Group items tagged

Primary sources from national archives. Interactive activities or make-your-own activity with their primary source documents

That is amazing! I could spend hours looking through it just for me.

Classroom Challenge -- (PS If the entire school signs up and does it, then they might get prizes) -- The tutorials for learning how to do computer coding are also awesome math and critical thinking lessons! "Even if you aren't a student, you can take the Hour of Code yourself during Dec. 9-15. And you can help us recruit others to join the movement - at school, in your workplace, in the community. If you are an educator, host the Hour of Code as an activity in your classroom. If you're an organizer or employer, host an Hour of Code event as a team-building exercise, after-school activity in a club, or elsewhere in your community. Click the appropriate tab, and start planning your Hour of Code!"

Also see: http://www.relayforlife.org/learn/relayforeveryone/studentrelays/relay-recess "How can your students become superheroes in the fight against cancer? Relay Recess brings Relay For Life to elementary schools nationwide. It provides students, teachers, and administrators the opportunity to become heroes in their own communities. It also brings cancer education and community service to the classroom in a fun and exciting way. It also engages elementary school students in the fight against cancer through fundraising activities that support cancer programs and services in every community. It gives students the chance to get out of the classroom and have fun with entertainment and activities that reinforce what they have learned. Because the program is so flexible, it's different at every school and is an excellent opportunity to showcase unique qualities about your school and your community."

Sending this to the Collaboration Coaches in case your school is looking for an outreach that your students can help organize and get involved in...

Journey North is a global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change. Journey North is an online science education project in which students track spring's journey across the northern hemisphere. There are so many great objectives linked to the different studies. This is a great activity for a primary and an intermediate class to work together on. A possible pitfall may be spending too much time on these fabulous activities.

Krystal, What a great project. This would be something great to do with a kindergarten class because I know kindergarten does a whole unit on Monarch butterflies.

Lots of global collaborations listed here by Miss W, who creates the Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge

This is a wiki with a very active group of teachers, from all over the world and all age groups, who like to communicate and collaborate by Skype. Request to join the wiki, then they'll add you as a contact on Skype. If you log on to Skype from time to time you can follow the conversation to see what types of projects people are doing and which you'd like to join, or you can put out a request for collaborators on your own. 

technology based activities, competitions, and a library of educational websites

Guideline 1:! Relate grades to the achievement of the district's course/grade level standards. Guideline 2:! Use agreed-on performance standards as the reference points when determining grades. Guideline 3:! Separate achievement from all other dispositions and behaviors. Guideline 4:! Sample student performance. ! Don't score everything & don't include all scores in grades. Guideline 5:! Grade in pencil and maintain records so they can be easily updated. Guideline 6:! To determine grades at the end of the grading period, use professional judgment when considering the body of evidence. Grading must involve more than just crunching numbers. Guideline 7:! Use quality assessments and properly record evidence of achievement. Guideline 8:! Involve students in the assessment and grading processes throughout the learning cycle. No zeros for missing or incomplete work At Middle school: "Student work in the Lesson Practice & Progress Checks portion will be recorded as Missing (M) in the grade book if a student does not turn in an assignment. Middle school students will have until the end of the quarter to complete these practice activities or the Missing (M) will remain. The Missing (M) will factor into the overall average as a zero. However, leaving the Missing (M) in the grade book will communicate that the work has not been turned in. And, because the Lesson Practice & Progress Checks portion of the grade book is weighted just 20% of the overall grade, the Missing (M) for the practice work will not have significant impact on the student's grade." At High School: "A score of zero will not be entered in the grade book. Instead, M or I will be entered to indicate that work is not yet complete. In grades 9-12, students will have five days beyond the assignment due date to complete Lesson Practice and Progress Checks, unless there are extenuating circumstances. An M (Missing) will be entered in the grade book until the work is turned in or until the end of the nine-w

This is a fantastic program for anyone who teaches about space/astronomy. You get matched with an astronomer partner for a whole year and get lots of great resources. If you want to participate you have to attend both days of the workshop in Tucson, but it's worth doing (and it's free). I did it a few years ago if you have any questions. 

Wanting to set up a class blog but don't know where to start? This walks you through all the steps and what to think through.

This is the Library of Congress Teacher Page. It has so many activities. You can also sort them by state standard!

Looks very cool!

This project leads 5th through high school students through an investigation into the impact of junk mail. Students use math to calculate the amount of unwanted mail received and science to determine the amount of environmental impact on the environment caused by this mail. A benefit of this project is that a basic outline of activities is included. A pitfall is that quite a bit of class time would be required to complete this project.

Driving question: How do we describe motion and change in our world scientifically? In the Rube Goldberg Project, students will build a Rube Goldberg Machine (by definition, "of, relating to, or being a contrivance that brings about by complicated means what apparently could have been accomplished simply....") and explain the phyics of motion in that machine. Some examples of rube goldberg devices in the past, in both movies and pop culture, are the device that Pee Wee Herman uses to make breakfast in the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure," or the game "Mousetrap." Students will be able to explain and demonstrate the physics of motion (specifically Newtons Three Laws, Velocity, Acceleration, Kinetic and Potential Energy, and Momentum) through running their machine and will be able to calculate the velocity, acceleration, and energy generated by their machines as they run to complete simple tasks. They will have a working knowledge of simple motion equations and how to calculate in real life situations. This project has activities, assessments and resources included Requires a considerable amount of time and materials, but very engaging and student centered

Students observe night sky and compare their observations with others from around the world to investigate the problem of light pollution. There are lots of ideas for extension activities on this site, each of which could be the basis of a PBL experience. Teachers would have to do some work to plan activities and create rubrics, but there is an authentic purpose and audience already built in.

Project Densho The Densho Educational Web site gives students access to a wealth of primary source material relating to the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Project Densho's partnership with historians at Stanford University produced curriculum to help students and teachers use these valuable resources in classroom activities. This is a powerful tool to bring inquiry-based learning into middle and high school social studies classrooms. This is a powerful site for inquiry-based learning for upper grades; however, there isn't anything already created that we can enroll our classes in... unless it's there and I'm missing it.

The Mystery Class investigation is an eleven week hunt in which students try to find ten secret "Mystery Classes" hiding around the globe. The changing amount of sunlight at each site is the central clue.

I think that this could potentially be a great anchor activity for students.

I've seen it done with 5th grade years ago and it was great! Mrs. Hamman's class did it this year also. See her post http://blogs.goaj.org/mrshamman/2013/04/11/journey-north-mystery-class/

Kidblog is built by teachers, for teachers, so students can get the most out of the blogging process. Kidblog meets the need for a safe and simple blogging platform suitable for elementary and middle school students. Most importantly, Kidblog allows teachers to monitor and control all publishing activity within the classroom blogging community.

I like that it is very safe, especially for younger students who are just learning to blog. I think a pitfall would be that it is only able to be seen by the teacher and class so you lose some of the power of connecting to learners outside of the class.

This standards-based Real Time Data Module has been created for use by students in the elementary grades to allow them to investigate weather phenomena both locally as well as in other places around the world. By using hands-on activities and real-time data investigations, the students will develop a basic understanding of how weather can be described in measurable quantities, such as temperature, wind and precipitation.