Winter holiday lessons and activities: Chanukah Lights Everywhere Christmas Lesson Plans Groundhog Day Lesson Plans Chinese New Year Lesson Plans Mardi Gras The Valentine Bears Leap Day Lesson Plans General winter classroom ideas and lesson plans: Snow Classroom Theme Snowman Classroom Theme Animals in Winter Lesson Plans Penguins Classroom… Continue reading
A study of heroes gives opportunities for working on research skills, reading, writing, critical thinking, and more. You can work within the content areas of social studies, science, literature, math, and even physical education. It suits Veteran’s Day, heritage months, the birthdays of famous people, and character education themes. Begin… Continue reading
Here are our favorite online resources for math, including games to play in the compauter center: Absurd Math: Pre-Algebra from Another Dimension MIT’s free online math courses for high school Mathbun, a sort of free-floating celebration of geometry and other cool math concepts Create a Graph is an excellent… Continue reading
SpellQuizzer spelling software from TedCo is a very handy piece of classroom technology. It’s a minimalist approach (read, it’ll work on your elderly classroom computer) that does just exactly what you need it to and no more. Here’s a screen shot. Let’s go through the top row first, left… Continue reading
Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream for the children of our nation. Here are some ideas for studying this 20thcentury hero in our 21st century classrooms. Online Research All our students need to learn how to do online research effectively. Make it easier for younger students by starting… Continue reading
For free classroom tools, it is hard to beat Google. We’ve tried lesson ideas with SketchUpand Earth as well as Sky and Sea. Many classrooms are using Google Docs and Google Apps. The Google for Educators discussion group can be a great place to post questions on classroom technology. Picasa and Scholar are… Continue reading
Christmas is celebrated in many parts of the world, and the traditions for celebrating it vary from one country and region to another. This makes it a great way to study geography, and we also have ideas for art, math, English, and science under specific countries. Basic plans: Map it! Travel… Continue reading
As a Google Earth Pangaean, I had the opportunity to try out Google Earth 6 early. Now you can have it too! Go to Google Earth and download the new version. The view is better, the trees are quite realistic, and you can really feel that you are visiting… Continue reading
Unlike Hallowe’en, Thanksgiving is one of the holidays we are required to study in the classroom. Our state social studies standards mandate the study of Thanksgiving for three years in a row, and the relationship of Native Americans and Pilgrims for five straight years. Since there are some confusions that… Continue reading
Google Earth has obvious connections for social studies: visit the locations you’re studying and find out all kinds of things about their physical geography. Another very popular way to use Google Earth for social studies lesson is to create a “tour” — that is, a series of locations with… Continue reading
