Freebee Friday: Instant Lesson Plans

Well thought-out lesson plans are hard to come by, but Microsoft has a slew of them, ranging from running a virtual lemonade stand to a literary scavenger hunt. It’s all on the company’s lesson plan page and it’s categorized by subject and age group as well as how long it takes. My favorite is a four-period class plan for exploring the cosmos with the online WorldWide Telescope, which includes links for viewing as well as student handouts.

 

Freebee Friday: Long-Distance Speech Therapy

Having a speech pathologist at every school is out of reach for most districts these days, but the needed speech therapy can be delivered through a video conference. Learn all about how it’s done on July 12 by watching “Speech Telepractice: Good, Bad or Ugly?” The Webinar starts at 1PM, eastern time, and will be hosted by Presence Learning. The online lesson will be moderated by Dr. Barbara J. Moore and explore its potential. 

The following panel is scheduled to participate:

• Dr. Shari Robertson, Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Research at Indiana University of Pennsylvania;
• Dr. Lynda Donahue, Special Education Director of Vacaville Unified School District in California;
• Melissa Jakubowitz, Vice President of Speech Language Pathology (SLP) Services for PresenceLearning.

It’s free but you’ll need to register.

Friday Freebee: Art Hits the Road

In this era of tight school budgets art is one of the first disciplines to get cut, but Art Road Nonprofit is trying to keep the experience of creating art in schools. The Mobile Art Classroom is a 1,000-square foot art space on wheels that brings drawing, painting and sculpture to kids. So far, students have produced a wide variety of works, but the mobile art room is still experimental. Based in Detroit, the sponsors hope to get enough donations to turn it into a national mobile art program.

 

 

 

Freebee Friday: Work and Play

If you’ve been burned suggesting kids visit certain educational Web sites only to find problems, YogiPlay has a great assortment of sites for reinforcing what the kids learn during the day. Aimed at 3- to 8-year olds YogiPlay has dozens of sites that vary from math to music. All have been tried out for appropriate material and educational usefulness. It has apps for a variety of tablets, including Androids and iPads and teachers and parents can monitor how much time kids spend using the software. Just register. 

Freebee Friday: Stopping the Dropout Crisis

Need more info about high school kids dropping out in order to keep them in school by aiming your curriculum and class offerings at them. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has a new Web site that can give you ideas and ammunition to keep every kid around until graduation day. Called American Graduate, the site has the facts, techniques and some classroom activities.

 

Freebee Friday: MythBusters Live

We all know what happens when you mix diet soda with Mentos, but what about the thoughts, science and people behind the MythBusters? Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, Kari Byron, Tori Belleci and Grant Imahara team up with Discover Education for a Webinar next Thursday. Called “The Explosive Exhibition,” the show will have 15 minutes of demonstrations (probably with an explosion), 15 minutes of student questions (probably about explosions) and 15 minutes of remarks by officials of the host, Chicago public Schools (sorry, no explosions). It’s free, but you need to register.

 

http://www.discoveryeducation.com//Live/mythbusters.cfm

 

Black History Month Ideas

February is Black History Month and Scholastic’s Web site has some really cool classroom ideas, and the materials to turn them into lessons. All told, there’re more than 100,000 pages of free content for February classes on everything from King’s “I have a dream” speech to the life of Rosa Parks.

Freebee Friday: Grammar Checker

Need help to go through a stack of essays or practice sentences? While no computer system can match the subtlety of a good English teacher, Grammarly can make the most of your time by highlighting grammar, punctuation and style problems. Just copy and paste the selection into the window and in a few seconds Grammarly scans it for 150 common (and not so common) problems, suggests vocabulary alternatives and checks for plagiarism.

 

Turkey Teach In

Happy Thanksgiving! Forget about what they ate and everything about Squanto because the holiday can be a good teaching tool. From themed math sheets and reading assignments to innovative ways to teach science, there’s something for every class. Oh, don’t forget the pumpkin pie. If none of those catch your class’s fancy, Scholastic – the parent of Tech Tools – has a slew of Thanksgiving related material, including what it was alike to be on the Mayflower, the daily life of the Pilgrims and a slew of printable assignment sheets. 

 

 

Freebee Friday: Online Classroom

Thinkport may have been made just for Maryland students but anyone can use the excellent materials. From how to figure out averages and the economics of business to a look at Picasso’s blue period and narrated early readers, Thinkport has it all. Most lessons have videos, and there are provisions for broadband as well as slower dial-up connections.