Writing Prompts Blog

Someone has created a wonderful Tumblr blog that provides users with excellent writing prompts.  The prompts (currently there are about 250 of them) each include an image and some text.  These prompts are a great way to get the creative juices flowing for your middle schoolers.  These prompts can be displayed on a projector or pasted on to a Google Doc for students to work with.

Thinking Blocks

Thinking Blocks is a great site for Elementary and Middle School Math students that provides interactive templates in which learners use brightly colored blocks to model and solve problems. As students work through the problems they are provided with feedback as to whether or not they are using the correct sequence to solve each problem.Thinking Blocks is a suite of learning tools designed to help students solve math word problems accurately and efficiently. Using brightly colored blocks, students model mathematical relationships and identify known and unknown quantities. The model provides students with a powerful image that organizes information and simplifies the problem solving process. By modeling increasingly complex word problems, students develop strong reasoning skills which will facilitate the transition from arithmetic to algebra.(from the Thinking Blocks site)

Constitution Day Activities

Constitution Week is soon upon us.  With that in mind, you may wish to check out the Constitution Day activities that Weekly Reader has made available.  The Law of the Land provides learners with activities about the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Framers, a time line, a Game and other resources.  No sign up or membership required.