Thanksgiving is coming, and you want something to teach, instead of connect-the-dots and word searches.  Try some of  these:

Plimoth (Yes that is the olde way of spelling it).  If you click here for the online resources, you can download a research lesson plan appropriate for 3^rd to 5^th grades.  History, primary sources, fact or fiction, and several other skills are covered.  Make sure to check the teacher’s guide.  From the main page there is an educator’s resource section, of which my favorite is the page of old maps.

Mayflower History.  Loads of resources, mostly to be read.  It does show animated maps of the voyage.  One thought provoking section is the collection of individual histories of members of the colony.  It might be an interesting project to have students report on the histories of some of the lesser-known members.

ABCTeach has loads of project and activity ideas for K-12.

Emints has portals to lesson plans and websites for Thanksgiving, the Plymouth colony, and the Mayflower.  The Mayflower section includes schematics of the ship.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

 In any case, the following link was sent to me by Melissa Nally-Hicks, media specialist at Remington Elementary.  Monty Harper (a children’s songwriter) has written a song for the Oklahoma Centennial: “1907″.  Look for the mp3 link to the right to listen to the song.  It also includes a lead sheet (lyrics and guitar chords).  Give it a try.

 I will be looking up some other links for Oklahoma’s birthday.  In the meantime, remember the official state website.  It has several good educational activities and resources.

Here’s a few lesson plans and activities from the state department of education. 

This page gives you a few more resources.

Here’s a list of Centennial websites, although it is 12 months old

Happy Birthday, Oklahoma!

The first step is to take digital pictures of all your students and download them to your computer (I use head and shoulder shots instead of full body). You don’t have to worry about pretty as long as it is natural.

Next open up Excel. Normally Excel will not tell you where the edges of the paper are, so do this: (1) Click “View” from the tool bar at the top of the page. (2)Click “Page Break Preview”. Your page will shrink to nothing, but don’t panic. (3) Click “View” and “Normal”. Voila! You have the normal page, but now there are dotted lines in certain places. These are the edges of the page, and you can ensure that all your notes fit onto one page.

If you are brave and want to draw some furniture into the room, Click “View”, “Toolbars”, “Draw Tools” (unless your toolbar is already open at the bottom of the screen, like my computer). The tools will draw lines, boxes and circles. If you are trying this part, draw your objects first because drawing them around your pictures will place them on top of the pictures. There is a fix for this, but let’s starrt simple.

Hopefully you have some experience inserting pictures into a documents (”Insert”, “Pictures”, “…from File”). You’ll notice that the pictures are too large. There are two ways to deal with this: (1) Click on the picture, grab a corner, and resize it manually. (2) Right click on the picture and click “Format Picture”. Click the “Size” tab and change the height of the picture (.5 to .75 is suitable). I like this method because I can ensure that all the pictures are the same size.

Now drag the pictures to the appropriate spots. Type the names in the boxes underneath the picture. If you had tried this in Word, placing the text would have been troublesome.

Be nice to your substitute; Give it a try!

The site is free to educators, costs nothing, runs no ads, and requires only the knowledge of running Microsoft Word to operate (unless you want to create a new page; this requires a little more tech).

For an example, check out this entry by the 3rd graders at Park Elementary. It took a couple of hours to learn the nuances, upload the pictures and cut and paste the reports. How long does it take us to make up a bulletin board spot on our wall (and how often will parents show up at the classroom to see it)?

As more pages appear (3rd grade Park is working on a poetry page) I will give you the link. Try it out for yourself.

The question is, “What and how do we teach through it?”

I’m looking for your suggestions here, particularly about aquarium visits. How do you use this event to teach?

A $10 gift certificate will go to the best idea. I’ll ask some of the principals to judge, so that there will be a resemblance of partiality.

A note: for those of you who are unfamiliar with blogs,

1. Click on the word “comments” directly below this article
2. Enter your name and e-mail, and write your comments.
3. Click on the “abschicken” button (I didn’t design the button)