1 13s resources recommended by Jaclyn Lerman http://www.scholastic.com/teachers I found the Teachers section on scholastic.

com to be a great resource because there are so many other resources that the site can link you to. For example, there are printables, rubric-creators, book suggestions, and so much more. One helpful feature of the site is that you can filter the information you find by grade level, so you do not have to sift through resources for 12th graders. My favorite part of the website is the blog section. Experienced teachers from all over the country share stories about their classrooms and helpful tips and strategies. There are blogs about everything, from learning with Play Dough to getting parents involved in the classroom to getting to know your students. Another helpful feature of the website is that because it is run by Scholastic, a book publishing company, there are hundreds of activities that involve books and literacy, including the Book Wizard that we used last semester in our literacy class. There is even an online store where you can purchase materials for your classroom. This website is also a great site to recommend to parents because there is a whole parent section as well. If you register, as a teacher, parent, or a child, you have access to even more resources, such as free eBooks for children. One problem with this website is that there is so much content that you might feel overwhelmed at first. Once you figure out how the site is organized, it is easier to navigate and find what you are looking for. recommended by Rina Sori Park www.makinglearningfun.com The makinglearningfun.com website is a great resource for classroom activity ideas, themed ideas, and an awesome resource for printables. It is well organized according to activities and themes a teacher might want to focus on in the classroom. It provides cut outs, tracing pages, writing pages, coloring pages, art outlines, lesson ideas, lesson activities and more for just about anything. Whenever one needs a new idea to work off of or even borrow, this is a great resource to go to. recommended by Molly Schwerha http://www.pbs.org/ http://www.pbs.org/parents/ http://www.pbs.org/teachers http://pbskids.org/ PBS has a fabulous website that is great for teachers, parents, and students. This is a station many of the children in our classrooms are watching and this site provides educational activities to go along with some of the programs. This would be a great site to have up for your students to play on

2 in class or tell parents about to use at home. It is interactive and engaging activities. One part that really stuck out to me is the part about learning disabilities. It talks about the different kinds and common forms of learning disabilities that affect children in school. It gives some tips for teaching strategies, communication strategies and assistive technology. It also has links to numerous things such as child development, the different educational milestones children should be at for their age in different subjects. On the page for teacher is has some shared lesson plans and interactive activities on the website related to specific subject areas. recommended by Kaili Salyers Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/index.html The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning is focused on promoting the social emotional development and school readiness of young children birth to age 5. This website is a national resource center that disseminates research and evidence-based practices to early childhood programs across the country. The training modules that can be accessed through this website were designed to address the social-emotional needs of young children. The materials that have been developed for the website are available for families, educators, therapists, and caregivers. Many of the modules are available in both English and Spanish. The PDFs of the training modules and handouts can be directly downloaded through the website. recommended by Alyssa Shroyer www.pinterest.com The resource I have found to be particularly helpful is pinterest.com. Pinterest is a pinning board website that you can either browse freely or can create your own account. To get an account, you must give your e-mail, and within a short time, you should receive an e-mail with easy steps to create your own Pinterest page. If you make your own account, you can create an endless number of boards that you can name, categorize and repin items onto to save ideas for later. I find it helpful to click the Education tab at the top of the website under Categories. I have my own account, and I have a classroom ideas board, which I need to break down into many more specific boards to organize these ideas other educators have shared. I also recently created a water board, where I pin classroom ideas related to water for my project when I come across them. A lot of pins that others create are links to teachers blogs and web pages that explain the idea(s) in more detail. If you would like to be more specific in your search, such as for a particular project, you can type that topic into the search bar at the top left. I have found the website practical and useful in my experiences as a novice teacher."

3 recommended by Casey Ekkert The I.D.E.A. Store by CUSF, 28 E. Springfield Ave., Champaign www.the-idea-store.org The I.D.E.A. Store is Central Illinois Premier Eco-Edu-Art Creative Reuse Marketplace. The store re-sells safe, clean, industrial, business and household by-products and discards for a low cost. (Some materials include: large pieces of Styrofoam, packing materials, buttons, fabric, magazines, baskets, boxes & jars, cardboard tubes, game pieces, office supplies, etc.) These materials are useful for art and construction projects in the pre-k classroom. Materials can be purchased individually, by the sack, by the pound, or make an offer. All profits from sales go to the Champaign-Urbana Schools Foundation. recommended by Colbi Fair http://www.scholastic.com The literacy resource that I found helpful is the Scholastic Book Club and Catalog. My co-op sends the book catalogs home with the students almost every month, and encourages parents to purchase books, which will benefit their home learning environment and the classroom. The books are as low as one dollar, and are sent right home with the students. Every certain amount of books the parents purchase, my co-op receive free books for the children to enjoy and explore in the classroom. The catalogs are broken down into age levels, having more picture and interactive books for younger children and chapter books for older children ranging in an endless variety of stories. I think this resource is very helpful for teachers, as well as being extremely beneficial for parents. They have easy access to being able to build their childrens home library at a very affordable price. We were already introduced to the scholastic website, so being able to order them for your classroom will be easy. Go to the http://www.scholastic.com, select resources and tools, and select book club. Registering is easy, and the catalogs, based on your choice, will be sent right to your home or school. I had no idea about this resource before my co-op introduced it to me, but I will definitely use this access to my advantage. recommended by Linda Fogerson (co-op) by way of Shamari Dodson http://www.orientaltrading.com The resource I found to be helpful was oriental trading. The website addresses a variety of ages. It provides a lot of materials for party themes and favors teachers can use in the classroom. It also includes crafts for kids, stickers, seasonal supplies, scrapbook materials, etc. Another section has activity books, novelty toys, games, and activities. Teachers can check out the website if they need supplies or ideas for different holidays as well. Different materials can be ordered for personalization too, for example, pencils. The materials are cheap, and they can be beneficial to teachers in many aspects of their classrooms and for their own personal use.

