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1. Identify
Goals, Needs, and Student Interests
 
For those of you who teach 2nd through 5th grade, many
Elementary
MAPs tools are now available online to help
differentiate. The ladder has added features that
allow you to see individual student needs or to recognize
whole class needs. You
can view the ladder without student names here: Learning
Ladder for MAPs To see your class reports you'll
want to visit the district TIM database.
Elementary MAPs page |
Middle School MAPs page
Learning Ladder |
MAPs Notebook |
TIM
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The
NEW district Curriculum and Instruction site has all
the district resources as well as additional web-based tools
to support differentiation in your classroom.
Once you have
discovered your students' unique differences, strengths, and
needs you'll find there are many online resources that are
PERFECT to keep all of them learning!
The Online Literacy Resources
page can be navigated by your
choice of literacy topics or skills using the labeled books
on the left side of the page. You'll find some
real-world learning opportunities that will motivate the
most reluctant learners.
Don't miss the link to the
Visual Thesaurus, a great tool for all writers! You'll find some real-world learning
opportunities that will truly inspire learning. Be sure to
check out the
Writing with Writers lessons on
Scholastic.com. Also, if you want to have
opportunities to talk to your favorite authors online, be
sure to check the
Scholastic Author Visit calendar. Currently it
holds all the transcripts from this year's chats. Watch
for them to post the authors who are coming in the
2005-2006 school year. You'll also find a lot of great
information about your favorite authors on their
Authors and Books Site. You might want to
join the
Flashlight Reader's Club to visit with your favorite
authors and their books. You can post comments to share
with other readers around the world. Or, best of all, you
might consider starting a "Dear
America Mother/Daughter Book Club" with other Dear
America Mother book fans in your neighborhood or school.
Here is a link to the main site for all the activities
that accompany the
"Dear America Book Series."
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If
you are looking for that perfect solution to differentiate
math instruction in your classroom, you'll find a long list
of tools on the
PreK-5 Technology Resources For Math site.
Don't miss the great Java tools. The
National Library of Virtual Manipulatives groups the
tools by grade level and national math standard.
The
Educational Java Programs site, developed by a Stanford
engineering graduate to improve learning provides projects
for Base
10 blocks: exploring whole, decimal numbers, place
value, and even algebra;
Pattern Blocks,
exploring fractions with shapes;
Cuisenaire Rods: exploring math skills, fractions and
more;
Fraction Bars: exploring equivalent fractions, ordering
fractions, adding fractions, and more;
Clocks: practice telling time.) New resources have been
added for telling time as well! (Visit the
Time Clock game at Primary Games.com)
The web is filled with hundreds of mathematics
adventures of every kind. one web site that is
particularly motivating for GATE students is the
AIMS Math and Science web site. Their
Puzzle Corner presents interesting challenges every
month.
To tour the
web while looking for the answers to math problems, visit:
Scholastic's Math Hunt website. Or you may want to
try your skills on
Math Maven's Mysteries or
Max's Math Adventures.
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Peregrine
Falcons, Tower City/Cleveland, Ohio. The Ohio
Division of Wildlife and APK.net have teamed up to
present one of the most exciting real world science projects
online. Students have a rare opportunity to develop
literacy skills as they read posts, complete research
projects, and record observations of the mating, nesting,
hatching, and parenting behaviors of peregrine falcons.
Students practice their observation and scientific research
skills by watching and
journaling about the behavior of falcons on a web cam and
later analyzing those recorded observations. As the students compare their personal observations and inferences
with those made by professional biologists, they will
naturally be challenged to learn new scientific concepts.
Raptors
in the City provides excellent additional resources to
make this project an outstanding real world learning
experience. We also have a district site,
Falcon Quest that you'll want to visit for
additional research sites and tools to complement this
study. Students in
Lynne Harvey's 4/5 class at Rolling Hills
elementary have maintained a website of their studies
related to the FalconCam for several years. Visit their
amazing science journals at their
Falcon Watch website.
 For
fascinating animations created by NASA scientists in an
effort to visualize collected data, visit their
Holo-Globe of Cumulative Earthquake activity.
For an index of all of the animations currently
available on their site, visit this link:
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific
Visualization Center Index of the Animation Series.
BrainPop has great video and Flash animations
that help students explore many fields of study. They
have an especially rich section of
science videos.
The
National Wildlife Foundation sponsors a
kids'
site that provides hours of learning fun.
The
National Zoo sponsors an entire page of fascinating web
cams so students can study animal behaviors and
habitats virtually.
The
American Museum of Natural History has an entire
website,
"Ology" dedicated to the great "ologies" such as
paleontology, astronomy, marine biology, and more.
Solar
System sites abound on the internet. Click on
this link for a Word
document with links and descriptors for some of the best
sites.
Barbara
Feldman has an excellent site titled
Surfing the Net with Kids that has collections
of the best web sites for kids sorted topically. Her
science links are outstanding.
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Students born after 1980 have been aptly described as
digital natives. Technology is a vital learning tool for
this generation. Visit the
Apples in
Education site to see how teachers across the
country are inspiring student learning through the use of
digital tools in their classrooms. Make sure to
explore some of the great learning experiences on their
Lesson Ideas page.
PUSD students have also
been using the power of digital technology to learn to read
and tell time. For a sample movie and lessons describing how
you can use digital video in your classroom, visit the
First Grade Filmmakers Win 1st site.
Good Readers |
Time Team |
Behind the Scenes
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