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How to Slay a Cliche (and how to rewrite it) - Alan Eggleston
Grades
5 to 12
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Find a cliche and ideas for better ways to say the same thing using this simple blog site. The directions at the right (HOW TO SEARCH THIS PAGE USING INTERNET ...more
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Find a cliche and ideas for better ways to say the same thing using this simple blog site. The directions at the right (HOW TO SEARCH THIS PAGE USING INTERNET EXPLORER) tell you everything you need to know to locate a specific cliche and some terrific alternates to the overused expression. Many of the examples are also taught as idioms.
In the Classroom
Introduce the site to your students on a projector os interactive whiteboard. Then have them work individually or in groups to write some of their own alternatives. Use the whiteboard to write new ideas! You could even start your own class wiki to include cliches students encounter in everyday conversation and in readings along with their suggestions for alternatives. Give extra credit for new additions students make on their own! Keep the link to Cliche a Day on your teacher web page as a reference for student writing assignments throughout the year.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Art Access - Art Institute of Chicago
Grades
K to 12
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Art teachers and social studies teachers alike will love this well-organized site filled with images, lesson plans, and activities to use at home and at school. Click on a collection...more
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Art teachers and social studies teachers alike will love this well-organized site filled with images, lesson plans, and activities to use at home and at school. Click on a collection for lesson plans, family activities, and numerous images. There is also an interactive world map to accompany the collection so you can click to see where different artworks originated. The collections include: African American Art; American Art to 1900; Ancient Indian Art of the Americas; Arts of Africa; Impressionism and Postimpressionism; India, Himalayas and Southeast Asia; Modern and Contemporary Art; Renaissance and Baroque Art; Rococo to Realism.
In the Classroom
Take a few minutes to explore the art of a continent, country, or time period you introduce through social studies or literature. Include this site on your teacher web page as you study these related topics to students and parents can access it outside of class even if you do not have enough time to devote a full lesson. The images are not very large, so viewing on individual computers or using a projector that has a zoom function would help you share with a class. Teachers will like the creativity of some of the "family" activities and may want to use them at school or suggest them in a newsletter or on your web page.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Fun Activities at Your Library: So much to See, So Much to Do - American Library Association
Grades
K to 5
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This page of fun activities to help children become more familiar with and more involved in using the school library includes making and printing out bookmarks, Mad Libs games, taking...more
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This page of fun activities to help children become more familiar with and more involved in using the school library includes making and printing out bookmarks, Mad Libs games, taking part in scavenger hunts, and Story Theater. It even includes a rap song about the library. Downloadable Word documents have all the details.
In the Classroom
School librarians and reading teachers will want to use these activity offerings to familiarize children with the library. Make your library a happenin' place with a bookmark contest!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Leaky Cauldron - Floo Network
Grades
4 to 9
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For those who just can't wait for the next Harry Potter book, this site offers plenty of Harry Potter news, discussions, galleries with possible title pages and other illustrations,...more
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For those who just can't wait for the next Harry Potter book, this site offers plenty of Harry Potter news, discussions, galleries with possible title pages and other illustrations, a page of avatar graphics, links to Potter movie trailers, and anything imaginable to do with the books and/or the movies. This is a consumer site, so it is a bit more "Hollywood" than "education," but there are portions that promote discussion, character analysis, and pure love of reading.
In the Classroom
Channel your students' high levels of anticipation about the next HP book by encouraging them to participate in some of these online discussions, with parent permission, of course. Include the link on your teacher web page to accompany an independent reading or for author study.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Kids on the Net - kidsonthenet.com
Grades
2 to 8
2 Favorites
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Encourage your writers to create and publish web-based writing with the help of this site! The site offers opportunities for kids to do creative writing on their own, read what ...more
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Encourage your writers to create and publish web-based writing with the help of this site! The site offers opportunities for kids to do creative writing on their own, read what others have done internationally, find writing suggestions from experts, and create online writing projects. In one section, they can write original "spells" a la Harry Potter. All writing submitted is carefully screened for this safe site. Be sure to check out Adventure Island (click on Writing with a Difference), a place for your students to create their own online story where readers navigate, read descriptions, and make choices. A few activities require Flash, but there is a lot to discover on this site that does not.