recommended by Mallory Steinke Perry, Bruce Duncan, and Maia Szalavitz. The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook : What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us about Loss, Love, and Healing. New York: Basic, 2006 The resource I find to be very helpful is the book The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szlavitz. Perry is a child psychiatrist who treats children faced with unimaginable trauma such as genocide survivors, witnesses to a parents murder, The Branch Davidian children, and victims of family violence. In this book, he tells their stories of trauma and transformation. He recalls the practices he and his team used to reach these troubled children and help them heal. This is a great resource for anyone who works with children because it delves into the questions of what happens when a child is traumatized and how does it actually affect their mind? recommended by Ellen Deal Markova, D & Powell, A (1992). How Your Child Is Smart: A life changing approach to learning. Conari Press. The resource that I have found helpful so far is a book called How Your Child is Smart by Dawna Markova and Anne Powell. This book discusses the idea that children have specific kinds of intelligence and how this affects their learning. It explains and outlines six patterns of learning and teaches parents (and teachers) how to identify a child's pattern so they can help them think, learn, and communicate to the best of their ability. The six patterns are: the leaders of the pack, the verbal gymnasts, the movers and groovers, the wandering wonderers, the seer/feelers, and the show and tellers. The book also provides specific guidelines to enhance communication with children based on his or her learning pattern. Teachers can also implement these guidelines and suggestions in the classroom. recommended by Kristin Wang Get Funky and Musical Fun by The Learning Station The resource that I found very helpful is this CD. As the students are putting on their coats and waiting for the bus to get here, I would play the track 2,3, or 4 with the students. The CD contains a lot of directions, combined with upbeat music that the children enjoys dancing to. Playing this CD decreases the amount of chaos and anxiety as the students are waiting for the bus to go home. This CD can even be great during the day, when students need a movement break from sitting. Many songs on the CD actively engages the childrens hearts, minds, and bodies. Track number 4, for example, is about colors. The song asks children to identify the colors on their shirts and then do a body movement if they have a certain color. The songs on this CD can be replayed over and over again, and the children enjoy listening and dancing to it.

recommended by Michelle Fiddick Heller, L. (2004). Sign language for kids. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing Co. My educational resource is a book called, Sign Language for Kids by Lora Heller. For each word the book shows the sign, a description of how to make the sign, and a photograph of someone signing the word. Arrows are used in the photographs to help with clarity. The pictures include a variety of children and are easy to see and understand. The book is separated by topics including the alphabet, home, family, and pets, feelings, and many more. I think this is a powerful tool to have in the classroom. There are many great reasons to use signing in the classroom. The most obvious, of course, is if there is a student who uses ASL at home. In addition, there may be students who are still learning English, who are nonverbal, or you simple dont want to interrupt a routine in the classroom. For example, during circle time at the carpet you can have a child sign that they need to use the bathroom, rather than having them raise their hand and announce it to the entire class. I also believe that exposing young children to sign language can build a foundation of acceptance and tolerance for all different ways of communicating. recommended by Katie Kalnitz http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/ This is a resource that I believe will become very useful to us novice teachers throughout our careers. This is a website that teachers can access to upload their original lesson plans for other teachers, as well as navigate the site to find lesson plans they want to borrow/steal from someone. This website allows teachers to sell their lesson plans, complete with all of the necessary materials, notes, etc. that another teacher would need access to in order to use the lessons. There are also thousands of free ideas, lesson templates, etc. that teachers can access from this website. The founder of the site, Paul Edelman, was a former NYC public school teacher. TeachersPayTeachers mission is to empower teachers by bringing together those who create curricula with those who are seeking fresh new approached in the classroom. This website allows you to search by themes, topics, etc. in order to find lesson plans that are suitable for your students and goals. The website is useful for pre-K teachers all the way through high school. There is even a section where parents that home school their children can look for ideas and inspiration. The websites homepage has a weekly top 10, so browsers can see what teachers have currently been looking for. Last, I read several testimonials that appear on the site from teachers who continue to praise the concept of TeachersPayTeachers

6 recommended by Courtney Wills http://www.teacherview.com/ The website is a great resource because teachers are able to share their own ideas, or find ideas for the classroom. The website has activity pages, themes, lesson plans, and writing tips for the classroom. The webpage is easy to navigate and has a variety of options to choose from, in terms of content. The website also has a newsletter that you can sign up for to keep you up to date on any new ideas for the classroom. The webpage also has a link titled teaching with joy that leads you to articles on how to deal with stress, or to assist you in the classroom.