Are You Looking for Non-fiction Material for Students to Read?

Jazz up your lessons with some great non-fiction articles for your students to read! Check out the suggestions below to incorporate in your classroom:

• DOGOnews - the leading source for current events, news and non-fictional content for ELA, Science, and Social Studies. Thousands of news articles and original content added daily for students, teachers, and schools. Other DOGO media includes DOGObooks, DOGOmovies, IDOGO, and DOGOteachers
  
• Newsela - has an app or website to access nonfiction in any subject. Many articles are from sources like the Associated Press, Washington Post, and Scientific American. They have material in five reading levels to engage K-12 students in high-interest nonfiction, current events, primary sources, speeches, biographies, and historical news. I love how you can filter your search by choosing grade level and also by reading skills. There are 8 different reading skills that you can filter: 
     
            1) What the Text Says
            2) Central Idea
            3) People, Events & Ideas
            4) Word Meaning & Choice
            5) Text Structure
            6) Point of View/Purpose
            7) Multimedia
            8) Arguments & Claims
  
• TweenTribune - News from Smithsonian for K-12 teachers. Locate news articles and assign stories with a single click through digital devices. They have a "Monday Morning Ready" newsletter as prep for the week ahead if you want to incorporate easy weekly lesson plans. TweenTribune also has Weekly Videos that answer questions from Smithsonian experts.
  
• Kids Discover Online -  Award-winning library of science and social studies material on any device, at any time. Free sign-up to get started. Kids Discover has been around for over 25 years and now is online! Go to the Resources tab to read from their blog, or on infographics, or their Quick Reads section. Of course, there is also a Kids Discover app for devices!
  
• KidsHealth - Most visited site on the Web for information about health, behavior, and development from before  birth through the teen years. Really 4 sites in one, having sections for parents, kids, teens, and educators. KidsHealth is more than just the facts about health. It provides families with perspective, advice, and comfort about a wide range of physical, emotional, and behavioral issues that affect children and teens.
  
• NASA Stories- go here to get current articles about NASA events and the current missions or launches in progress.  Check out the archived stories and all the different tab categories. There is a whole section for students, as well as a NASA Kids' Club with games to play to learn more about NASA.

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Posted in articles, current events, devices, educator, games, health, news, newspaper, non-fiction, online, parents, Reading, resources, science, skills, Smithsonian, Social Studies, students

Interested in the Human Body?

Want to see something intriguing? Interact with the Human in 3D with the help of your mouse, keyboard, touchpad and navigator controls. You can spend a lot of time learning more about the human body here. Teachers can access the EDIT bar to take screenshots, quizzes, dissect, pin notes, and create tours! I was able to embed this widget of the skeletal system. You can filter by region or systems and dive in deeper by zooming in or out. Share this with family and friends, especially those who are battling certain health conditions. There is a segment on major CONDITIONS such as ulcers, cavities, osteoporosis, bursitis, arthritis, and more. You don't want to miss out on this neat application.

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Posted in digestive, explore, health, human body, muscular, respiratory, science, skeletal, systems

Lesson that Inspires: SOAR

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/

Yesterday during my web surfing, I ran across this awesome award winning animated film by Alyce Tzue. If you are looking for an innovative lesson to inspire your students before or after spring break, you need to consider this. Mark Warner has given many ways to incorporate it cross curriculum. I love the suggestion for music teachers. It only has music and students can create the dialog or play-script for a ELA activity. Check out other ways to use this animation in English, History, Design technology, Science, and Art. The full video is found on Vimeo, but I viewed it on Teaching Ideas which is another great website. I love how they use a literature book as a spring board for teaching. It brings me back to my days teaching in first grade. Story time was always a favorite, especially when you knew you were going to use the story to create. If you are interested, you can find out more about the making of this award winning film by visiting SOAR.

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Posted in Alyce Tsue, art, design, english, film, history, idea, inspire, lesson, literature, Mark Warner, music, play script, science, SOAR, spring time, teaching, write

Science of Everyday Life

Great resource for Science teachers! You need to check out this one-stop portal from Discovery Education and 3M with K-12 standards-aligned lesson plans. This is for ALL ages, with tabs for Teachers, Students, and Families. I love the sections on Interactive Lesson plans that you can download to use on IWB (Interactive Whiteboards) tablets, and more. They are sorted by grade level strands: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 much like Discovery Education's videos are categorized. You can even test your knowledge in identifying how science can appear in unexpected places by visiting the Innovation HQ (Headquarters). It is equipped with Virtual Labs, Did You Know, Science Fun, and a section where you can meet 3M Scientists. As if that was not enough, you can Travel through Time using the Decade Navigator to explore in a timeline fashion. I can see some great group work using this tool and have students create learning media for others. What a great way for them to explore past innovations! I can imagine History teachers also loving this tool and collaborating with Science teachers to learn more about the past. Don't you just know that at the end of all this learning, there is a quiz for each decade! Now that is a neat way to complete the learning, right teachers?

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Posted in aligned, careers, education, innovation, K-12, quiz, Resource, science, Scientists, standards, time, travel

Texas TAKS Study Guides (Interactive)

Check out these Study guides for grade 11 (Exit Level) with interactive lessons to boot. There are guides available in ELA, Science, Math, and Social Studies and are developed by the Texas Education Agency. They hope to help students strengthen their skills before taking the TAKs exam.

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Posted in ELA, exam, exit level, math, science, Social Studies, Study guides, TAKS

FREE Educator's DVD Collection from NASA

FREE Educator's DVD Collection from NASA

We all love free resources to engage students. Check out this one from NASA. They require you to register for a program and share how you will use the videos. Easy enough, don't you think?
Thanks to +Kelli Erwin for sharing!

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Posted in dvds, free resources, NASA, science, videos