Friday, May 13, 2011

Spring Stand-Alone Lessons

In every school I have ever worked in,  spring has been a very disrupted time. (Field trips, end-of-the-year concert rehearsals, incoming students visiting, outgoing students leaving to visit... fill in with your favorites!!!) I am not complaining, I think all of these activities are essential and I have never done anything to limit my students' participation. These are, however, disruptive.

One strategy I have come up with to minimize the "damage" done by these disruptions is to try to keep a folder of ideas for single-period activities in my desk. Simple labs when I taught science-- the ones with explosions were the most popular; logic games and puzzles when I taught math. In recent years, my folder has included online activities.

Teachers' Domain-- a resource I have posted here before-- from the good folks (and fellow New Englanders) at WGBH is an excellent source of what I call spring stand alones.

For example... in this months newsletter from Teachers' Domain there was a link to several resources dealing with careers. My favorite includes interactive and video profiles of men and women which work in the sciences.

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