I know, I know. Why on earth am I posting about the State of the Union? A few reasons. It's important. As a child, ages 5-18, we always talked about it in some way shape or form in school. I'm a Social Studies, History geek. It's important. Whether you "like" or "dislike" the President, he had some good points. It's important. Have I said that enough? Alright you get the point. I'll spare you my personal thoughts on the actual address, but I did watch the whole thing and I did listen. But there are some things that you may find of use for discussions on the State of the Union.
(Image created using Tagxedo. I took the words of the address, copy and paste them into Tagxedo, chose the US as a shape and there you go. An instant word cloud that shows the most commonly used words in bold.)
Happy New Year and welcome to 2012! 2012 brings much anticipation and speculation for the world and also the United States as it is a Presidential election year. So if you are looking for some information on the candidates and up to date information check out this site FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight a site all about numbers and is pretty cool. You'll also find links to the Primary Calendar, Poll Watch and various other information. This will be first of many posts that focus on the election this year, so be sure to check back!
Ever wonder how much it would actually cost to purchase some of the items in the 12 Days of Christmas? This is a great to look at the rising cost of products or perhaps even the decrease in value. Through this interactive game, students can collect and find out just how much it would cost. So go ahead and take a look at The Twelve Days of Christmas, put together by PNC
bank. It's a great interactive if you are studying financial literacy and percent change over time. After you've completed this years price, you are able to scroll through and look at years past as a whole or individually by items.
A month ago I wrote about attending a workshop on embedding literacy across the curriculum. (see old post) In total the workshop is 6 days long and so far I've completed 4 days. In my post I shared my ideas, thoughts and goals on literacy. Another co-worker and I were recently asked to help a Literacy Coach come up with some resources that she could pass on to participants in her workshop on Literacy. She was looking for anything from listening to reading, working with words, sorting, printables, etc. and the list goes on. So that's what I've been up to. I've created a wiki with the help of my co-worker in which we've put a bunch of resources together to promote literacy and using technology. The wiki, Elementary Literacy Seminar is what we created. Geared towards the audience of K-4, you'll find links to sites that you can listen to books being read, download worksheets to go along with the stories and even play some games. Like I said there are quite a few resources there, so just play around. For example the site Speakaboos has fables, nursery rhymes and other favorites, such as 'Arthur' that you listen to. And if that doesn't catch your attention, try out Storyline Online. The Screen Actors Guild is the sponsor of this site that brings stories alive to students through the use of streaming video. Each book includes lesson ideas and is read by actors such as Lou Diamond Phillips reading the Polar Express . Check out our wiki, we'll continue to update it!
CNN Student News is a great site to check out if you are looking for daily current events for your students. CNN Student News has a program that airs each weekday during the school year. The actual newscast itself is streamed on CNNStudentNews.com and is even available as a free download as a video podcast on CNN. The news program is perfect for middle or high school students. As a teacher you can even check out some of the FREE teacher materials. Check out the Daily Discussion and Newsquiz, the Blog from A-Z and there are even printable maps in .pdf form. This site is definitely worthy of being added to your favorites bookmark!
I found this cool tool while I was just searching around the net. Zoom.it lets you take the url of a picture, map, painting, etc., and creates a high resolution file. Then you are able to explore the whole image. Your able to zoom in on parts of the image that may not have been clearly visable by just viewing the standard size. With trying to get more document analysis in the classroom and the recent move to the Common Core, what better way to help your students?
This allows you to zoom way in on specific things, move around, zoom back out and highlight specific items in the image. Try it from the front of the class or use it in groups as they complete their document analysis.
Zoom.it also creates a Zoom url that you can take and embed on your website. Here's a link to an image that I used. And for some of you, you may want to try the bookmarklet. Give it a try! Happy Zooming :-)
Columbus Day is just around the corner. TeachingHistory.org has a great spotlight section on Columbus. You'll find resources for Elementary, Middle and High School students on the great Chris. Have your students take the quizzes on Columbus to see how much they really know. It can be pretty tricky. Columbus day gives you a great opportunity to talk about myths and facts in history. You can even tie it in with European Exploration and the impact that it has had on the world. There are even video clips and documents from the Library of Congress. And if you don't use it in your lesson, take a second to explore it on your own. You might be surprised at what you find out.
"In fourteen hundred
ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He had three ships and left
from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.
October 12th they sighted
land,
And set their feet upon new sand."
I know, I know. Why on earth am I posting about the State of the Union? A few reasons. It's important. As a child, ages 5-18, we always talked about it in some way shape or form in school. I'm a Social Studies, History geek. It's important. Whether you "like" or "dislike" the President, he had some good points. It's important. Have I said that enough? Alright you get the point. I'll spare you my personal thoughts on the actual address, but I did watch the whole thing and I did listen. But there are some things that you may find of use for discussions on the State of the Union. 
