocabulary development fun.

tag(s): vocabulary (242)

Energize your Writers Workshop by creating stopmotion movies. This is a highly engaging way to teach your students about story elements, dialogue, character development, and storyboarding. Filmmakers can first organize their ideas on downloadable planning sheets. Make the characters for the movie out of clay, wiki stix, paper, or even found objects. Some free animation and movie software links are available. Step by step directions on how to create a stopmotion movie, and Windows Moviemaker, and iMovie tutorials are available.

tag(s): acting (21), creativity (87), movies (56)

Are you ready to travel the Oregon Trail? For eighteen years Westward Ho has allowed classes to role play and virtually travel the Oregon Trail. This website provides a 5 week collaborative adventure where students have to make decisions together in order to safely navigate the trail. Lesson ideas, resources, and tip sheets are all provided. Click on the "Scouts/Teachers" link to learn more.

tag(s): pioneers (9), westward expansion (40)

Filled with a variety of essential language art skills, this site is a super teaching opportunity to be followed by students working on their own. With 42 lessons ranging from "Differentiating between who/whom" to "Writing Sonnets" to "Crafting Your Character's Dialogue in Your Screenplay," there is plenty to suit your particular class needs. You are able to write replies (comments), however an email address is required. Registration is not required for any other part of this site.

This site does offer the option of signing up for RSS feeds. There are some unobtrusive advertisements at the site.

tag(s): grammar (138), poetry (195), root words (10), writing (325)

Take a short journey to learn about the Blues' history, including audio presented by the Kennedy Center. Begin by learning about the roots of blues found in songs and spirituals of Black field workers in the 1930s, then travel on a four-part journey through the decades to discover "new" blues heard in the music of modern artists such as Cat Power and Gnarls Barkley. Audio recordings are available to download to your device as an MP3 file.

tag(s): blues (22), chicago (4), jazz (17), louisiana (6), mississippi (5)

Don't let the simple appearance fool you! This site is a smorgasbord of interactive lessons on history, English, and music. Wonderful for the Humanities teacher, it allows teachers of any of those subjects to pick and choose what best fits their plans. Some examples of topics include archaeology, ancient Rome, South American Empires, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, letter writing, gorgeous grammar, common spelling errors, the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, poetry, the theatre, film, composers, and at least twenty other topics. The site declares itself "student self-directed (self-explanatory)." The links are functional, the graphics are attractive, and, while some of the activities are simple and straightforward, many of them take students into analysis and synthesis without them even realizing they are thinking on higher levels and producing work with more depth.

tag(s): australia (29), civil rights (219), grammar (138), listening (93), medieval (33), poetry (195), renaissance (38), spelling (98)

This creative site offers "how to" videos on a WIDE variety of topics. Anyone is able to view the videos, but you must be a member (which is free) to comment on the videos, grade the videos, or submit your own "how to" video. Topics vary; some are appropriate for the classroom - others are definitely NOT appropriate. Some of the general topics that may be useful in the middle school or high school classroom include: alcohol, autos, motorcycles, and planes, business and money, computers and programming, diet and health, education (which features a variety of science experiments and more), film and theater, language (English, Chinese, Hungarian, Russian, Finnish, sign language, Polish, and countless others), music and instruments, travel, and several other topics. Within each of these general topics, there are thousands of specific "how to" videos.

Membership is free and has many perks. You are able to comment and/or grade the video clips or even submit your own video. Registration does require some personal information: a username, password, email address, and date of birth. ALL USERS MUST BE OVER 13-years of age! Check with your administrator about allowing the students to register for this site using fictitious names. You may wish to set up a class registration instead of entering true data into the registration site. Another option is to create a free Gmail account to use for memberships. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up Gmail subaccounts to use for any online membership service. Warning: not all videos are suitable for the classroom. Be sure to preview what you wish to share. If you choose to allow your older students to navigate this site on their own (for research or a class project), be sure to set boundaries on which videos to watch, consequences for going elsewhere, and WATCH CAREFULLY! Some videos explain "how to" do things that are unsafe or inappropriate for school-ages audiences. Wonder How To does include unobtrusive advertisements.
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tag(s): aircraft (17), business (54), money (113), russian (26), sign language (11)

This page has been archived, but the links still work. This highly motivating website demonstrates step-by-step how to prepare a school musical. The website includes lyrics, drama vocabulary terms, musical notations, scenery, props, and an introduction to various types of music (including calypso). There is a Directors link that includes curriculum information, a glossary, and more. Use the website to teach your class about calypso music, drama vocabulary terms, and many other details pertaining to music and drama. Some of the activities require Flash, but most of this doesn't.

tag(s): ireland (11)