Breathe New Life Into Your Lessons

Edudemic has compiled a fabulous list of 15 websites that will inspire you as an educator, taking the exhausting task of searching for valuable content off your plate. Organized by subjects--language arts, math, and the arts--you'll find just what you need to add breathe new life into your lessons next fall. All are trustworthy sites with creative lessons, ideas, and resources. Check them out!

Calling All Science Teachers--Common Core Lesson Plan Round-Up!

When you're thinking through the best ways of engaging your students, communicating and reinforcing concepts, helping them achieve mastery of new ideas and ways of thinking, and just plain getting excited about learning, it can help to have a little inspiration. Seeing what other teachers have done to develop creative, CCSS-aligned lesson plans, or looking through resource libraries to find interesting lesson plans can give your own planning an energy boost.

Here's a round-up of some websites that provide science teachers with CCSS-aligned ideas for the classroom. Look for other subjects/disciplines in future posts!

Check out these FREE SCIENCE LESSONS from AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). You can filter your search by grade and content to find what you want more easily!

Who doesn't love cookies? This series of blog posts by science writer Bethany Brookshire is called COOKIE SCIENCE! She takes educators and students step-by-step through applied science, all in the name of finding cookies that taste better. If you're looking for student-friendly science news, don't miss the website, hosted by Society for Science & the Public.

MIT BLOSSOMS is a wonderful website with a focus on videos for classroom use. You can do a very focused search, including by content standard, and locate science video lessons--each of which is a complete resource, with teacher's guide and supporting materials. CLICK HERE to search by education standards!


Got students who are into sports? Then GO HERE to the Connect A Million Minds website to find science-friendly learning activities and games for kids. These would make great additions to lesson-plans.

Engineering and applied science lessons are free and searchable on TeachEngineering.org! You can browse across multiple categories or search by content standard. There are hands-on activities, lessons, and supporting materials!

For a big-picture look at how real science educators are making CCSS work in their classrooms, check out this Edutopia.org blog post, "Common Core in Action: How Two Science Teachers Are Implementing Common Core." Get tips, ideas, and best practices!

Finally, take a look at the Utah Education Network. They have easy-to-browse, free lesson plans that are aligned to Utah's Core (based on CCSS). CLICK HERE for K-6 science lessons. CLICK HERE for 7-12 science lessons!

ELA/Literacy Lessons Aligned to Common Core—Created For Teachers, By Teachers!

It’s always helpful to see what other teachers are doing in their classrooms. Taking a look at lessons developed by other educators can inspire, inform, and challenge you, as well as provide great, concrete ideas for adapting and developing your own lessons that will meet your students' needs.

This lesson bank, from the CCSS-focused non-profit group Student Achievement Partners, offers a collection of nearly 300 free Common Core-aligned ELA/literacy lessons for grades 3-10. The lessons were collaboratively authored, edited, and reviewed by teams of educators with support from Student Achievement Partners. Click HERE to check it out!

Not an ELA instructor? Check out the rest of the website—here’s where to find the homepage—to find resources and ideas for school leaders and math educators as well.