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Understanding Fractions, percents, and Decimals

4/27/2014

If you need a little visualization help with fractions, percentages, and decimals this fraction wall may be the answer. It can be used for elementary and middle school students due to its very simple depiction of fractions, or a very detailed look at decimals. You can change the wall around depending on your need of the day. Why not express numbers as mixed fractions, primes, 2s or 3s, or the lowest common denominator? In addition, there is a way to make the wall a more advanced challenge. This wall allows so many visual math changes that you will be studying that it will be added to your bookmark list of great math sites.

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Piggy Bank - Teaching Elementary Students to Save

4/26/2014

Teaching children to save can actually inspire a good time if you use the Piggy Bank Primer. Take this worksheet, run it off and show kids various ways to save and budget. Wonderful packet for elementary school students or your own online learner at home. You'll find many definitions of words used for understanding the concepts of economics. An added plus are lots of activities, stories, and work sheets that help users figure out how to make “wants” attainable.

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Midnight Ride of Paul Revere Interactive

4/19/2014

On the 18th of April in ’75 Paul Revere took his famous ride. Longfellow's poetic description of Paul Revere’s famous ride to warn the colonists about the British arrival in Boston made that ride an important part of our history. Click on the virtual map that shows the routes of Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott in their attempts to sound the alarm while also evading the British patrols. Also included are illustrations on the map to go to pictures and primary source materials that relate to the activities of that fateful night. Great resource to learn about that incredible night!

How to Write Haiku Poetry

4/18/2014

It's National Poetry Month! Time to get out a pen or pencil and begin exercising the creative side of your brain with poetry writing. What better place to start than trying out a haiku! This document from the fabulous site, Writing Fix, gives just a brief explanation of the basic rules for writing Haikus. With a few examples of the three line 5-7-5 philosophy, you'll be writing like a pro in minutes. You can also find examples from the internet as well as some student samples. Elsewhere on the Writing Fix site are additional lessons for writing and using Haikus to make riddles, comparing and contrasting, and for summarizing content material.

A Lesson in Coordinate Geometry

4/12/2014

Rene´ Decartes is the father behind his offspring, the coordinate system, useful in algebra and geometry. If coordinates are just not making useful sense to you in class, try out this instructive tutorial that shows you how to coordinate geometry's lines and points. This four-step lesson first introduces you to the apocryphal story of how Descartes came up with his idea. The second step shows how to place coordinates on a grid, and how to write an ordered pair. Once the foundation is laid, you practice with some problems, and finally you'll be able to see how you really score on a brief test. Included are the vocabulary words that you'll need to understand the concept and share in your next upcoming class.

Understanding the 13th Ammendment

4/9/2014

This month is the 150th anniversary of the Senate’s passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed slavery throughout the United States. The amendment would not be added to the Constitution until 27 of the 36 states ratified it, which finally happened in December, 1865. This site from HarpWeek includes a tremendous amount of information for the reader. There are discussions of slavery, crisis caused by secession, early emancipation ideas, Lincoln’s policies on emancipation, and an in-depth section on the 13th Amendment itself. Each section includes numerous links to primary source documents, articles from Harper’s Weekly, and political cartoons. In addition there is a timeline of the discussion of slavery and its abolition from the beginning of our country’s history. Also included are biographies of people involved, and a glossary. This is a great teacher or student resource.

Funbrain: Memory Game Guess the Number

4/5/2014

This game helps build memory skills by exercising that part of your brain that requires concentration and attention to detail. Think of it as a muscle and by picking incorrect numbers you will strengthen the possibility of picking the correct one. You have choices of choosing numbers between 1 and 10, 1 and 100, and -1000 and 1000. As you guess, a chart shows whether your guess is too high or too low. By knowing that, you can focus in on the correct number. The catch is that you have only a certain number of guesses. If you choose to play the hard way, you’ll find out if your guesses are too high or too low, but you’ll have to remember what numbers you've picked.

Explore Poetry at the Poet's Pantry

4/3/2014

April is National Poetry Month. You can explore different kinds of poetry at the Poet's Pantry. Try reading the works of various poets on a delightful field trip. There is enough poetry across the curriculum to cover many components. This site is valuable for both students and teachers because it links to many sites for poetry models and device techniques. Students can find out about dozens of poetry forms with examples of each one. They'll also enjoy the humor and craft of such poets as Shel Silverstein, Ken Nesbitt, and Jack Prelutsky. Teachers and parents will find many resources that emphasize cross-curricular activities.