Report Card Comments

As I was writing my reports today I came across this pretty neat site. http://www.lessonplansforfree.com/default.aspx provides examples of report card comments for Art, Language Arts, Science and Social Studies for the elementary grades.  All you have to do is select the subject, the grade level and the grade (A-D) and the site gives you examples of things to write.  You can even type in the students name in a box above and your students name will appear in the comment so that you can just copy and paste!  It was just the help I needed to get my comments sound a little bit better and not so repetitive. 

TES Connect

Here is a great site from the UK with free teaching resources.  In the resources section there are thousands of teacher created lessons (lesson plans, activities, games, teaching ideas and worksheets as well as ready-made powerpoint presentations), All you have to do is sign up (which is free) and you get access to all of these resources.  There are tons of them!  It's divided by section: Early Years (Preschool), Primary, Secondary, Whole School and Special educational needs and then also by subject.  Although geared for UK teachers most stuff is relevent or just needs to be mildly adjusted.  It saves a lot of time in preparation.  I have used it many times to help present lessons on different religious celebrations.  The powerpoint presentations were great to use on my smartboard.  The other good thing is that it's all created and submitted by teachers so it's already tried.  Users can also vote on a specific resource so you can see how much it was liked by others.  It's worth a browse!

http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resources/

Mr. Nussbaum's Interactive and Educational Games

This site is simply amazing!  Mr. Nussbaum is a young teacher who created this site to help students learn while having fun.  There are flash games for the main subject areas: math, language arts, science and social studies.  In each subject there are a wide variety of topics within them.  They are really fun games that grab students' attention and help reinforce the skills without them even realizing it.  Another thing I like about the site is that it's not seperated by grade level which makes it a lot more accessible for special needs students.  I taught math in a special needs high school and my students were able to play the games without having to feel bad that they were only playing elementary games.  There is so much on this site that unfortunatley I don't have room to describe it all.  It is definitely worth a look.

http://www.mrnussbaum.com/index.html

Youtube and Zamzar

There is a bigger and bigger push to bring technology into our classrooms.  Students are more engaged if we teach using different media.  I have found a ton of good resources on youtube.  There is so much that I can't even begin to describe it all.  These clips can be used to reinforce a topic (watching a caterpillar spin a cocoon for example) or watch animated version of favourite stories for younger students.  This must be done in advance, however, as there are also a lot of things that are not appropriate for the classroom! Another frustrating thing about youtube is that it is blocked on the computers in my school board so I have to download all videos from home.  In order to download them from home I go to Zamzar.com.  All you have to do is copy and paste the URL and this site emails you the download link.  You have one day to download it.  It's really easy.

http://www.youtube.com/

http://www.zamzar.com/url/

Centre for Energy

I came across this site from the Canadian Centre for Energy Information. It offers some free resources for the older grades (mostly high school) to teach about fuel (from where it comes from to the determination of fuel prices). All resources are offered in English and French.

http://www.centreforenergy.com/Education/K-12/TeachingResources/ByProduct.asp

CurrClick

CurrClick is actually a website for homeschoolers but I use it frequently to help me in my class. There are hundreds of units of study available for download. Another really cool thing about this website is the free units section. There are numerous units that are actually free! You can also sign up for the newsletter which offers a new freebie of the week. Other units also regularly go on sale and available for reasonable prices.

Website: http://www.currclick.com/

Free Rice Games

A website that gives students practice with math, vocabulary, geography and helps feed hungry children at the same time! FreeRice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program. Our partner is the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. For every right answer a student gets 10 grains of rice are donated to feed hungry children. A great site for multiplication practice and really great for english vocabulary!

Website: http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Water is Life - World Vision

World Vision has created a free program for high school students to learn about water and the environment. This guide introduces controversial debates regarding the planet's fresh water resources. It includes lesson ideas, assessment tools, and activities to accompany the Water is Life Flash animation which is available for download on the site as well. The site also has other programs which you can order for a fee.

Website: World Vision teacher materials