Water Cycle Song

If you need a song to help your students remember the water cycle, check out this video. Many I found are really bad, kind of like something that my grandparents would have listened to, but this one's pretty good.

So You Want To Teach?

This is a website I thought was kind of cool. Obviously the title is an attention grabber for we pre-service teachers. It is a giant site put together by one guy that covers most topics in teaching (i.e.Classroom management, Personal development,
The life of a band director,Inspiring educators to continue teaching and begin blogging,Teaching children, Teaching other teachers,Teaching music,Pursuing excellence in everything that you do etc.)and it has a large list of questions that we quite often have. Here are a few (out of 100) articles he includes in his site:

4 Ways To Effectively Deal With Important People
Habits of Highly Effective Teachers
Keys To Educating People
Surefire Tips For Handling Misbehavior
Ways To Win When Children Test Your Limits
Motivation Techniques
Ways Blogging Makes Me A Better Teacher
Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick)

It's a cool site to check out!
http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/

TeacherTube

I just found TeacherTube, a channel on YouTube, that is actually an authentic website at TeacherTube.com. I don't know if anyone else has mentioned it before, but I browsed some of the videos and found the Animaniacs cartoon. There are lots of songs (some outdated, like the Presidents song that only goes to the Clintons) that kids would like.

Some of the videos on the channel are not so amazing, but at least it's a place to start and those results will show up when you're searching for videos to use in class.

Like YouTube, you must be a member of TeacherTube to post videos, but I'm pretty sure it's free to join.

Lots of digging...

When I look through our Wiki and our blog posts, it's astonishing how much information is available on the Web. Sometimes the amount of all of it is overwhelming! Life would be much simpler if there was one Web site that compiled everything good and left out the stuff that was not so good. :)

I know most schools have their own homepages and links to their classrooms or grade levels with calendars and bios, but it would be handy if the teachers at the school had a page where they could compile the resources they use. I like Weebly's organization and simplicity... each grade level could have a tab, and within that tab, the teachers could share links to a lesson plan s/he recently used or online activities for students... does anyone know of any schools doing something similar like that?

Creativity & Technology --- Out THERE!

I recently discovered the Shortie Awards, a student news and film festival that recognizes digital media productions made by students and teachers. Some of the submissions are actual short films, others are like the vignettes we made. The Shortie Awards are part of MHz Education, and provides resources such as professional development programs for teachers. They broadcast shows on TV on the East Coast. Here's a sample of one of the winners. It makes me laugh. :)

Class Class. Yes Yes Indeed.

For all you future Power Teachers here is a quick demo on Power Teaching. Learn how to gesture, stomp, and talk over others on your way to a brighter academic future.

Education of Ms. Groves

Education of Ms. Groves is a great series on the Sundance Channel that follows a new teacher as she takes on the challenges of working in an inner city school. This show is both entertaining and informative.


Here is a link to some video clips:
http://www.sundancechannel.com/videos/230227791