Classroom Management
- Grading - Jupiter Grades offers a free web-based grade book that is
fully customizable to your needs. My favorite feature is that I can
instantly print off a progress report for any student on demand. I use
this feature regularly as a communication tool with families who request
frequent updates about a student's progress. There is also a fee based
subscription which allows users to e-mail parents and gives parents and
students access to their individual grades.
http://jupitergrades.com/ - Teacher Website - TeacherWeb allows you to create a website for your
classroom. It is template based and fairly user friendly. I like it
because it allows me to save pages that I take down and re-post them at a
later time (e.g: Next year's class). Many of my colleges post daily
homework and report this makes for happy parents who can now better
manage their child's assignments. I find the fees nominal for the gain
in communication with families.
http://teacherweb.com/ - Common Core Standards - Yes. It's true. Common Core is finally
here. We all need a place to review the new standards and make sure we
are covering everything. Remember, Science and Social Studies are
embedded in K-5. So, you will need to check with your state or district
to find out the specifics for your curriculum.
http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards
- All Subjects Lessons, Worksheets, and More - Just about anything you
are looking for can be found on Teachers Pay Teachers. Some of what
you need is even FREE! This is where teachers go to buy, sell, and
share their original ideas. One of my very favorite finds on this
website are grade specific emergency sub plans. In my opinion there is
little worse than waking up knowing you are at death's door and will not
be able to drag yourself to class and now get to spend unpaid time to
develop lessons for a sub. I have already purchased a couple of these
gems and have them waiting to go. But, like I said, you can find just
about ANYTHING you need here from single worksheets to full units. I
believe you will need a PayPal account to purchase.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com - All Subjects Worksheets (FREE) - If you haven't stumbled across
WorksheetWorks yet, please bookmark it now. This amazing site will
generate free worksheets for you on just about any subject you need. It
creates a unique PDF file for you to save or print. I use it often for
grammar review.
http://www.worksheetworks.com/ - Math Worksheets (FREE!) - Oh My Goodness! This site is a gem. This
will carry your students from TK to Middle School (and beyond). I use
it almost daily as a warm up for a lesson or review for kids who need
extra practice. All worksheets are absolutely free. I recommend this
to parents who want to work with their students at home or over the
summer. Lots of facts drills available and you can print directly from
your computer. Total cost and time saver for all who teach math.
http://www.math-drills.com/ - American History - If you teach American History at any level
(especially 5th and 8th), visit History.org. It is a totally free site
and offers free lesson plans written by the teachers who attended the
Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute. The lessons are hands on and
incredibly engaging with a focus on using primary sources.
http://www.history.org/history/teaching/index.cfm - SmartBoard Lessons - If you are fortunate enough to have a SmartBoard (or equivalent)
in your classroom, you can find presentations and lesson absolutely
FREE for just about any subject and every level. I love the Jeopardy
and Millionaire games.
http://exchange.smarttech.com/ - Puzzle Maker - Do your kids love puzzles but you don't have time to
design them? Discovery Education has made a FREE puzzle generator that
is easy to use and will create crosswords, word searches, math squares
and more! You enter the words or set the parameters, the site does the
rest.
http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com - Reading - Book Adventure - Book Adventure is a fun, free way to
motivate students to read! Kids in grades K-8 can search for books,
read them offline, come back to quiz on what they’ve read, and earn
prizes for their reading success. Teachers can create class profiles
and track students reading and success. Books in this program are
leveled similar to AR if you are familiar with that program. The best
part is that it is FREE!
http://www.bookadventure.com/Home.aspx
- Webquests - If you need a free webquest on just about any subject or
if you would like to create one, TeacherWeb has thousands of them -
absolutely free.
http://teacherweb.com/wqsearch/search.stm - Math Games - CoolMath offers some incredibly engaging math games for
students to play on-line. It's very visually stimulating and not for
the faint of heart.
http://www.coolmath.com/ - Phonics - Starfall offers some colorful and fun games for younger
kids to play that teaches early reading and phonics skills. I wouldn't
recommend it for the bigger monsters, but the little monsters love it.
http://www.starfall.com/ - Need A Graph - For parents helping kids with science projects or
teachers who want to make statistics come alive in the classroom,
CreateAGraph is just the thing. It's far easier than trying to teach
the monsters in your room how to use Excel or Word Graphs and prints
colorful graphs for free - everything from pie charts to histograms.
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx