Thinkfinity & Wonderopolis Are Great Together

Thinkfinity is a free resource for teachers, parents, and students. There are thousands of lesson plans, podcasts, videos, interactives, e-sheets, etc. At first glance, many teachers think it is only for the core curricular areas (Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts). However, at my last Thinkfinity workshop, I had a very diverse group of teachers. There was a dance teacher, ESL teacher, health teacher, foreign language teacher, EC teacher, pre-school teacher, elementary teacher, etc. What was so great about this group was that everyone found something that they could use in their classroom proving that there is something for every subject area in Thinkfinity.

Some of the things that they found were very interesting. There were some resources that I wasn't aware of, so I wanted to share them with you.

The ESL teacher searched keyword ESL and then clicked on the Thinkfinity Community Tab. On that tab were several resources. One that I thought was very good was "Assembling an ESL Toolbox". Another one was "Oral English assessments and ESL speaking English Activities". 

The Health teacher found a lesson he liked in ScienceNetLinks on diabetes. He said he liked the lesson because it gave him all the information he needed to teach it and articles for students to read. The lesson was "Heart 2: Changing Lifestyles and Heart Health." There is a quiz for students, esheet, assessment and answer key.

A 5th grade teacher found "What can you make from a buffalo" (a student interactive matching game). This came out of a lesson from Smithsonian's American History on "Origin Stories of Plains Indians". When we pulled up the interactive, we were looking at what Native American children made out of the ribs of the buffalo. They made a sled with the ribs. Then I mentioned that Wonderopolis had a Wonder of the Day about How Sleds and Sleighs are Different.

Almost everyone found something in Wonderopolis. A couple that they pointed out were: "Does Matter Really Matter?" and "What Fairy Tale Ending Would You Change?". They really liked the vocabulary words, the comments, and learning about the different wonders.

Above is a snapshot of the different Content Partners within Thinkfinity.  


One of the things I really liked about this workshop was that everyone found something they could use in their classroom. Also, how they could connect to other areas through Thinkfinity and the Content Partners. The other thing I really liked is that I also learned some new things. 

That is my favorite type of workshop, where we all learn new things together.

Finding Resources

 

While working in schools, teachers ask me to find resources for them to help enrich their lessons. When I went back to the office I was talking about finding some really great resources and what some of my "go to" sites are with my co-worker Melissa Edwards. She suggested that this should go into a blog.

First stop on the "go to" places that I automatically look at when a teacher asks for help finding resources are: Learning Village; Thinkfinity (and the partner sites); and netTrekker. 

1. Learning Village is a repository of information for teachers in WSFCS schools. Teachers can find just about everything in Learning Village. There are blackline masters, week by week essentials, pacing guides, lesson plan ideas, and many more things for teachers.
   
   
2. Thinkfinity (which I have written about many times before), consists of several partner sites that teachers can find great resources. There is math, science, language arts, history, humanities, arts, and foreign language lessons that can be found within the Thinkfinity community. Thinkfinity is free and teachers everywhere can access lesson plans from there.
   
   
3. netTrekker is a database that teachers can search for web sites. Teachers can search by subject area, grade level, or keyword. Just in the past few weeks, I have found resources for rocks and minerals, water cycle, and soil. Some of these are web sites, others are interactives teachers can use on their IWB or have students work on using the computers.
   

 Some other places I find resources are:  reading educator blogs to find out what other teachers are doing in their classroom. I know that everyone is busy and they say they don't have "time" for anything else; especially reading someone's blog post! If you just choose a couple of blogs that you really like and read those, I feel that you will become hooked and look for more blogs. One of the blogs that I get a lot of resources from is "Free Technology for Teachers" by Richard Byrne. He always has some great resources and he always says how they could be used in education.

I follow some great educators on Twitter, along with following the #elemchat stream. Twitter is where educators can quickly share resources with each other or ask if anyone has a resource for a particular item they are getting ready to study. Another resource I use is my Skype group. We have a group of North Carolina educators that chat regularly about resources and helping each other with problems. It is a great group.

You can also find great resources. Next blog I will write about how I organize my resources. Join me, won't you?

Spooky Stories

On Thursday nights this summer, Wonderopolis created Camp What-A-Wonder on Twitter from 8:00 - 9:00 ET (follow #WonderChat). Each week is on a different topic. The first night was about camp memories, the second Thursday about bugs, the third Thursday favorite or worst camp recipes, and last night we talked about spooky stories. Wonderopolis shared a couple of lesson ideas from their partner site Thinkfinity, and that got me to thinking. So, I created a glog on Spooky Stories with links to lesson plans from Wonderopolis, EDSITEment, ReadWriteThink, and ARTSEDGE. All are partners with Thinkfinity. 

These look like very interesting lesson plans to help promote literacy, comprehension, and reading. I don't quite understand it, because spooky was never my favorite genre, but young people love reading scary stories. Why not give these lessons a try?