Resources for New Teachers Part 2

Sites for New Teachers:

http://www.pacificnet.net/~mandel/index.html
This is the website I recommend for new teachers.  It has good suggestions on books to purchase for new teachers, lesson plans for new teachers, and how to improve test scores.  It is titled Teachers helping teachers.  It gives good ideas in a wide range of topics.  It even has information on special education.  Classroom management and new teacher survival guide are all included on this website.  A must see and use for all new teachers or even tenured teachers that need new ideas.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com
Enchanted Learning is an excellent teacher resource website. In addition to lesson plans, it offers a broad range of activities in many different subjects. It has over 17,000 web pages containing a myriad of printouts that can be downloaded in seven languages.  The only downside to this is that while most of the activities are free to download, some are for members only.  However, membership is only $20.00 a year.

http://www.goodcharacter.com/
Free resources, material and lesson plans for elementary, middle school (English and Spanish) and high school.  You may also create your own lesson plans It has earned the Parents Choice Recommendation. It has links that include service learning, organizations, scholarships and products.  Each lesson includes a quiz, discussion questions, writing assignment and extension activity.

http://webquest.org
The website, which I think is useful for the first time teachers, is web quest because it provides various different lessons plans and activities on different subjects. The reason why I think this web site is useful for new teachers because it gives the teachers ideas and they can integrate with their curriculum and some of the activities are virtual related where the students can explore other places around the world and it is educational related. In addition, web quest have educational games like jeopardy, math, and spelling games, which can used additional support for the students.
In my classroom, I use web quest for fun activities because the students can learn more about computers, and they also learn about other subjects. My students really enjoy working on various activities because they believe they are exploring different places. In addition, my students are also learning other aspects of learning such as, distant learning or computer aided learning.

http://www.electricteacher.com/newteacher/
I really like this website because it’s just a wealth of information for new teachers, for example, Tips and Ideas for New Teachers, New Teacher Survival Guide, Teachers First: New Teachers, etc.; and web links to other websites that are interactive, educational and specific grade level website for 1 through 6. In this website new teachers will get a lot of lesson plan samples, some are tied in with the standards.

www.teachers.net
I like this website due to the wealth of information for new teachers.  It incorporates a meeting place for both experienced and new teachers alike.  Experienced teachers are able to share their experiences to help save new teachers from making the same painful mistakes.   Suggestions from how to deal with troubling students and parents to ideas for lesson plans are always available.
I also like the columns available from the famous authors of “The First Days of School”, Harry and Rosemary Wong.  There are links to past discussions or articles and also stories of teacher’s experiences.  This website is filled with helpful sources for new teachers including links to jobs available.

http://www.buildingrainbows.com/CA/ca.home.php
This is a great website where new teacher can find free lessons and classroom project.  Lesson plans are divided according to grade levels and subjects.  It is also open to anyone that would like to share his or her ideas and make some money out of it. 

http://www.poetry4kids.com
This site provides a variety of poems, which people can enjoy. This site also provides you with a book on how to write poetry. Nesbitt also provide a section of poetry books written by a variety of authors. He provides us with links, and school visits that Nesbitt and other poets have made. Also there is section dedicated to all the awards given to this site.
Nesbitt encourage children to submit their poems, and provides feedback on the poems they have written. If you go to Poetry Post, you can read poetry written by students around the world, and submit a poem you’ve written.
Also, he provides three lines to poem and then has students think about what line they can add. Teachers can have the rhyming dictionary bookmarked so students can go on the computer to find rhyming words when stuck.

http://www.canteach.ca/
This website has a ton of useful information for all subject areas. Though it is geared towards multiple subject teachers, it can be adapted by single subject teachers as well.  I especially like the Writing Prompts & Journal Topics under English Language Arts.

http://www.mypyramid.gov/
This year the food pyramid has changed from what we have known it to be the last few years.  Now students have the opportunity to design their own diet plan congruent with their age and activity level.  As a teacher, try it out on yourself first!!!

http://k-6educators.about.com/
About Elementary Educators offers a wide range of resources. It offers articles, lesson plans, and resources for all of the subjects. It provides articles on helpful classroom management, as well as new and innovative ways of teaching. Not only is it a huge resource in itself, but it also provides tremendous amounts of links to different teacher related websites. It’s a one-stop shop for elementary school teachers and a fabulous resource for new teachers.

www.quoteland.com
Quoteland.com is as described a place where a teacher can find quotes on just about “every topic, by author, and in every fashion possible.”  Quotes are categorized by topic, authors, random; there are resources, discussion groups, etc.
How can a teacher find use for this site?
I give a weekly assignment where I give students a quote and they have to write a reflection piece about the meaning of the quote, what we can learn from the quote, what message is being conveyed and whether they agree with it or not.  These are but some of the ways they can respond to the quote.  The assignment is pretty open-ended and so the responses vary in scope and quality.
This site is resourceful to get food for thought for debates or discussion topics you may have in class.

http://www.unitedstreaming.com/
This is a great website because it has over 40, 000 video clips for all subject from K to college level.   The videos are about 30 minutes long and include supplemental notes for teachers and exciting activities for students.  These videos are excellent instructional materials that teachers can incorporate into your curriculum.

Sites for Special Education:

www.specialed.guide@about.com
This website is fantastic for teachers teaching special education. Even teachers who are teaching in a regular classroom may benefit from this website. The website always have an updated news and articles such as differentiated learning, adaptive technology in the classroom, qualifications in special education. These are some topics that are helpful for special education teachers. This website also offers some worksheets or graphic organizer teacher in the classroom may use. Teachers may subscribe to this website and they’ll be sent every week.

