General Multi-Topic
- Featured in this post from Ms. O reads books, this Sesame Street parody of the Karate Kid teaches children to listen with their whole body. Although Sesame Street is a bit young for our students, I can still envision them enjoying this clip and reciting the mantra: “Eyes watch. Ears listen. Voice quiet. Body calm.” What do you think? (It kept me entertained!)
Focus on Collaboration to Start the School Year
- I’m a huge fan of collaborative project based learning. This is a fantastic article about setting the tone for collaboration. Read this early in the year!
25 Things Successful Educators do Differently
- I’m not sure if you go through the same mental soul searching that I do at the beginning of each school year, but I thought this list might be of interest to those of you who do. I’m always trying to find a way to better myself, and improve the service I provide to the teachers and students whom I serve. I know I won’t be all of these things all of the time, but it’s nice to have aspirations…
Language Arts
Undocumented Immigrant in Children’s Literature
- I’m beginning to see more literature for children on this topic. Here’s a nice blog post from Pragmatic Mom with suggestions for book on this immigrant families.
- This is a faculty field trip I’d love to take! What fun would it be to tour the country and visit as many of these statues as possible?
Math
Robert Lang The Math and Magic of Origami
- Robert Lang can create some amazing origami works of art. What’s really cool is, he has actually used math to break down the process. In this TEDTalk he demonstrates how this works. Admittedly, the math is above my head, but for you math junkies out there, and your advanced students this could be something really interesting to explore. You can also download his software, Treemaker, to help automate the process. (Again, I downloaded it, but don’t quite get it! )
- In this post Mr. Collins lists his “goto” websites. There are a plethora of interesting sites lessons and activities for a variety of age groups (leaning to the more advanced side for most.) FYI most of the sites are from the UK so you’ll see the word “maths” a lot.
Science
- Interestingly this website is more about pollination and bees than sunflowers. Users of the site can upload data and observations. Includes teacher resources.
Social Studies
Visit Zoos and Animal Parks Through Google Street View
- I confess that I am a google maps/google earth newbie. I still prefer an actual map or atlas to a GPS. This is really cool though! Visit zoos around the world and virtually walk through them.
Art/Music
Sculptural Masterpieces Made from Old Books
Lessons Plans fro Arts integration in All Subjects
Information Literacy/Technology
10 Ed Tech Podcasts You Can’t Miss
- Looking for some professional development for your commute? Try one of these podcasts.
Digital Citizenship Flashcards
5 Resources to Help Students Become A+Digital Citizens
- Both of the above links are from A Platform For Good.org. In this day and age, digital citizenship should be a focus in every classroom. I hope to use some of these resources as I plan instruction this year.
- Create polls on the fly and receive real-time feed back through text messaging or a custom URL. “Take the Tour” for a quick overview. Great for those EHUE teachers who don’t have Acti-voters.
Creating Infographics Using Picktochart
- This will help you understand what an infographic is as well as help you create one from scratch.
40 Way to Innovate Teaching Using GlogsterEDU
- At EHUE we have a GlogsterEDU account. Glogster is an online presentation tool that allows you to create interactive multimedia posters. Here are some ideas for how to use GlogsterEDU in your class.
- This is an amazing app that allows creates an augmented reality version of a still picture. I think it’s like a cooler version of a QR code. I predict it will be the next big thing. Check out this blog post about using Aurasma in the music classroom. I think it would be interesting to use this with the children’s literature statues in the link above.
Sources for my sources: Richard Byrne (@richardbyrne), Erin Klein (@KleinErin), Joy H.
Curiously Questioning 