When I started teaching Spanish, my budget for props was essentially nonexistent so I learned to be very creative with what I found around the house.  I had the extra challenge of having no classroom.  Looking around in the basement one day, I found a wonderful thing – a bag of pom poms of various [...]

I’m not usually all that enthusiastic about drill and practice, but the organization FreeRice has come up with an interesting concept.  What a combo – online quizzing combined with the motivation of giving.  John Breen founded FreeRice in 2007 and donated the site to the UN World Food Program in March, 2009.
FreeRice combines an interest in [...]

SHMOOP is still a Beta test (meaning it hasn’t been fully tested and is still being developed), but if what I’ve seen is part of the package, it’s definitely going to be a hit.  Their mission is to make learning and writing more fun and relevant for students in the digital age.  Who can argue [...]

Storytelling enhances communication skills and promotes creativity.  It improves both presentation skills and listening skills.  It gives teachers a way to introduce discussions about diversity, ethics and decision-making.  Storytelling teaches respect for elders and gives students a chance to express their own feelings.  Story Arts Online offers lesson plans and activities developed by storyteller Heather [...]

The website SoftSchools has numerous online games for math, language arts, science, social studies, Spanish and French.  There are games for students in Pre-K through Middle School.  I suggest testing the games before using them because some are more boring than others and the graphics differ greatly from one to the next.  Most of the [...]