Sites for Mathematics:

http://www.math.com/
This website is really great for teachers teaching math at all levels and for students as well.  They’re interactive and one can choose which area of Math they would like to focus on.  For example, if a teacher is teaching at a lower math, he can just go to basic math or if the students are in higher math, the teacher can just focus on either calculus, statistics or advance topics in math.  Other than that, this website offers a step by step practice on specific topics one needs help on.  For examples, fractions, integers, inequalities, etc.  Also, this website has calculators and other tools one can use. Teachers may open an email account with this website for free.

http://www.mathematicshelpcentral.com/index.html
Mathematics Help Central makes available collegiate level lecture notes for Geometry, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, and more. You can also get homework help from “Dr. Math” by posting homework questions. Furthermore, the site offers a link to “TI help” for those who need help with their Texas Instruments calculators.
What I found very useful about this site is the printable graphing paper. They come in color and black and white-preview it before printing! This feature definitely comes in handy when you don’t have any graphing paper available.

Sites for Physics teachers:

http://www.science-house.org/learn/Physics/1objective1.html
The Physics Curriculum Resource Guide is part of The Science House project.  It provides hands-on learning activities in physics.  It contains links to websites and lesson plans on 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional motion, forces, mechanical energy, Newton’s Laws of Motion, impulse and momentum, wave motion and light, thermodynamics, static electricity, and DC circuits.  The websites that can be access from this site are invaluable to a teacher who is faced with the formidable task of making physics fun to K-12 students.  By using sport themes like hockey and luge racing, these sites give teachers the ability to draw on student’s backgrounds and interests.  The interactive graphical interfaces that can be found in this website might make the notion of today’s children studying physics more realistic.

www.physicslessons.com/
PhysicsLessons.com online learning resources that meets many of the informational needs of today's busy science teacher. PhysicsLessons.com has been recognized by the California Science Teacher's Association as a "great resource for teachers" and the NSTA lists PhysicsLessons.com as a "recommended Web Site. It’s content includes: MicroLabs. Quick and effective, hands-on experiments for students. X-Labs.  Complete Lab experiments including purpose, concept, materials, procedure and analysis questions. iPhysics - 70 Award-winning interactive lab simulations. And Speed-References such as Calculators, Unit converters, Equations, interactive Periodic Table, and much more. Q-Physics.  Questions that probe conceptual understanding. Great for quizzes, tests or review. They also have a Great Stuff Monthly Newsletter featuring teaching tips, tricks and insights. And a brand new section Quiz Zone  Quizzes that grade themselves!

Earth Science Sites:

http://www.geosociety.org/educate/
This site is run by the Geological Society of America.  I like this website because they have great information about the earth sciences.  There are lesson plans for K-12 and they are sorted both by topic and by age group.  They also have extensive links to other websites that also feature lesson plans and activities.

ESL and Foreign Languages Sites:

http://www.goodcharacter.com/
Free resources, material and lesson plans for elementary, middle school (English and Spanish) and high school.  You may also create your own lesson plansIt has earned the Parents Choice Recommendation. It has links that include service learning, organizations, scholarships and products.  Each lesson includes a quiz, discussion questions, writing assignment and extension activity. 

http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1
The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language is an organization that provides numerous resources for foreign language teachers. Teachers have the option to become members and get the annals of foreign language, which has the latest research on second language acquisition. Also, the ACTFL gives different workshops to help the FL teacher learn more strategies and methods to engage the students.

http://www.tolearnenglish.com
I like this site integrates technology into the curriculum with an emphasis to culturally diverse students. Most importantly English Language Learners can be served here. There is a challenging flags quiz, even to secondary students. There are 9000+ links to TESL/TEFL. It contains view and audio files galore, even those of interest to secondary teachers, what I find to be the most utilitarian aspect is the fact that even though this is a great resource for teachers the straightforward organization, makes it a wonderful place to send student groups or individuals to work independently. Whether its articles on current events, games, quizzes, video/audio files, placement tests or any ESL pursuits this is an excellent resource for new teachers.

www.davescafe.com
I really like this website because it provides a lot of nice teaching ideas for teaching ESL. It has a lot of nice icebreaker/warm up ideas for ESL students.

Social Studies Sites:

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/k-2/index.html
The above government website is the one I used for the past two years. The website provides information regarding the U.S. Government to K-12 students.  The website has visuals that you can use in classroom with a projector, it has interactive activities, and it has printed activities to use as well.  I taught ELL’s and fluent English students and I was able to utilize the website to help me teach government.  The website is easy to follow and understand for those that do not use the Internet as much.  It also provides a long list of web links of additional resources to use in class.  I especially enjoyed the National High School Debate Topic site in the 9th-12th grade section.  The information to provide students to begin researching their topic to prepare for debate is given and the students can go from there to research other sites.  This website is great for students to understand the processes of the U.S. Government and for teachers to utilize at all levels.

http://www.csun.edu/~hcedu013/
This is a great web site for beginning social studies teachers looking for all kinds of new ideas.  With wonderful lesson plans and resources for social studies teachers.  It also offers teaching strategies, online activities, newsgroups, and a mailing list.  I believe this link most obviously belongs on the single subject history icon of the N.H.U.’s teaching resource section of their web site.

www.learncalifornia.org
This site is all about Teaching California history. I discovered it over the summer when I was looking for lesson plans on Japanese Internment camps.  It has a lot of good lessons and activities for teaching California history, so it is a really great way to help students learn what history has actually happened here in their own backyard so to speak.  They also have great students links and research resources that you can tap into.  I have gotten some great ideas for my government class here for dealing with court case rulings so I can directly relate the material to my students’ lives.  Have Fun!