Teaching

 

My students know I believe education is a forest fire – not a sparkplug. What I mean by that is true learning does not happen for an instant, born of nothing, but that it starts with a strong enough spark meeting combustible tinder, and can grow into something almost uncontrollable. For that reason, I have included links to the four main academic subjects with links for kids K-12 in the hopes that one of these sites might be a strong enough spark. Enjoy!

Math

Math was always difficult for me, being a right-brained person. Every day I prayed for word problems because at least I felt like I stood a chance. So I took particular care with this part of the site because I wish the internet had been around when I was a kid to help me with this stuff. So here are some links that should at least get you started toward either surviving or thriving in math class.

Science

Again, I'm right-brained, meaning that I have never really had an issue with creativity, but numbers and rote memorization always posed a problem. If these sites had existed back then, maybe I wouldn't have pulled out my hair quite as often. 

Language Arts

My saving grace. Were it not for LA and its counterparts (theatre, drama club, etc) I might have really disliked school. As a teacher, though, I have seen enough extremely bright students really struggle with it to know it can be difficult based on what you are naturally gifted at. To all those students, take a look at these sites, especially OWL.

Social Studies

Social Studies appealed to me a bit in school, mostly because of the stories that were told. I treated each story like fiction (which it sometimes was... I'm looking at you, first Thanksgiving) which helped a lot. What's amazing about Social Studies now is that there are these amazing digital archives.