Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

This site offers free publications about teaching, literacy, reading instruction, child development, math, and school safety. The offerings include materials for all levels (brochures, posters, videotapes, newsletters, and more). The intended audiences include students, teachers, parents, and administrators. Many publications and also site information come in Spanish and English.

tag(s): literacy (122)

Learn about people in your neighborhood and the jobs they do: veterinarian, librarian, pizza maker, utility worker, mayor, police officer, firefighter, and pediatrician. Click on any of the "people" to walk and talk through an informative tour about that career. You can click on the audio button to hear the information read aloud.

tag(s): careers (156), fire (22)

Find out all you can about Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang on Snoopy.com. This site provides a variety of great comic strips that can be applied to many classroom lessons. The site also provides an Author Spotlight on Charles Schulz. There is also a link for fun and games with printable pages, puzzles, word problems, and other "fun" stuff. Some of the activities require Shockwave. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..

tag(s): comics and cartoons (55)

Your students will create comics in minutes using this Comic Creator site. No log-in is required. Just type in the prompted information, such as the name of comic character, author, caption, and of course, the dialog that goes into the speech bubble. The 'creator' chooses the number of panels, type of characters, style of speech bubble, and various props. Two actions are needed: clicking and dragging the items to go into the comic strip, and typing dialog into the bubbles. Then, presto....a genuine comic appears, ready for printing. The tool DOES support accent marks pasted from Word. (Unfortunately, there is no way to save your comic masterpieces.)

tag(s): comics and cartoons (55), sequencing (17), summarizing (23)

This site is a discussion-opener on safe use of the "social web." Some of the tools included are social networking sites, virtual worlds, chat, cell phones, video-sharing, and more. There are tips and advice for just about any medium kids and adults use today, as well as discussion forums where parents can ask questions and share information. Each article and advice section can be emailed at the click of a mouse. You can also download and share printable version (site creators do ask that you not modify them and that you simply tell them if you do download and share). While some posts may not represent your point of view, the important thing is to open dialog.

tag(s): internet safety (114), safety (68), social networking (61)

Start the first day of school or a new marking period with a getting-to-know-you activity from this great, searchable collection. The activities are designed for all ages, so some will not work well with very young ones (such as writing things on slips of paper). The site is easy to navigate and sorts ideas by group size and activity level for easy retrieval. There are also activity suggestions for distance and remote learning. You are invited to submit your own ideas. Since the site is designed for general use, not for schools, some ideas may be impractical in a classroom setting but could be easily adapted. Substitutes - check out some of these icebreakers, the kids will love them....and you!

tag(s): back to school (55), firstday (22), newbies (11), remote learning (54), substitutes (25)

This site provides a wealth of information for teachers, administrators and others that work with children. Guidelines are provides to help students deal with bereavement and other losses that affect the school and/or community.

tag(s): parents (57)

Though titled for administrators, this article is a must-read for all education professionals interested in making their schools safe and secure. There are ideas for planning, communication, parent information, and general security that should be automatic in every school.

tag(s): safety (68), school violence (10)

When you bill yourself as the world's leading website on Learning Disabilities and ADHD, you'd better prove it. LD OnLine does that and more. LD OnLine provides in-depth professional and parent articles, expert advice columns, forums, and disability/differences resources for parents and educators within this easily-navigated site. Many of those articles offer strategies to help deal with the disabilities. The site also includes a convenient yellow pages directory for those who need further professional advice.

tag(s): adhd (28), dyslexia (11), learning disability (21), Special Needs (53)

This site provides the alarming news on obesity. The interesting topics include a comparison of obesity from 1970 to 2000, a "help" page, a body image page, information about eating disorders, quizzes, interactive videos, information about what obesity means and more. though some of the activities and the video require FLASH there is still plenty to learn and discuss at this site.

tag(s): eating disorders (6), obesity (8)

Although this site was created to help students in Britain prepare for "Back To School," many of the tips and activities are useful to students from all over the world. This site provides interactive quizzes, informative guides, and numerous features. The guide section provides a lot of details about very useful subjects including bullies, school uniforms, exam stress, dyslexia, creativity and other subjects. The Press Packs section is written by a student for students' use and includes topics such as being the new kid in school and organic lunches.

tag(s): back to school (55)

This site addresses the important issue of bullying. It includes videos, reports, information guides, quizzes, polls, and more. This site also talks about the less frequently discussed forms of bullying - such as girls bullying girls, cellular phone bullying and other less "traditional" forms of bullying (which unfortunately are becoming more common).

tag(s): bullying (48), cyberbullying (40)

Home page for the state's department of education.

Home page for the state's department of education.

Engineering Resources is a K-12 website that contains a multitude of information including lessons correlating to national and state standards. Search for activities and ideas by grade level and curriculum topic using the Search and Advanced Search buttons. Narrow choices provided in the curriculum section by filtering options to include lessons, activities, complete units, and more. Maker Challenges offer a variety of experiences for hands-on learning with topics including titles like A Doghouse Design Project and Create and Control a Popsicle Stick Finger Robot. Other site options allow you to search by educational standards and provide information and resources for teaching engineering to students in grades K-12.

tag(s): amazon (11), architecture (75), bridges (11), cells (82), density (17), engineering (129), environment (252), forces (37), friction (9), heart (27), human body (93), latitude (10), light (56), longitude (9), map skills (63), marine biology (31), mars (26), medicine (57), motion (47), pollution (52), robotics (24), rockets (11), simple machines (19), space (222), STEM (297)

This website provides a wealth of information for children, teenagers and educators. Specifics include cosmetics, germs, food safety, hand washing, careers in food science, online games, interactive coloring pages and more! While most of the content appears elementary, there is information on food science careers and some higher level informaiton under Kids, Teens, and Educators.

tag(s): careers (156), safety (68)

Oral health topics are presented in an attention getting format that includes stencils, hands on activities, and printable student worksheets. The a la carte lesson format makes it easy to use lessons individually or as a complete oral health unit. Animations and games/puzzle section are geared for the younger grades. The appropriate age levels for each of the sections are clearly labeled. There are also sections on dental careers.

tag(s): careers (156), dental health (14), hygiene (9)

This page has simple tips on ways dads (or surrogate dads) can get involved to support learning support or ADHD kids both in and out of school. The brief article is available in printed form and include support from resaerch on the impact dads can have.

tag(s): adhd (28)

Designed for National Hurricane Preparedness Week, this site offers extensive resources to help students and their parents plan ahead in case they find themselves in the path of a hurricane. There are also extensive descriptions of storm surge, inland flooding, wind damage, and other phenomena associated with these storms.

tag(s): hurricanes (32), safety (68)