In the Classroom
Select a theme you are studying in science or social studies or a setting from a literature piece you have studied, and make an Adventure Island as a group project. You must register(free), but the process is simple. The teacher informaiton is thorough and helpful. Check out some of the examples first. Be sure to have written parent permission before sharing student work on the web, even anonymously.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Tell a Story - Toronto Public Library
Grades
K to 5
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Inspire your students to creativity with these interactive story prompts. You can change story background, decorate the characters in the story with items you drag onto the screen,...more
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Inspire your students to creativity with these interactive story prompts. You can change story background, decorate the characters in the story with items you drag onto the screen, add titles and voice bubbles, rotate and resize visuals, and write up to 14 pages per story. You can use a story-starter furnished by the site or tell a story completely from scratch --creating its accompanying visual as well. Enticing story prompts and easy-to-follow directions make this a great writing and illustrating activity for a variety of ages! The only limits are the smallish range of options for background and characters. Requires FLASH. Get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..
In the Classroom
Use these story tools to help elementary students tell about an event or concept they have learned. Email the results to their parents or print them out. If you work with studens who have trouble verbalizing ideas, use this tool and ask them to narrate the story they create. This site will work well on an interactive whiteboard or as a story "center" in your classroom. Include the link on your teacher web page and encourage students to email new stories to you from home!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Inkless Tales - Elizabeth Bushey
Grades
K to 5
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Viewers of this very appealing site listen to and read a variety of stories and poems, while viewing accompanying drawings and test. Not all stories have the audio features. Teachers...more
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Viewers of this very appealing site listen to and read a variety of stories and poems, while viewing accompanying drawings and test. Not all stories have the audio features. Teachers will like the Read a Story options with simple Dolch words. Children can submit their own poems and may see themselves published online, but you will want to get parent permission first! Many writing prompts and easy writing tasks look like fun on this site; additional games on the site have an educational aspect. In addition to online activities, there are a few stories and games available to print out. A few activities, and the audio poems require the Flash; however, the audio stories are now in podcast format.
In the Classroom
The animated alphabet is certain to appeal to pre-K and kindergarten teachers and students. Make it a center that students can explore over and over!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Google Drive - Google
Grades
6 to 12
10 Favorites
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Use Google Drive to create and save your Google Docs. With Google Docs, you can create, edit, reformat, upload, and share documents you've created in WORD or other office applications....more
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Use Google Drive to create and save your Google Docs. With Google Docs, you can create, edit, reformat, upload, and share documents you've created in WORD or other office applications. You can also look at the editing history. Click the "New" button to create new folders, slides, sheets, forms, and slide to the "more" button to see lots more. Perhaps the best feature is the ability to collaborate on documents and spreadsheets with anyone or with a selected group. Groups share editing capabilities, making collaboration much easier. You can publish newly created, uploaded, downloaded, or revised documents and spreadsheets as well as making links to them on personal blogs. Easy directions and familiar-looking pages make exporting and importing documents simple; Google also helps keep you organized.
In the Classroom
A "tour" and simple to understand directions make this site easy to use. Have your students set up collaborative groups for projects, lab data, and more. Or set them up yourself, giving them specific passwords to access their "space." Help your gifted students stay organized (and collaborate) using this tool. Users are normally invited to "join" via an email message. This may be problematic in the many schools that do not permit student email access at school. Note that notifications sent by Google Docs may also land in "junk mail" folders or be blocked by spam filters. We suggest that you experiment with a small group of students to determine what will work in your particular situation. One option is to set up the groups with the teacher as a "member" but have students work from home, using their personal email addresses, for group projects. Make sure you are protecting the safety of student work and identity and are within your school's Acceptable Use Policy. Anything students can do on a single computer, they can do collaboratively on Google docs, accessing their work from any online computer.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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300 Spartan Warriors - 300spartanwarriors.com
Grades
7 to 12
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This is a privately maintained website dedicated to the warfare of the Spartans, with a specific focus on the Battle of Thermopylae. Clicking battle-related topics on the grid of ...more
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This is a privately maintained website dedicated to the warfare of the Spartans, with a specific focus on the Battle of Thermopylae. Clicking battle-related topics on the grid of possibilities opens longer menus with subtopics. The site has extensive text passages and includes ads. There are good photos of the battlefield today, pictures and descriptions of the combatants, and information about the battle. Site creators have notified TeachersFirst to tell us that they are expanding materials on the Battle of Marathon in time for its 2500th anniversary. Teachers of literature, teaching about Greek mythology may also want to tie in this site as part of a look at Greek culture. The movie "300" may generate some interest in this famous battle and having the facts is useful in bridging students' interest in Hollywood's depiction of the event with the historical truth.
