Storybird

Storybird is a cool educational online platform for children from age 3 to 14+, parents and teachers. It offers short, art-inspired stories that are curiously fun to make, share, and read. Students can express themselves and develop creatively their writing skills

Lit2Go #literature #audiobooks

Lit2Go is a free online collection of public domain fiction, poetry, and nonfiction audiobooks in MP3 format . An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages.

Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom. 

Stories can be searched by author, book, genre, collection, and readability.

Lit2Go is an ongoing project of the Florida Center for Instructional Technology 

Find Lit2Go on:

https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/ 

Breaking News English by @SeanBanville

EFL / ESL English lesson plans & podcast to learn English based on current events and news. There are 7 levels, from elementary to advanced.

Every two days a new lesson is added. Each lesson has up to 26 pages of printable activities.  All lessons are downloadable PDF format. There are graded listenings with each lesson. Multiple audio files (that can be downloaded in mp3 format) are provided for each story. 

Find this amazing resource on:

https://breakingnewsenglish.com/ 

Learn-English.Org

Learn-English.Org is a free website for learners of English to develop competence in these four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

You can navigate the activities by category, by skill, and by level (CEFR A1-CEFR C2).

Learn-English.Org has articles relating to a variety of different topics. 

https://www.learn-english.org/

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

Project supported by the National Science Foundation that developes a library of interactive virtual manipulatives or concept tutorials, mostly in the form of Java applets, for mathematics instruction. 

Accessing the collection requires a java plug in that is compatible with Firefox and Safari browsers, but not Chrome. 

http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html ç

3M Young Scientist Lab #YoungScientist

Educational portal filled with engaging activities and teaching tools. Young Scientist Lab is a very interesting place to explore the world of scientific innovations and opportunities  for teachers, students and parents. 

It offers lesson plans, interactives, support materials and student and family activities.

(Source Young Scientist Lab)

https://youngscientistlab.com/ 

Tools for Clear Speech (American English)

The Tools for Clear Speech (TfCS) program improves the pronunciation, fluency, and pragmatic abilities of English language learners (ELLs) and non-native English speakers at Baruch College (The City University of New York). 

On the Consonants and Vowels section you’ll find in-depth practice with each individual sound in Standard American English, as well as various combinations of sounds

Find it on:. 

https://tfcs.baruch.cuny.edu/consonants-vowels/ 

Pick Your Plate! A Global Guide to Nutrition

Pick Your Plate! A Global Guide to Nutrition is an educational nutrition game that will help teach students about building healthy meals while using nutritional guidelines from countries around the world! 

Play it on:

https://ssec.si.edu/pick-your-plate 

MakeBeliefsComix.com

Make Beliefs Comix is a creative writing platform, a useful resource in helping students  express themselves and communicate. It offers a free set of tools and hosts free ebooks that the can use onlne or download. 

These printables can be used with students enrolled in literacy and ESL programs and provide an educational resource for teaching language arts.

If you are interested, visit:

https://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ 

City Walks

With this website you can take virtual walks through large cities. You can walk during the day or at night, with or without city sounds and during COVID or before the start of the pandemic. 

You will find it interesting to describe the environment of various cities, build dialogues that can take place in these spaces, etc.

On Twitter

https://twitter.com/AristomenisGeo1

Visit:

https://citywalks.live/

Gender balance in Science

Issue to Action resource on Science by scotdec.org.uk. It was produced as part of the Global issues, Global subjects project funded by the European Union. 

These materials were created by Science teachers in Scotland and are designed for use at BGE levels 3 and 4. All the activities connect to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The lessons and worksheets in the booklet are supported by PowerPoints

PowerPoint:

https://scotdec.org.uk/download/gender-balance-powerpoint/ 

Action Cards

https://scotdec.org.uk/download/action-cards-pdf-14mb/ 

Female Scientist Information Cards

https://scotdec.org.uk/download/female-scientists-information-cards-pdf-6mb/ 

MASSOLIT

MASSOLIT works with university academics to produce high-quality, curriculum-linked video lectures for GCSE and A Level. 

They offer more than 3,000 lectures across six subjects: English literature, History, Philosophy, Classics & Ancient History,Psychology and Government & Politics. Most lectures are between 8-12 minutes in length.

They have a regularly-updated YouTube channel where you can check out some of their videos. They provide free access to one lecture from each their lecturers, so you can see what they're like.

https://www.massolit.io/ 

On YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWITMkkllOYZmyVWzQm5kuw/featured  

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/themassolit

British Accents and Dialects (Sound recordings)

British Accents and Dialects celebrates and explores regional and social variation and aspects of continuity and change in the varieties of English spoken in the UK. 

You can listen to to 77 sound recordings of speakers from across the United Kingdom, chosen to represent different accents and dialects in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

In case you want to show different varieties of the English language, this resource can be very useful.

Find it on:

https://www.bl.uk/british-accents-and-dialects/collection-items

Smithsonian Open Access

Founded in 1846 with funds from James Smithson, the Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex.

On the Smithsonian Open Access website you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images. 

A very useful educational resource for your projects.

https://www.si.edu/openaccess 

Punctuation Marks

Punctuation is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text. 

This short video reviews the names of the main punctuation marks.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

World Children's Day was first established in 1954 as Universal Children's Day and is celebrated on 20 November each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children's welfare. 

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is an important agreement by countries who have promised to protect children’s rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child explains who children are, all their rights, and the responsibilities of governments. All the rights are connected, they are all equally important and they cannot be taken away from children. 

Download a friendly version of the Convention on:

https://www.unicef.org/media/60981/file/convention-rights-child-text-child-friendly-version.pdf 

COVID Communication Kit

This kit contains ready-made media that is designed to give communicators a head start in explaining new policies and procedures. It can be used to create effective videos, presentations, documents, and more.

The kit includes:

• Over 130 COVID-related images (hi-res PNG) for documents, presentations, and videos
• Ready-made videos that succinctly explain masks, contact tracing, and social distancing
• PowerPoint presentations that provide a starting point for your message
• Templates and workbooks for clear communication of policies

These resources are shared with a Creative Commons license call Attribution Non-Commercial

https://www.commoncraft.com/covid

How did trains standardize time in the United States?

Standard time is the synchronization of clocks within a geographical area or region to a single time standard 

During the 19th century, scheduled trains required time standardization in the industrialized world. 

Standard time was not enacted into US law until the 1918 Standard Time Act established standard time in time zones; the law also instituted daylight saving time (DST). 

This lesson explains some details of the history of time standardization in the United States.

https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-did-trains-standardize-time-in-the-united-states-william-heuisler 

On YouTube:

Windrush Stories #Migration and #Culture

In June 1948 the Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury Docks, Essex carrying hundreds of people from the Caribbean. 70 years on, Windrush Stories invites us to consider a longer, more complicated and ongoing relationship between Britain and the Caribbean. 

Interesting educational material to address the issue of migration and culture in the English class. A multimedia resource from the British Library.

You can find it on this website:

https://www.bl.uk/windrush

HHMI BioInteractive @BIOINTERACTIVE

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an independent science philanthropy that invests in biomedical scientists and science educators to advance both human health and our fundamental understanding of biology. 

Developed for high school and undergraduate students, BioInteractive resources primarily focus on core concepts and processes in biology. They also provide interdisciplinary resources with connections to biology in earth and environmental science, chemistry, and math and statistics. 

All their activities are provided as PDFs, which are not directly editable 

Many BioInteractive resources are also available in Spanish 

All BioInteractive resources are provided free of charge through their website 

https://www.biointeractive.org/