Propello – A New Science Teaching and Learning Platform
Propello is a new service that offers a free and customizable science learning platform. Propello provides teachers with core science curriculum that is recommended for students in grades six through eight. But because Propello allows teachers to modify materials, the curriculum could be used with younger or older students. When you sign-up for a free […]
Five Genius Hour Activities With Tract – Students Teaching Students
Disclosure: Tract is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com Genius Hour or 20% time in a classroom provides students with an opportunity to pursue topics and projects of their choice. Rather than the teacher telling students what project they should complete and how they should complete it, students choose the topic and the project that appeals […]
Free Summer Reading Packets from ReadWorks
Summer is here in the northern hemisphere. If you find yourself looking for some summer reading that you can give to elementary and middle school students, ReadWorks has you covered. Once again this summer ReadWorks is offering free summer reading packets that you can send home with your students. The free summer reading packets are available with […]
Knowt Now Offers Public Galleries of Notes, Flashcards, and Quizzes
Knowt is a neat service that I’ve featured a few times over the last couple of years. It’s a service that will automatically generate flashcards and quizzes from any document that you import into it. The latest update to Knowt provides registered teachers and students with a public gallery of notes, quizzes, and flashcards. Now when […]
Free Historical Coloring Pages
If you’re looking for an offline activity that you can recommend to parents for their students to do at home, take a look at the New York Academy of Medicine’s Color Our Collections website. The site contains contributions from more than one hundred museums and libraries around the world. The participating museums and libraries offered […]
eMammal Lite – Practice Identifying Animals and Learn Where They Live
eMammal Lite is an online activity based on the wildlife photographs on the Smithsonian’s eMammal site. eMammal was previously known as Smithsonian Wild. All of the pictures on both sites were captured by camera traps. Camera traps are wildlife cameras that are triggered by motion when an animal walks in front of a sensor. On eMammal […]
Why Do We Itch? – A Science Lesson
Summer here in northern New England brings long and sunny days that make us forget about the short and frigid days of winter. Those sunny days come with a catch. That catch is blooming poison ivy and biting insects that make us itch. But what really makes us itch? Is there any way to avoid […]
What Causes Body Odor? – A TED-Ed Lesson
What Causes Body Odor? is a new TED-Ed lesson that every middle school health teacher will want to bookmark. The lesson explains where body odor comes from, the processes that and contribute to body odor, and how antiperspirants work. What Causes Body Odor? is part of TED-Ed playlist called Gross Science. Gross Science includes video […]
Rocket Science 101 – Build and Launch Virtual Rockets
Update, January 2021: This app is no longer available. Rocket Science 101 is a free app offered by NASA that helps students understand how rockets work. The app also helps students understand the differences between the four types of rockets most frequently used by NASA. In Rocket Science 101 students can build all four rockets in […]
Front Row Introduces New ELA Practice Activities
Front Row is an excellent service that provides differentiated reading materials and practice exercises in K-12 classrooms. Front Row offers articles and exercises on topics in math, science, social studies, and language arts. The latest update to Front Row features new ELA skills practice activities. The new ELA skills practice activities on Front Row are […]
Webinar Recording – Inquiry and the Fire Lab
On Monday I hosted a free webinar sponsored by Underwriters Laboratories Xplorlabs. The webinar focused on the ideas of inquiry-based learning and how they are applied to Xplorlabs’s Fire Forensics: Claims and Evidence online learning experience. If you missed the webinar, you can view the recording as embedded below. Inquiry-based Learning and the Fire Lab from Richard […]
Youngzine – Great Current Events Resource
Youngzine is an excellent resource for anyone who needs ideas for current events lessons in an elementary school or middle school classroom. Youngzine articles feature a mix of news, sports, and entertainment stories for elementary school students. A new edition is published weekly. Most articles on Youngzine are accompanied by a supporting video. Articles that reference […]
Try the Redesigned Make Beliefs Comix
Make Beliefs Comix has long been one of my favorite tools for creating comics. In fact, I recently featured it in this post about using comics in social studies lessons. Over the weekend the founder of Make Beliefs Comix sent me a note about the redesign of his free comic creation tool. The new version […]
Teaching With Crossword Puzzles from Read Write Think
My grandmother taught Language Arts for decades and she loved crossword puzzles. I know that many other teachers still like to use them in one way or another too. If you would like to create your own crossword puzzles for your students or you want them to create crossword puzzles, take a look at Read Write […]
CK-12 BrainFlex Can Help Kids Keep Their Math & Science Skills Sharp This Summer
For the third summer in a row the CK-12 Foundation is hosting the CK-12 Brainflex Summer Challenge. The challenge is a free program that students can use to keep their math and science skills sharp through the summer while also learning some new knowledge and gaining new skills. Students register for the program and then track […]
Two Good Sources of Online Grammar Games
Road to Grammar is a free resource featuring quizzes, games, and lessons for English language learners. Visitors to Road to Grammar will find grammar quizzes. Most of the quizzes provide students with instant feedback. Part of the feedback that students receive on the quizzes they take includes explanations why an answer is correct or incorrect. Before taking the […]
10 Ideas for Using Comics In Your Classroom – Best of 2016
As I usually do during this week, I’m taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. Over the last couple of months I’ve shared a handful of tools that students can use to create […]
Two Good Sets of Animated Maps for U.S. History Students
Creating my earlier post about resources for learning about Pearl Harbor prompted me to revisit a couple of animated maps of U.S. History. History Animated is a resource that I first started using with students in 2009. History Animated provides animations of battles of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the US Civil War, and US Campaign in […]
ToonyTool – Quickly Create Single Frame Comics
ToonyTool is a free website for quickly creating single frame comics. To get started with ToonyTool simply go to site and either upload a background picture or choose one of their background picture options. Then you can choose comic characters to appear in your comic. Once your characters are chosen, select speech bubbles and add […]
A Short Overview of PrepFactory for Middle School
Last week I shared the news about PrepFactory updating its offerings to include language arts and math practice exercises for middle school students. The new exercises include written and video tutorials that students can consult before, during, or after a round of practice exercises. In the short video embedded below I provide an overview of […]
PrepFactory Introduces Great, New Practice Activities for Middle School Students
PrepFactory is a popular service that for years has offered great, self-paced SAT and ACT preparation activities. For the new school year PrepFactory has expanded to offer self-paced math and language arts lessons for middle school students. The self-paced lessons and activities in the new middle school section in PrepFactory reflect the recent changes to […]
STEM in 30 – A Smithsonian Webcast for Middle School Students
STEM in 30 is a neat webcast produced by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. The series featured 30 minute live webcasts about a variety of topics related to air and space travel and science. During the live webcasts students can submit questions to the show’s hosts. Students can also submit questions in advance […]
How Do We Know What Color Dinosaurs Were?
How Do We Know What Color Dinosaurs Were? is a new TED-Ed lesson that answers a question I often had in school. In the lesson we learn how scientists examine the melanosomes of fossilized feathers to determine the colors of some dinosaurs. The lesson explains how the physics of light and color eventually lead scientists […]