In the Classroom
Include this site as one of the resources you offer from your teacher website for students doing individual or group projects on Sparta, the Greeks, or mythology. The site offers some useful research information and some good visuals.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Write Out Loud - Susan Dugdale
Grades
8 to 12
2 Favorites
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If you are looking for new ideas on helping students with fear of speaking or writing ideas, this is a good site. You will find everything you ever needed to ...more
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If you are looking for new ideas on helping students with fear of speaking or writing ideas, this is a good site. You will find everything you ever needed to help you write a speech, overcome performance anxiety, how to rehearse, etc. While this site is geared to almost anyone, it really is for older students or adults. Teachers can use this site very effectively for helping students with speech basics.
In the Classroom
The left-hand column allows you to click to exactly what you want, and there are links throughout the information that take you to what you need. A site map is also available. As your students prepare speeches, assign portions of the site, and include it as a resource on your teacher web page for reference. Parents may even find the information helpful in their daily lives!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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L. (Lucy) M. (Maud) Montgomery - Petri Liukkonen
Grades
4 to 10
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This is a good biography about Lucy Maud Montgomery. It gives a good, reliable overview biography as well as a listing of her published works. ...more
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This is a good biography about Lucy Maud Montgomery. It gives a good, reliable overview biography as well as a listing of her published works.
In the Classroom
A good teacher resource to add information about the author to your repertoire. Include it on your eacher web page as a resource for students doing author study.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Judy Blume's Home Base - Judy Blume
Grades
5 to 9
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This website is Judy Blume's own site to discuss her writing, censorship, her books (with notes about the book from the author), and her life. It includes links to her ...more
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This website is Judy Blume's own site to discuss her writing, censorship, her books (with notes about the book from the author), and her life. It includes links to her blog, a For Kids section, and other websites about her biography and her books. If you teach any Judy Blume books or just know of their high interest for some of your students, this is a safe site to share about a sometimes controversial author. Ms. Blume talks about her writing and directs students (and adults) to other reputable sites about writing tips, etc. It is also a safe place for kids to express their own views about her writing to her either through email or through her blogs.
In the Classroom
Share the link on your teacher web page as a resource to promote independent reading or author study. Enhance learning by asking students to share what they read - the tirle, a summary, and a rating of the book using Flip, reviewed here. Have students watch their classmates' Flips to find a new book to read and leave a comment about the book or the presentation.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Lucy Maud Montgomery - Uxbridge Online Inc.
Grades
4 to 10
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This up-to-date general biography site is maintained by the town of Uxbridge, Ontario. Montgomery lived near here during her adult life after leaving Prince Edward Island, and this...more
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This up-to-date general biography site is maintained by the town of Uxbridge, Ontario. Montgomery lived near here during her adult life after leaving Prince Edward Island, and this site has good information on where she lived when she wrote her famous books--as well as a chronological listing of the books. This neat Montgomery site gives insight into who the author was and how biographical her works were. There is a link to the Uxbridge Historical Centre.
In the Classroom
This site is better for teachers than students to use as a resource. There is a link to Sullivan Movies, the creators of the famous Canadian "Anne of Green Gables" series, at which you can buy resources from DVD's to books, posters, etc. if you can't resist shopping. Find links to four online texts of the Anne books as part of the Gutenburg collection.Use passages from these online texts for interactive whiteboard activities from parts of speech to analyzing writing style, then introduce the author once the students are "hooked" by the passages!
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Citebite Bookmarklet - Abstract Factory
Grades
K to 12
7 Favorites
0 Comments
Imagine being able to give students (or parents) an exact link to a specific quote within a web page. Why would you want to? Perhaps you want to send students ...more
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Imagine being able to give students (or parents) an exact link to a specific quote within a web page. Why would you want to? Perhaps you want to send students to a certain paragraph for an activity: for reading comprehension, for reading a specific portion of text, or even for highlighting a literary device within a text or poem. Students will no longer waste time, announcing, "I can't find it!" or return to school saying they couldn't do the homework! Use for FireFox, Safari, and Internet Explorer browsers.
In the Classroom
Tool can be used in less than 30 seconds. Open TWO windows in Internet Explorer or any web browser. One should be open to citebite; the other to the web page you wish to reference. On that web page, locate and "highlight" the exact passage of text you want to "send" people to see. Copy/paste the passage into the quotation box at Citebite (copy, then change windows). Return to the target web page and copy/paste its actual URL into Citebite. Click "Make Citebite." Copy/paste the new url, indicated after "Your citebite link is:" Note: if the original quote is within a FLASH presentation, it will not copy/paste or generate a Citebite. See this example of a Citebite link to a tip about TeachersFirst Edge tools.Have your middle and high school students do a web page "credibility critique" on their potential sources by using Citebite before they start a research project. They can highlight passages as proof of credibility -- or lack thereof -- and give you the Citebite links. They will love this easy way to reference a specific portion of a page. You will love the ease of finding it. If you give them a Word document table as a web site evaluation rubric, they can paste the Citebites there, with their comments in the neighboring cell!
