Netwatch - Professionally Speaking

Resources

This issue's NetWatch provides online resources to make heading back to class a little easier.

by Lynda Scarrow

Back-to-school sites

Discovery School

school.discovery.com

practical tools

The Discovery School home page includes a link to Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators with back-to-school activity sheets, checklists, first-day activities, icebreakers and 101 things for the first three weeks. You'll also find links to numerous lesson plans and other helpful information.

Scholastic for Teachers

teacher.scholastic.com

idea, templates and more

While the back-to-school materials are not extensive, they are well organized and separated by grade. For especially useful items for teachers, click on any of the links at the top of the page. Tools offers a number of teaching templates and classroom management materials while Teacher Home provides teaching ideas by grade. The site also includes a nicely designed home-page builder you can use to create your own teacher web page.

EduHound

eduhound.com

a few good materials

EduHound professes to track it down so you don't have to. The back-to-school section includes activities, bulletin-board ideas, clip art and worksheets.

Two things about the site, however, are extremely irritating: advertising overshadows content and pages open with flashy special effects that slow down access.

ABC Teach

abcteach.com

adaptable help

ABC Teach is a simply designed, well-organized site that offers math worksheets, sudoku puzzles, shape books, clip art, fun activities, flash cards and more. You can customize these by clicking the blue "abctools" apple at the top of the page.

I Love That Teaching Idea

ilovethatteachingidea.com

sharing ideas

Founded by two elementary school teachers, this site is terrific if you are looking for teacher-supplied ideas for your classroom. There are 20 different categories, including First Day, Classroom Management, Substitutes and Learning Centers. You can also submit your own ideas for other teachers to use.

ProTeacher Community

proteacher.net

friendly suggestions

The ProTeacher Community Archive is a growing collection of tens of thousands of ideas shared by US and international teachers over the years. Type "back to school" in the search field and you'll receive 61 different suggestions. The nice thing about this site is that the tone is friendly and conversational.