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FREE Federal Resources for Educational Excellence
http://free.ed.gov/index.cfm
FREE has more than 1,500 federally supported teaching and learning resources from federal agencies.  It was conceived in 1997 by a federal working group in response to a memo from the President (President Clinton).
This site has animations, primary documents, photos, and videos.  Animations includes 30 resources such as A Tour of the Cell, Seeing Math Interactives, and Invention at Play to name a few.  There are a 134 Primary Documents.  Among these documents is Using Primary Sources in the Classroom to offer suggestions as to how use photos, documents, and other artifacts to bring history alive in your classroom.  Finally there are 80 photographic resources and 41 video resources available.  The FREE resources can be access by subject.  Check out this fabulously valuable resource!

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History of Earth Day - http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement
Today, April 22nd is Earth Day.  It is the 42nd Anniversary for this environmental movement.  The linked article speaks of the history of Earth Day.  Both the Earth Day Network http://www.earthday.org/ and the United States Environmental Protection Agency  http://www.epa.gov/earthday/ has many fantastic and educational resources to include in your teaching.  Check out Six Words for the Planet on the EPA website.  This is a way for students to creatively think about and express Earth Day, protecting our planet, or any environmental topic of essence in six words.


Pottermore - http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/04/k-12/pottermore-opens-to-all/
Have you heard J.K. Rowling's website Pottermore is here!  Pottermore is a free site where users can enter Hogwarts where you get sorted into one of the four houses and have a wand choose you!  It is an online experience from J.K. Rowling based on the Harry Potter books.  

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Encourage, Promote, and Persuade Summer Reading
The last few weeks I have been teaching students in grades K-8 about Award Winning books.  I love to book talk books just enough to entice student interest in this year's Award Winning books.  Below is a list of award winning books to encourage your students to read this summer.  


Newbery Award: Dead in Norvelt by Jack Gantos 
Newbery Honor: Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai and
Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin 
Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner: Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Winner: Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom illustrated by Shane W. Evans
Pura Belpre Author Award Winner: Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
Pura Belpre Illustrator Award Winner: Diego Rivera: His World and Ours written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh
Pura Belpre Illustrator Honor Books: The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred illustrated by Rafael López and Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match /Marisol McDonald no combina illustrated by Sara Palacios

Caldecott Award: A Ball for Daisy written and illustrated by Chris Raschka

Caldecott Honor: Blackout written and illustrated by John Rocco; Grandpa Green written and illustrated by Lane Smith; and Me … Jane written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell


For more ideas go to the American Library Associations book and media awards page at http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia

Books to promote to high school students include the following award winning books.
Printz Award: Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
Printz Honor: Why We Broke Up written by Daniel Handler; The Returning written by Christine Hinwood; Jasper Jones written by Craig Silvey; The Scorpio Races written by Maggie Stiefvater
Schneider Family Book Award: The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

District Wide Information

April is National Poetry Month(NPM) - In between all of the testing in April consider a fantastic month long celebration of poetry NPM was started in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41 You and your students could make a poem of the day book where each day a different student writes a poem.  This among many other ideas as seen in the websites I've included in this posting offer many ideas, lessons and resources. 
Check out the lessons and ideas to celebrate National Poetry Month provided by Read Write Think. There are lessons and ideas for teachers K-12.
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/calendar-activities/april-national-poetry-month-20478.html
Scholastic highlights many well known poets such as Jack Prelutski, Karla Kuskin, Maya Angelou, and Shel Silverstein. This has many ideas and lessons available too.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/poetry/

District Wide Information

During the High School building level PLC time last Wednesday teachers presented how they were using the following tools in their classroom for formative assessments or for student learning.

Poll Everywhere - http://www.polleverywhere.com/
Poll Everywhere an easy way to poll student learning, opinions, or background knowledge.  It is easy to set up and use with computer, iPad or cell phone access. 

Go Soap Box - http://gosoapbox.com/ Go Soap Box is similar to Poll Everywhere in that you can poll students. But it also has backchanneling capability where students can ask questions as presentations by you or classmates share information.  This is a great way to get students to ask questions.  Especially those that may otherwise be too shy to raise their hand.


Socrative - http://socrative.com/ Mitch Maxwell has used Socrative in his science classrooms and has some terrific tips to get started at the following slide presentation.
http://portal.sliderocket.com/BMUZL/Socrative-presentation

Creating You Tube Videos for the Classroom

http://prezi.com/mco1vuefvzmr/creating-educational-videos-for-youtube/ Thank you to Marty Brandl, MHS math teacher, for sharing how he creates YouTube Videos for his classes.  He is willing to help anyone with questions.