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Middle East - BBC
Grades
4 to 12
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This site provides an eclectic mix of information about the Middle East. The BBC has created this up-to-date website that includes information guides, interviews, message boards, pictures,...more
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This site provides an eclectic mix of information about the Middle East. The BBC has created this up-to-date website that includes information guides, interviews, message boards, pictures, quizzes and more. The message boards pose some interesting discussion questions for students. This is an excellent, student-friendly source for current events and debate background. It also provides short, non-fiction texts for comprehension practice with remedial readers.
In the Classroom
Include this link on your teacher page for middle and high school students to use as a reference and build better understanding of this tumultuous region. It will help even younger students understand the region, but parts of this website are not appropriate for elementary students. Preview before you take your elementary class on a virtual field trip to the Middle East.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Haunted House Treat Carrier - Cara Bafile
Grades
K to 5
1 Favorites
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This website provides a lesson plan with detailed instructions, objectives, standards and more. Students are asked to make a haunted house carrier for their delicious Halloween candy....more
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This website provides a lesson plan with detailed instructions, objectives, standards and more. Students are asked to make a haunted house carrier for their delicious Halloween candy. Treat your students to this "yummy" lesson.
In the Classroom
Your students could also make these crafts as a service project for less-fortunate children and fill the carriers with small toys, stickers, and toiletry items to be shared with children in local homeless or domestic violence shelters. Consider making Halloween a time to share.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Monster Mash - Cara Bafile
Grades
3 to 12
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Students play inventor or entrepreneur and create a "monster mash" in this open-ended, creative activity. A detailed lesson plan, standards and an assessment are provided. ...more
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Students play inventor or entrepreneur and create a "monster mash" in this open-ended, creative activity. A detailed lesson plan, standards and an assessment are provided.
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Literary Bash - Cara Bafile
Grades
3 to 12
1 Favorites
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This website provides a lesson plan that was designed to use around Halloween. There are objectives, assessments, and standards provided. This lesson is all about throwing a "literary...more
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This website provides a lesson plan that was designed to use around Halloween. There are objectives, assessments, and standards provided. This lesson is all about throwing a "literary bash" in honor of your class's favorite piece of literature (Harry Potter is used an example). This activity is an excellent alternative to a traditional Halloween party.
In the Classroom
Use this lesson plan, and tailor it to fit your unit in almost any content area - math, english, history, science, etc. Though this lesson was intended just for Language Arts classes, most content areas also have books or common themes that this could apply to. Use this lesson plan after a test or towards the end of the year when students might need a break from the traditional classroom routines. This is a great way to make sure students get some substance of a "break" while keeping it academic! Be sure to save this as a favorite on your classroom computer to allow for easy reference later on.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Guess Who's Coming To Our Classroom - Cara Bafile
Grades
3 to 8
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This website provides a lesson plan, standards, reproducible worksheets and more. The lesson was designed to use around Halloween. The students are challenged to help Miss Terie (get...more
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This website provides a lesson plan, standards, reproducible worksheets and more. The lesson was designed to use around Halloween. The students are challenged to help Miss Terie (get it - mystery) research a new Halloween activity for her class. Everything is provided and excitement is guaranteed - kids love a mystery! This lesson integrates famous people from history, using technology, and solving a mystery.
In the Classroom
Use this as an alternative to the candy-filled holiday party. Ask parent volunteers to help out.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Handwriting Worksheet Maker - Tampareads.com
Grades
K to 4
3 Favorites
0 Comments
This incredible tool makes handwriting worksheets. Users have the choice of creating basic print, D'Nealian style or cursive. The user writes in the words for the worksheet and ...more
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This incredible tool makes handwriting worksheets. Users have the choice of creating basic print, D'Nealian style or cursive. The user writes in the words for the worksheet and then they can print the document.
In the Classroom
Utilize this creative tool to make customized handwriting papers for your class! Use passages from stories you have just read, sentences your class composes on science or social studies topics (maybe on your whiteboard?), or trade off poems that your own students write to make handwriting practice more meaningful in context.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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