Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

This site allows you to create flashcards, and includes sharing and group capabilities. Many teachers will be able to navigate this free site very easily. Enter vocabulary terms and definitions as well as any html (web page language), such as images and charts to create electronic flashcards and quizzes for word study to use in language or other content areas. Create individual sets of flashcards, or invite others to interact and learn the same words. Teacher or students can create groups to share word lists. As with other collaborative tools, the revision history is easily accessible.

tag(s): flash cards (44), grammar review (31), word study (59)

This site offers essay-writing tips, podcasts, and more. Useful across a wide array of humanities topics, including English, social studies, art, music, religion, and speech, this site is an inspiration to students and can serve as an essay starter, a discussion starter, or contemporary information about politics, economics, and the world. On its home page it states that this is "an international project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values that guide their daily lives." There are essays from the 1950's when the first incarnation of this idea was heard on the radio from famed journalist Edward R. Murrow. There are essays from those who are famous and those you never heard of. All of the essays are short--usually no more than 400 words. You can hear some of them as they were first broadcast on NPR, and there is a general podcast you can play which defines the site. Anyone can submit their own "This I Believe" essay as long as it follows the guidelines given, and they include essay-writing tips and advanced essay searches to assist anyone interested. The site includes special features which deal with specific topics and there are ideas for educators, students, and community leaders. The printable curricula require Adobe Acrobat. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

tag(s): 1950s (8), writing (325)

This site offers five "ready to go" lesson plans for Father's Day. Lessons include art, history, writing, and more. Standards are provided. There is also some general history of Father's Day provided.

tag(s): fathers day (12)

Are you "twying" to understand the "tweet" world of X (formerly Twitter)? Watch this short (less than 3-minutes) video about the "Twerrific" world of X (formerlyTwitter). This social networking site asks the question, "What are you doing?". This site shares how to use X (formerly Twitter) to stay connected. Despite a paid membership model, Common Craft still offers this video for free, but it does have a watermark saying, "For evaluation only." If you wish to share this with a group, they will need to view it on individual/partner computers (or IOS devices) or on a projector that has a zoom function to enlarge a selected area of the screen.
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tag(s): chat (41), social media (48), social networking (61), twitter (13)

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 (137), poetry (193), root words (10), writing (325)

This site provides a detailed list of writing idea generators, what ifs, and more! If you have reluctant writers, students with writer's block, or just need to change things up a bit, this site will fit the bill. The site is visually bland but content-rich, mixing the unlikely with the unusual to build mental flexibility and help spark students' creativity. There are six categories of Story Inspiration: Envisioner, Quick Story Idea Generator, Quick Story Theme Generator, Romance Story Generator, Story Generator, Symbolitron, What-if-inator, and Writing Challenge Generator. An example of an "envisioner" story is "A fusion of the story of the little Dutch boy and the story of Romeo and Juliet that concerns a group of manicurists." The site also includes a TON of links to other writing "generators" - everything from Fantasy Novels to an Adventure Generator. Other ideas include character generators, song challenge, and villain plot generators as well as others. Clicking on one will give you a choice of generating anywhere from 1-50 results and you have the option to print them as well.

Be aware: there are some "social" features of this site (see the Community links. This site also includes some advertisements.

tag(s): air (101), writing (325)

This is a great site to mine for quick lesson plans, ideas on thematic units, or simply daily writing prompts. There are detailed lesson plans available for math, arts and crafts, nutrition, health, music, math, reading, physical education, technology, writing, science, and social studies. Visit the Seasonal Items link to find even MORE resources related to Read Across America, 100 Days ideas, Daily seasonal writing prompts, and much more! Many of the links will take you to other sites, but the onsite printable worksheets and calendars make it worth a visit. Note: the site is laden with advertising, something TeachersFirst users may not appreciate!

tag(s): fractions (160), nutrition (140), parts of speech (39), phonics (51), speech (69), themes (16), writing (325)

This site is full of writing ideas and different prompts. You can get a different prompt for every day, including printing them out by the month and daily word prompts. There are prompts for younger students up through 12th grade. Powered by Squidoo, it has a lot of ads, which makes it more suitable for teacher use than student, but the variety of prompts and links to other writing prompt sites makes it worthwhile.

tag(s): writing (325)

Record a message and embed it into your favorite site or provide a link to share, for free. Send to a friend by entering your email and the email of the recipient. Share on many social media sites witht he press of a button. Recording the message is easy and embedding into a site such as a wiki or blog has never been simpler! No login or registration is needed. Although, if you choose to send a message via email, you must choose a password to use at the site. Vocaroos are stored on their server. Created messages can also be downloaded to individual computers. Visit their FAQ's for frequent questions and responses.

tag(s): communication (129), speech (69)

In spite of the annoying ads, the rich choices of writing ideas, prompts, exercises, and "widgets" on this site are well worth the time to digest and wade through. There's so much! There are 17 "widgets" for curing writer's block: Electronic Poetry, Haiku-a-Tron, Character Name, Text Collage, Creative Writing Prompts, Random Line Generator, and MANY others. There are also 7 links to post your fiction and poetry, 2 sections on creative writing and prompts (including 60+ writing experiments by Charles Bernstein), poetry links, visual inspiration, and a long list of authors you can click on to read articles or see questions answered, plus more articles and extras.

