Lesson Plans and Resources

Get On The Information Highway

Carbonite Backup is a must for teachers. It's a cheap online backup service. Never lose another lesson plan or document again.

PageFlakes or Google Start -- Make your own customized Internet start page (the first page that appears when you start your browser). Free!

Google Pages -- Make your own complete website in minutes -- Free!

Picasa -- Free photo/image software that's better than programs costing hundreds of dollars.

The WWW Virtual Library is a vast resource that has information about every subject.

TeacherWebsite.com offers a simple way for teachers to build and post a website. Then students can go on ClassHomework.com and pick up their assignments.

Having trouble with your computer? Go to the site that tries to save you from PC HELL. To foil those who want to snoop your PC, use the free online spyware scanner frim ACTIVE X. For "Real help for regular people," go to John Frazzini Talks computers.

If you want to be on the Web, but don't know (or want to know) coding, go to SCHOOLNOTES. By just filling out some basic information you'll create your own webspace where you can post lessons or list links for your students to follow.

BOOK MARK SYNC -- Free, real-time automatic sync service that allows you to access your bookmarks/favorites from any computer.

SCAMBUSTERS pokes holes in all those Internet myths and legends you've heard.

If you want to keep all the software on your computer updated, go to UPDATES.COM. It will search your system, figure our what updates you need, show you a list, and let you download the updates. You'll never have outdated programs again -- and it's free.

CNET HELP will give you answers for all of your tech questions: software, hardware, Internet, web building and more.

MICROSOFT OFFICE 2000 TUTORIALS are online and free. Learn Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and FrontPage. From Florida Gulf Coast University.

SCHOOL TECHNOLOGY BUYER'S GUIDE will help you and your school make wise decisions when purchasing technology equipment.

Learn how to surf, e-mail, search, and everything else.

Lesson Plan Sites and Resources

-- New from NEA, a portal full of teaching resources: lesson plans, discussion boards, tips, professional development.

-- One of the most useful new sites for teachers. Chat rooms, lesson plans, and even a web page builder.

-- Connect educators with online mentors, so now you can network with learned peers.

-- Links to literally thousands of sites for teachers. if you can't find it here it's not on the Net.

-- This site has 58,185 sets of flashcards, something for every subject and grade level.

-- Searchable data base for thousands of lesson plans.

-- LearnPort is a joint effort of the Michigan Department of Education and Michigan Virtual University to create a statewide professional development portal for Michigan educators.

EDUCATION ATLAS -- Comprehensive guide to 8,000 education websites.

HIPPOCAMPUS -- Free multimedia content for high school subjects.

SCHOOLHOUSE ROCKS -- Lyrics and videos for the popular television series.

KEEP TOOLKIT -- From the Carnegie foundation, helps teachers create, organize and assess web-based materials and lesson plans.

CLASSROOM RESOURCES -- Lessons and web resources in 14 subject areas.

PICS4LEARNING -- Copyright-friendly images for education.

FREEPLAY MUSIC -- Royalty-free music for classroom projects.

MUSEUM OF HUMOR -- Plans to help you inject humor into your lessons.

NEA TEACHER TOOLKIT -- Applications that empower teachers to make curricular decisions.

PLAGIARISM STOPPERS -- Teacher's guide to identifying and preventing plagiarism.

BEHAVIOR ADVISOR -- Tips and step-by-step directions for behavior management.

EDUCATOR’S REFERENCE DESK -- The Educator's Reference Desk brings you 2,000+ lesson plans, 3,000+ links to online education information, and 200+ question archive responses.

KID’S SONGS – Music and lyrics to a variety of popular songs for children. Sing along!

CYBER SAFE – Teaches kids how to be safe on the Internet. Shows parents the laws and their rights.

MI CLIMB -- Clarification of each Michigan benchmark.

LESSON PLAN CENTRAL -- Free plans, webquests, worksheets, and clip art.

BEST WEBQUESTS -- Database of webquests organized by grade level and subject.

MIDDLE SCHOOL NET -- Resources and lesson plans for middle school teachers.

TEACHER XPRESS -- Be ready to be stunned! This site has so many teacher resources it's overwhelming at first look. Dig deeper, though, and you'll find anything you can think of.

TEACHERS FIRST -- Free lesson plans for every subject and teaching style.

RUBISTAR -- Tool for creating rubrics and a way to analyze the rubric data.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT HELP -- From the Michigan Teacher Network.

GUIDE TO GETTING ALONG -- Exercises in conflict resolution.

eTHEMES -- Database of child-friendly web resources organized around 500 themes, sortable by grade level and with standards.

MARCO POLO -- Standards-based Internet content for K-12 teachers.

CALENDARS -- Guide to locating events for each day of the year.

TEACHABLE MOMENT -- Timely teaching ideas for events of the day.

M.I.T. COURSEWARE -- M.I.T. has put syllabus, lecture notes, exams and answers online for over 35 of their courses. Free for teachers to use.

AWESOME CLIP ART FOR KIDS -- Really awesome are the automatic puzzle and worksheet makers for teachers.

PRESCHOOL EDUCATION -- Ideas for early childhood educators.

THE SOLUTION SITE -- Database of unit plans searchable by grade level, subject area, standards, or keywords.

ABC TEACH -- Free printables for use at home and school.

PUZZLE CHOICE -- 20 types of printable crosswords, word searches, and number challenges.

FIELD TRIPS -- Field-Trips.org has trips you can take with your class without leaving your room. Cool!

netLIBRARY -- New in April from the Michigan Electronic Library. Check out 3,500+ titles online.

FBI for KIDS -- Two rescue dogs show kids how the FBI works.

HALLOWEEN MAGAZINE -- Has a page for teachers with classroom activities and an online safety quiz for kids.

