Internet4Classrooms Newsletter: December 2010

Hello! Thanks so much for using Internet4Classrooms with your students and children. Our mission is to help you find the best educational online resources available to meet your individual needs. Our monthly newsletter focuses on sharing information, tips, and ideas on everything related to schooling inside the classroom and at home. Each month we'll be featuring resources and information on a variety of topics. We are constantly upating information on our site, and urge you to visit often!

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What's Happening This Month?

There's a lot going on in this month. Reconnect with family and friends by celebrating Write to a Friend Month. December was also a time for building the foundations of our country. Most of these events fall under three main categories: History/Social Studies, Inventions/Discoveries, and Winter Celebrations. Here are some ways to integrate these historical events into your lesson plans.

CELEBRATE LITERACY

Write to a Friend Month

Who doesn't love getting a letter? I4C offers tools for teaching students how to write friendly letters. We've found many online writing standards resources that you can use. To find writing resources by grade level, scroll to the grade skills you need, and click on language arts below the current standards line. You will see "writing" as an option along with other standards help.

Emily Dickinson's Birthday (12/10/1830)

Use this day to read poems by Emily Dickinson, and celebrate poetry as a whole. Here's a tour of some elementary level poetry samples. This site offers middle/high school poetry lesson plans, giving not only 30 types of poems but also examples and instructions. Teach your students rhyme and rhythm with a comprehensive overview of poetry. Learn how to analyze poetry. Find poetry writing practice and poetry worksheets to help learn poetry terms.

HISTORY / SOCIAL STUDIES

Rosa Park's Day (12/1/1955)

Rosa Park's actions on Dec 1st 1955 provide an opportunity for educators today to teach our students social studies standards and history standards on civil rights and the civil rights movement. Find Rosa Parks worksheets, lessons, and quizzes to help discuss this historic event.

Pearl Harbor Day (12/7)

Learn about Pearl Harbor while using primary and secondary sources to discuss the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the accounts that followed.

Bill of Rights Went Into Effect (12/15/1791)

Using Social Studies Standards, learn the purpose of the Bill of Rights. Find lesson plans on the Bill of Rights. Take advantage of this comprehensive list of Bill of Rights activities, lessons, games, and more. Move your cursor over the town to enjoy this online interactive Bill of Rights game.

INVENTIONS

First Crossword Puzzle Published in Newspaper (12/21)

Create your own crossword puzzles with these cool crossword puzzle generators in number 3. It's a great way to get students thinking. I4C also has links to online crossword puzzle games on the Daily Dose of the Web page.

Thermometer was Invented (12/22)

Find great resources for teaching students all about thermometers, including how to read thermometers, how to understand the differences between Celsius and Fahrenheit, and learning about temperature with number 9's temperature worksheets. There are interactive thermometer games for comparing degrees on multiple days and online temperature quizzes. Take advantage of this online physics tutorial about Farhenheit to Celsuis conversion.

Bowling Ball was Invented (12/29/1862)

Work on elementary math skills using these online bowling games. Bowling for fractions and Number 10's bowling for subtraction are great ways to integrate math while having fun. Practice math skills while trying to figure out how to calculate a bowling score. The history of bowling is more interesting than you think!

WINTER HOLIDAYS

National Cocoa Day (12/13)

There is nothing better than hot chocolate on a cold winter's day! But do you know where chocolate comes from? Explore this page of sites that offer lesson plans on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Play Name that Candybar and other online chocolate games. Watch a video about how chocolate is made. And discover classroom chocolate projects.

First Day of Winter (12/21)

Celebrate Winter by with these great winter lesson plans for almost every subject and every grade. Play dress the bear in Kindergarten . Find seasonal changes lesson plans, and an online weather game. Here are some winter-themed math worksheets you can use for grades 1-5.

Hanukkah (12/1)

Christmas (12/25)

Find everything Christmas from printables and games, to songs, poetry, recipes, and even sending emails to Santa. Here's a math game for 2nd graders where students can find the patterns in the Christmas lights.

Kwanzaa (12/26 first day)

I4C offers an assortment of resources on Kwanzaa. Explore Africa. Learn about the meaning of Kwanzaa, its symbols, rituals, and more.

Focus On: Teacher Resources

Internet4Classrooms offers a wide variety of informative online resources, tips, tools, and tutorials regarding your classroom needs. There is always something you can utilize with your students. Each month we'll feature a few links to useful topics.

December focuses on history and social studies. Take advantage of our social studies standards tools.

We offer Current Standards resources on Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies. Go to our grade level help section. Under the grade level you are looking for, you will see a "Current Standards" category, and click on the subject that you need.

December is Read a New Book Month. See if your students can discover a new title in the library. Find reading practice tools on everything from comprehension tests and main idea to cause and effect, sequencing, and beyond.

December is also National Cocoa month. There's a link dedicated to lesson plans on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that has worksheets, questionnaires, and vocabulary words. Check out our page of chocolate projects, chocolate lessons, and online games.

While it's cold outside, think about taking Virtual Field Trips in your classroom. I4C has a long list of places to "visit." Students can learn how things are made, such as pencils, candies, textiles, cars, and planes. Journey to the desert or places like Peru. Take museum virtual field trips too.

Remember: One of our most clicked resources is the teacher tools page. You can access everything teachers need for the school year, including forms, planning, bulletin boards, and worksheets.

Another popular section is our Grade Level Help. Click here for Pre-K - 8th grade level help and here for 7th - 12th grade resources. Find Skill Builders interactive sites for Language Arts and Math.

Focus On: Parent Resources

In addition to our teachers, parents can take advantage of our online resources as well.

December is Read a New Book Month. Encourage reading at home.

This reading list is technically a summer reading list, BUT, we bet there are quite a few books your children never got around to reading. Choose your grade and the possibilities are endless.

It's National Cocoa Month. One more reason to enjoy chocolate. Play Name that Candybar and M&Ms web games while learning about chocolate. Discover where chocolate comes from.

The holidays are here! We have a ton of online activities, online puzzles and games to keep the kids busy and out of the kitchen. Here are some Christmas online games, Hanukkah games, and here are every day educational online games.

Don't forget to be dilligent when it comes to Internet Safety. Internet4Classrooms offers a page of resources to keep you informed.

Students can use our informational site links for a list of safe search engines for children.

As always, if you don't see something of interest highlighted this month, we have the Parent Zone which is full of resources. You can find homework help, special needs resources, language tools, reading help, educational games and activities sorted by grade.

Technology Tips

Excel Tip: Tabs: Did you know you can easily access all your tabbed worksheets with one click? Put your cursor in the far lower left corner where you see the navigational arrows. Right click. One comprehensive list of all your active worksheets will appear, and you can simply click on the one you want to access. Click for more Excel tutorials.

Collaboration Tools: There are many ways to communicate whether it be online chatting, sharing videos, stories, document files, and photos. Enjoy interactive chats, creating round-robin story tellling, presentation making, and document sharing with these collaboration tools in Web 2.0.

Interesting Trivia: With the holidays upon us and winter breaks near, it can be difficult to keep students focused. Keep them interested with daily trivia, quizzes, words of the day, and facts about famous people.

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Many thanks!

Internet4classrooms.com is a free educational portal for teachers, parents, homeschoolers and students. Visitors come from around the world to find Internet resources for their educational needs. One can find resources ranging from lesson plans to worksheets, individual grade level resources to templates, and even interactive learning games. We were very honored when one teacher called the site a "Walmart for Teachers". If you cannot find what you need for instruction on any topic, please feel free to email us and we will help you find resources to fit your needs.

Sincerely,

Susan Brooks

Bill Byles

Internet4classrooms.com