Reading Strategies for Students

Not sure why I have been running across so many ELAR resources lately, but if you're one of those teachers, you are getting your students ready for the upcoming STARR exams. This site may help your students brush up on their reading skills. Ever heard of Into the Book by Wisconsin Media Lab? Even though it is based on Wisconsin standards, I know other states can benefit from their excellent resource. What I like about this site, it has three sections: Student website, Teacher website, and a Professional learning website, so there's something for everyone! Students are free to create a login if they wish, or they can bypass it. Students can work through the skills as they read and interact with the stories. At the end of an activity, there are songs connected to the skill and you can email your answers or print them. Here are the strategies that are covered on this site:

1. Summarizing
2. Visualizing
3. Questioning
4. Evaluating
5. Prior Knowledge
6. Synthesizing
7. Making Connections
8. Inferring
9. Strategies All Together

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Posted in ELA, ELAR, evaluate, infer, make connections, prior knowledge, questions, Reading, skills, standards, STARR, strategies, summary, visualizing, Wisconsin

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

New Technology Applications TEKS

www.learning.com/texas/pdfs/TEKS Revision-K-8.pdf

Familiarize yourself with the new Technology Application TEKS. This is a nice copy that Learning.com has put together.

Click image to go to their website

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Posted in edtech, education, Learning.com, standards, TA TEKS, technology