Monday 10 September 2012

Teaching About September 11



I have to share this blog post with you today, from the The Learning Network at The New York Times. It is the first post of the 2012-2013 school year in their series Great Ideas from Readers

You'll find two lesson plans there, one by teachers Bev Berns, Shaelynn Farnsworth, Shawn Hyer, Erin Olson and Todd Vogts from schools in Iowa and Kansas, and another by Rachelle Lamoureux of North Dakota. Please read the post, and then watch the video.

Shannon Doyne, who wrote the post, says: "Shaelynn Farnsworth and Erin Olson, along with other teachers...used our collection of 9/11 resources as the foundation for research for the video (below), which was created by students at multiple high schools."




Ms. Doyne continues, "Rachelle Lamoureux...used front-page Times articles from the first 10 days after the attacks as readings to which her “current generation” students responded, then contributed a word for a group collage that captured their reactions." (Lamoureux is a middle school teacher.)

In addition to these two lesson plans, you will find many links to additional teacher resources on the website.

Flashcards, Flashcards, Flashcards!

Five of my best friends and I left early the morning after Labor Day for North Myrtle Beach, SC, to spend the rest of the week relaxing! It was absolutely fabulous, but I did miss you, and I'm ready to get back in the swing of researching and sharing.

Today's post is about a site whose name is a little deceptive. Free ESL Flashcards has 968 images, each of which is available for download in three different sizes! Why three sizes? Here's their answer: "The Big set is great for vocabulary presentation, the Medium set is good for teaching small groups of students and playing language learning games. The Small sets of pictures are great for ESL games..."

But who says they're only great for ESL? You be the judge - categories include:
  • Actions (3 sets, one is shown to the right)
  • Adjectives (opposites)
  • Adjectives (2 sets)
  • Alphabet (2 sets)
  • Animals
  • Body parts (3 sets)
  • Christmas
  • Clothes
  • Colors (2 sets)
  • Daily Activities (2 sets)
  • Emotions (3 sets)
  • Family
  • Food (plurals)
  • Food (uncountable)
  • Halloween
  • Health (2 sets)
  • Numbers
  • Occupations and jobs (3 sets)
  • Places (2 sets)
  • Prepositions
  • Rooms in a house
  • School objects
  • Seasons and Weather
  • Sports
  • Sports actions
  • Sports equipment
  • Sports vocabulary
  • St. Patrick's Day
  • Thanksgiving
  • Time
  • Valentine's Day
There are also coloring picture sets for Christmas, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, and Thanksgiving that your kiddos could use to make greeting cards or to decorate the classroom.

All of these could be printed on card stock and laminated to be used over and over. My teaching partner and I often printed manipulatives like this on plain paper and mounted them on construction paper before laminating. It's a little more time-consuming, but cheaper.

Which ones can YOU use, and how can you use them? I'm sure you'll find great ways!