To post any stories or poems at Language is a Virus you must be registered. The log-in process does require an email address. 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.

Before having students post anything on this site, check your school's Acceptable Use Policy and BE CERTAIN to obtain parental permission. Be aware this site has several advertisements and includes X (formerly Twitter) Buttons, Badges, Backgrounds, and Images. Be sure to provide students with specific instructions of where they MAY and may NOT go. Or make this site a whole-class activity (too bad, though, since writing is so individual).

tag(s): poetry (193)

The title says it all: "Inspired Picture Writing!" Use this free drag and drop literacy tool to create great sentences inspired by beautiful pictures. Alternatively, add inspirational or humorous captions to pictures. "Lesson Plans" provides learning opportunities and examples for creating captions, compound sentences, or paragraphs. Video tutorials can be found under the FAQs tab. "Explore the Gallery" to see already-created PicLits as well as comments and ratings. After selecting a picture (or using the one they provide) and dragging a word onto the screen, choose different forms of the word by using the drop-down menu next to the word. Move your words anywhere on the screen for creative writing. You can also click "freestyle" instead to type in your own words instead of choosing from their list. Word lists change, depending on the image selected. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

Registering for a PicLits account requires the use of an email address. PicLits can be used without an account but you are unable to save or blog about their creation without an account. A class account can be created instead of individual student accounts. However, it does not show which work is attributable to which student. You may want to require that students initial their contributions in order to get credit. All work on the site can be seen without a login. All projects are public. NOTE: Our editors regret that PicLits occasionally allows advertising on their home page to include images that are not classroom-friendly. Teachers should preview to determine whether or not your students can ignore the ads.
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tag(s): creative writing (124), digital storytelling (154), images (263), sentences (22)

Looking for some new tricks to teaching this genre (fairy tales, folktales, and Myths) to your students? Check out this site that provides lesson plans, interactives, class activities, reproducible pages, and more. The lesson plans and activities are divided by grade level (K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12). The site says that the lessons (for all levels) will take approximately one day/class period.

tag(s): air (101), folktales (34)

You will want to bookmark and follow this blog. Always adding ideas, this site offers a how to make a book for any age student. Not only ideas, read the extensive blog material to learn about author presentations. The creators say this site is part scrapbook and notebook, so click on the categories frequently to see the new content. Teachers who desire professional development and fresh ideas will want to include this site in their repertoire.

tag(s): blogs (65), reading lists (77), reading strategies (96), writing (325)

Combining Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Speech with a variety of multimedia tools, this incredibly creative lesson plan explores the use of semi-colons to effectively communicate a message. Links to Web resources, NCTE/IRA standards, and PDF handouts are provided. This is a great opportunity to introduce a grammar concept using relevant examples, while providing an interdisciplinary link.

tag(s): grammar (137)

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 (28), civil rights (209), grammar (137), listening (93), medieval (32), poetry (193), renaissance (38), spelling (98)

Get inside of the mind of our sixteenth president with this thoughtful lesson plan that analyzes the complex factors that led to the Civil War. Using primary source documents, students become part of the decision-making process as they consider the critical issues that faced the nation as Lincoln came into office, debate the risks and benefits of withdrawing Union troops from Fort Sumter, and investigate the Confederate reaction to Lincoln's ultimate decision. Students take on the roles of Secessionists, Non-Secessionists, Unionists, Abolitionists, or Compromise Proponents. This lesson is aligned to National Standards.

tag(s): civil war (139), debate (42), lincoln (66), slavery (79), states (124)

This is a great site to introduce kids to speechwriting. While it is really geared to the middle school level, there are some great ideas for walking all levels of students through the process step-by-step . If you have never taught speechwriting, this helps the kids see that writing a speech is not like writing an essay.

Be aware: a Scholastic Word Wizard box appears on the screen, click the minus sign to shrink the box. Then drag the box to the top of the screen. It will still be there, but it shouldn't interfere with your reading of the text. This site requires Real Player. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

tag(s): speech (69), writing (325)

This site offers writing prompts of many types, from written prompts to line drawings, to photographs, from story starters to articles on the imagination. With plenty of prompts available at your fingertips, teachers will find inspirational starters in a form which will appeal to all types of students.

There is a submission option at this site. You are able to submit articles or projects, suggest websites with FREE learning content, creativity journey blogs, or inspiring success stories. Before you submit any students' work, be sure to check with your school's Acceptable Use Policy and always get parental permission.

tag(s): drawing (61), journals (15), writing (325), writing prompts (61)

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 (16), business (52), money (113), russian (26), sign language (10)