THE LEARNING NETWORK -- By the New York Times, this site has everything: lesson plans, lesson archives, crossword puzzles, quote of the day, and much more.

NICKELODOEN TEACHERS SITE -- All the cool things on Nick are now linked to a teachers site with classroom resources.

SPORTS PARENTING -- The Center for Sports Parenting is a great resource to help parents and teachers deal with children who love sports.

STATE STANDARDS -- State education standards for your lesson plans.

SURF SWELL ISLAND -- Teaches online safety by using Disney characters.

CHILD-SAFE SURFING -- Strategies and methods for safe computer usage.

ENCHANTED LEARNING -- Scores of activities and resources for every elementary school subject.

BRAIN POP -- Delightful cartoons show your students how things work. Movies on 80 different subjects.

CYBER PILOT'S LICENSE -- A complete course in navigating the Internet. Help your students earn their CyberPilot's License.

THE LEARNING PAGE -- Free units and worksheets for kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades.

CLASSROOM.COM -- 100 activities for the online classroom.

eBOARD -- Your own "virtual cork board" where you can post messages, assignments, and even pictures for all to see. Perfect for busy teachers because it's fast and no html coding is required. $39 per year.

EVERYBOOK -- The future of reading. Download texts off the Net.

Ever wonder if your students are using the Net to cheat? Read Digital Deception, an article from Electronic School. The article even includes links to all the most popular "cheating sites" on the Net. Then, go to PLAGIARISM.ORG, a site that lets you check students' papers for plagiarism -- online.

Education World, the Educator's Complete Resource Guide to the Internet, offers education professionals, parents, students, and administrators a place where they can start each day to find the lesson plans and research materials they are looking for. This site is updated daily with fresh new lesson plans and curriculum ideas, articles on issues that are of interest to educators, parents, and students, and much more.

Michigan Teacher Network provides easy access to K-12 education related Web resources that have been carefully evaluated for quality, relevance, and effectiveness. MTN describes thousands of high quality resources that can be effectively used with students in the classroom, for professional development, or for educational planning and problem solving. Curriculum resources described in MTN are correlated to the Michigan Curriculum Framework content standards.

TEACH-NOLOGY -- Over 100,000 lesson plans on a searchable database. Free puzzles, games, and tech tools, too.

GATEWAY TO EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS -- Thousands of educational materials.

TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS -- Like e-Bay for lesson plans. buy what you need and sell your own lessons for profit.

TEACH TOLERANCE -- Teaching resources to fight hate and promote tolerance.

USA TODAY COLLEGIATE PROGRAM -- Resources for college educators.

MAKE STUFF -- Hands-on projects made from everyday materials.

KINDERSTART -- Wonderful site for parents and teachers of children ages 1-7. Kid safe search engine and e-mail system.

PRINT-A-POSTER -- Free colorful printables to spice up your classroom.

TEACHNET -- Lesson plans and articles for K-12 teachers.

CNNfyi -- News for students and resources for teachers. Free lesson plans that relate to daily news.

THE LESSON PLANS PAGE -- Home to over 1,000 free lesson plans on a variety of subjects.

CYBERSMART -- Standards-based lesson plans for the K-8 curriculum.

CLIFFS NOTES -- Actually has some good resources teachers can use in the classroom.

KATHY SCHROCK'S GUIDE FOR EDUCATORS -- Categorized listing of sites for curriculum and professional growth.

EDUWEB ADVENTURES -- Online adventures exploring Art, Art History, Science, Nature, History, and Geography.

ENC ONLINE -- Eisenhower National Clearinghouse provides K-12 teachers with information about teaching materials and professional development.

ED TECH RESOURCES -- Provides teachers and administrators with tools for technology planning.

Have fun with your students at eMODE. the site has scores of fun tests, everything from "Are you looney?" to "If you were a dog what breed would you be?"

Ever wonder how to do "whatever?" Check out LEARN 2, which explains how to do just about everything.

TOOLS FOR TEACHERS has lesson plans, activities with graphics and procedures, articles. You may never have to make up your own lessons again.

Want to share and share alike. Go to THE LESSON EXCHANGE. You can post your lesson plans and get plans from other teachers.

TEACHER SOURCE. More than 1,000 free lesson plans from PBS.

NET SCHOOL. A comprehensive Web service for K-12 teachers offering lesson plans, online workshops, and training for beginners.

CYBERBEE. In addition to curriculum treasures, Cyberbee has a page creator that you can use to build your own web page.

FEDERAL RESOURCES FOR EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE. Hundreds of teaching and learning resources from more than 30 federal agencies.

COOL FACT OF THE DAY -- Good for K-6 teachers. Be sure to visit the playground. From the Learning Kingdom.

KIDS CONNECT -- This site is run by the American Association of School Librarians and is staffed by volunteer librarians. They promise to answer homework questions within 48 hours (via e-mail). And it's FREE!

THE HOMEWORK SPOT -- Great homework helper for students at every level.

HOMEWORK ONLINE. The most awesome collection of study guides, student resources, search engines, and information sources on the Web.

HOW STUFF WORKS. Seem much smarter than you really are by using this site. It tells how everything works (engines, cell phones, your toaster...everything).

TECHNOLOGY & LEARNING. Hundreds of projects, tools, lesson plans and success stories from Technology & Learning magazine. Also, "Teachers' Choice" websites and software reviews.

KIDS ALMANAC -- Wow your students with "kid-related" facts, words-of-the-day, and this-day-in-history tidbits.

LANDMARKS FOR SCHOOLS -- Provided teachers with raw information to use in lessons.

CHILD AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH -- Rich resources for teachers and parents.

PRESCHOOL EXPRESS -- Activities in a wide range of topics and skills.