Classroom Ideas Archive - February

Looking for new ideas for your classroom? You’re doing wonderful things out there. So are many other parents and centers. In Classroom Ideas, we highlight some of the more creative and effective ideas shared by innovative teachers and parents.

Free Online Forms

Casa Notes allows teachers to quickly make, and customize, notes to send home to parents or give to students. Teachers can customize some of the template content, choose a color scheme and add a graphic. The notes can then be printed on your black-and-white or color printer. Notes are offered in English or Spanish. Twelve note templates are available including: reminders, field trip permission slips, thank you’s, progress reports, parent-teacher conferences, awards, etc.,

Casa Notes are offered by 4 Teachers.org, a website which provides tools to help teachers integrate technology into the classroom. 4 Teachers also offer Equity, a searchable database designed to identify and locate resources and tools for meeting the needs of a diverse classroom  R*TEC Teacher offers a collection of thematic lessons designed for classroom use or to inspire ideas, WebQuests, ThinkQuests and Tracks by subject, theme, and topic. Although many of the tools found at 4 Teachers may be better suited to elementary and secondary education classrooms, they are worth viewing and include among other tools, a rubric creator, checklists, assignment trackers, and a web worksheet wizard.

Classroom Ideas is your place to shine, so send in your success stories. How have you integrated technology into your center? How did you design your literacy-enriched classroom? How have you involved parents in the classroom? Share your classroom ideas and pick up some new ones with each visit. Email your stories to jsheppard@csc.csiu.org.

[Posted on February 2, 2006]