Middle School Teacher Resources

21st Century Skills

Partnership for 21st Century Skills - everything you need to know about 21st century skills!

Route 21 - a one-stop-shop for 21st century skills-related information, resources and community tools.

Edutopia - stories about innovative middle schools, videos that show ideas in action, interviews with experts, and whole sets of information around themes like Project-Based Learning and Technology Integration.

Growing Minds - a resource page for 21st century skills projects.

Technology Integration

Education World - Technology Integration - articles, ideas, videos...all about integrating technology.

Bionic Teaching - cutting edge ideas for technology integration in all areas of education.

English

Criterion - (Subscription Required) allows students to practice writing an essay based on a prompt. Online software evaluates essay and reports results to student and teacher.

Punctuation Paintball - Players must place punctuation marks in the correct locations to progress through game. Great graphics!!

Teachers Talk English

Math

Math Playground - an action-packed site for elementary and middle school students. Practice your math skills, play a logic game and have some fun! This site has a wonderful word problem page with cartoon videos explaining the answers. There is also a very colorful Math Manipulatives Page.

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives - Virtual manipulatives related to the NCTM standards for grades 6 - 8.

Rainforest Maths - wonderful interactive site with activites for all areas of math covering grades K-6. Great Graphics!

Teachers Talk Math

Science

Physical Science Life Science General

Discovery School's Curriculum Center - Here you will find classroom activities supporting core curriculum topics. Topics include: Bacteria, Chemistry, Electricity, Genetics, Magnetism, Oceans, Solar System, The Universe, Weather & Climate, and Viruses. There is a full page of resources for each topic and every page includes a Peak Their Interest section with quick facts to grab your students' attention.

Teachers Talk Science

Social Studies

The Authentic History Center - The Authentic History Center is comprised of artifacts and sounds from American popular culture. It was created to teach that the everyday objects in society have authentic historical value and reflect the social consciousness of the era that produced them.

Teachers Talk Social Studies

World Geography

Global Incident Map - a global display of terrorism and other suspicious events. Preview before Display

Reuters Interactive Map - Real Time map highlights Conflicts, Sudden Disasters, Food Security, Health.

Interactive Thematic World Map - Various world maps based on real world data reflect health, trade patterns, gender, income inequatlity. Includes Lesson Plans: Health Care Spending and Life Expectancy, Pros & Cons of Globalization.

World Maps from National Geographic - Great Outline Maps sponsored by National Geographic To hide country name, select basic view (unfortunately, this will still show water names). You can also print maps from this site.

3rd World Farmer - A thought provoking simulation. You try to survive as a farmer in a 3rd World Country.

Games

I Know That 6th Grade - Interactive games for all subject areas. My personal favorite is Punctuation Paintball! Students do not have to register, just click on "Maybe Later" when prompted.

Video Resources

United Streaming - (Subscription Required) downloadable videos on all subject areas.

TeacherTube - Downloadable videos relevant to education. Created by students and teachers.

Tools

Puzzlemaker - from DiscoverySchool.com - Puzzlemaker is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, criss-cross, math puzzles, and more using your own word lists.

4Teachers.org - Find current resources that align with standards, promote higher-order thinking, and support the development of writing skills. Monitor student research and writing, evaluate student performance, and create bilingual online lessons, classroom calendars, and quizzes in less time than traditional methods.

General

Thinkfinity - lessons plans, student materials, reviewed Web resources and interactives.

DiscoverySchool.com for Teachers - Lesson plans, teaching tools, chat listservs, classroom customizers, a clip art gallery, a puzzle generator, and access to Kathy Shrock's famous collection of education weblinks in every imaginable category.

SOL Practice

SOL Practice Sites for Grades 3-8

Tutorials

ITRT Resources

Doug Johnson - Writing, Speaking and Consulting on school technology and library issues. ..."These printable sessions are tailored for school media specialists, technology coordinators, administrators, and teachers. All are illustrated with involving computerized slide presentations, include handouts, and include both theory and practical applications. And of course, humor is a very large part of every presentation - and sometimes it is even intentional. Evaluations of these sessions have been consistently highly rated. These workshops are constructivist based. Each workshop has clearly stated goals, practical handouts, lots of discussion and small group work. My goal in a workshop is to have each participant return to his/her institution with a working plan of action to create change." - Doug Johnson

TED Conference - TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). Search for talks on Education.