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If you’re currently teaching the Common Core ELA Standards, you’re already teaching students to think critically and to look at building their reading and writing skills in new ways. The PARCC ELA assessments are aligned to the Common Core standards you’re already teaching. Those standards just come in the form of intimidating question types such as EBSRs and TECRs. While it may seem like you have to do a lot of teaching to help students figure out all of these question types, you don’t. If you want students to be successful on the PARCC ELA assessments, particularly those that deal with reading comprehension, you simply need to focus on three key areas that you’re probably already focused on anyway.

Three Key Areas for the PARCC ELA Assessment

1. Text Variety

According to its developers, the goal of the PARCC is to include “texts worth reading.” These are authentic texts that come from a variety of sources, not texts written solely for the test. These texts also come in a variety for formats. Students may read an excerpt from a how-to manual, a business e-mail, or a newspaper article. They may have to interpret recipes, bus schedules, and advertisements.

Whether you’re preparing for the PARCC or simply teaching on an ordinary day, it’s time to decrease your reliance on the textbook and other traditional books and start having students read non-traditional texts. They should be reading newspapers, signs, webpages, e-mails, and historical documents. Look for texts that have charts and diagrams and texts that offer different views of the same topic too. This will help students experience the variety of passage they’ll likely find on the test – and in real life.

When it comes to more traditional texts, such as short stories and non-fiction books, students should be perusing digital versions along with the traditional print. Reading a digital version of a passage uses different skills that reading a paper-based version of a passage. Since most students will take the PARCC digitally, they need to have experience reading on a screen.

2. Evidence and Support

One of the main question types students will encounter on the PARCC ELA assessments is the EBSR. This stands for Evidence-Based Selected-Response. It sounds fancy, but all EBSR means is that students will have to answer a question and back up their answer with evidence. (See examples of EBSR questions on our practice PARCC worksheets) This is what students should be doing in the ELA classroom every day.

When students answer a question about a text, do you ask them how they arrived at that answer? That is exactly what the PARCC asks students to do. The only difference is that instead of making them search for the exact answer in the text, it gives them a series of answers to choose from. If students can find the support in the text on their own, they shouldn’t have any trouble choosing the correct answer on the PARCC.

If you’re not already encouraging students to provide support when they answer questions about a text, there are a few simple ways to help them. On a paper-based version of a text, have students regularly highlight or use sticky notes to mark the support for a particular answer. When a student answers a question in class regularly ask “why?” or “how do you know?” For students who struggle with finding support for their answers, spend some time modeling your thinking for students as you do a close reading of the text.

3. Organizing Thoughts and Information

Perhaps the most intimidating part of the PARCC is the new type of question – the dreaded TECR or Technology-Enhanced Constructed Response. While this format is new to the standardized assessment world, it’s very familiar in most ELA classrooms. A TECR is simply a glorified graphic organizer, something you likely use in your classroom every day. On TECR questions students may be asked to match a sentence from a text with a statement, compare and contrast two ideas, put events into a sequence, identify a problem and solution, or show their understanding of a cause/effect relationship.

Help Teaching has a large selection of graphic organizers for you to use with students. The key is to introduce students to many different types of graphic organizers so they become used to analyzing a text in many different ways. For example, you don’t always want to use a Venn diagram to have students compare/contrast. You could also use a T-chart or another type of organizer.

The reality is, you don’t have to spend hours worrying about how you’re going to prepare students for the PARCC ELA assessments. If you’re already teaching the Common Core standards as they’re meant to be taught, you’re helping students build the skills they’ll need to be successful on the test. Continue to provide students with a variety of texts, encourage them to support their answers, and help them organize their thinking with graphic organizers. Then build their confidence by telling them they have the skills they need to ace the test.

Reference

Lots of apps claim to align with the Common Core, but many fail to live up to the level of the standards. Rather than testing out Common Core aligned apps on your own, we’ve found some of the top apps for you to try out in the classroom or at home. In order to make our list, apps had to encourage kids to think critically and work creatively to master the standards.

If you’re just looking for a way to keep track of all of the standards, a few apps stand out:

MasteryConnect takes the Common Core standards and organizes them by state. It also includes state standards for science and social studies. Find your state, download the free app, and always have your standards at your fingertips.
Common Core State Standards from Customizabooks provides a handy reference for the Common Core, along with the ability to add student rosters and take notes related to the standards.
Apps for Common Core helps you find more apps aligned to specific Common Core standards. Users add and help align apps, so the more people who use it, the more content it will contain.

English Language Arts

For English/Language Arts, apps should allow kids to think critically, analyze texts, and writing in a variety of ways. These apps help encourage high-quality ELA instruction based on the Common Core.

Question Builder teachers kids to make inferences and think critically while answering questions. Designed for younger kids, it uses simple pictures and questions to help kids start to learn about the question and answer procedure. It also works well for kids with special needs.
News-O-Matic brings informational texts into the classroom through daily news. Kids will learn about current events that interest them through articles that have been written just for them.
Toontastic, while pricey, is a high-quality app. Kids can create their own cartoons, allowing them to express themselves creatively and think critically when writing. Lesson plans and worksheets also help teachers align the content to the standards.

For English/Language Arts, apps should allow kids to think critically, analyze texts, and writing in a variety of ways.

Shake-a-Phrase builds kids grammar and writing skills in a fun way. Rather than using boring old sentences, the app uses silly sentences to help kids learn their parts of speech. It also suggests zany writing prompts to get them to think beyond the norm when writing.
World’s Worst Pet – Vocabulary combines an engaging story with vocabulary practice. Kids will see words in multiple contexts, explore synonyms and antonyms, and read kid-friendly definitions as they play the fun games.
Subtext gives teachers a way to share a variety of online texts with students. Since the Common Core standards involve reading a variety of texts, teachers can find relevant articles or websites and add notes or assignments to help guide students as they read.

Math

Common Core math apps should go beyond basic problem-solving. They should help kids look at problems from different angles and provide them with real-life problems to solve.

Virtual Manipulatives helps kids interact with fractions through virtual fraction bars. This free app gives kids and teachers a chance to write their own problems on a virtual whiteboard using the bars, rather than providing problems for them to use.
Splash Math offers Common Core –aligned math apps for each grade-level from kindergarten through 5^th grade. These apps incorporate a variety of mini games that kids play as they build up their basic math skills. While not incredibly unique, the games are a lot of fun for kids and the app also offers progress-tracking.
Bugs and Buttons is designed for younger kids and focuses on teaching basic math skills. Kids will learn to think creatively as they play the fun games. They’ll also subtly learn about numbers, patterns, shapes, and other basic math concepts at the same time.

Common Core math apps should go beyond basic problem-solving. They should help kids look at problems from different angles and provide them with real-life problems to solve..

DragonBox Algebra 5+ bills itself as the game that secretly teaches algebra. As kids solve the puzzles, they learn the basics of addition, subtraction, and multiplication. The game teaches critical thinking and creative problem-solving. DragonBox Alegebra 12+ uses the same system as DragonBox Algebra 5+, but includes more advanced math skills to help kids in middle and high school build their skills.
Crackers and Goo provides kids with a unique and fun way to learn about math patterns. The game is designed to be played by kids in kindergarten through fifth grade and beyond, with different levels in the game corresponding with different grade levels. The game builds critical thinking and mental math skills.
MathBoard gives kids a way to solve math problems by actually writing out the answer rather than just having them select the correct answer. The app is also designed to teach, outlining the steps they need to take to solve a particular problem. Student profiles allow parents and teacher to track progress of multiple users.

These apps offer creative ways to help you incorporate the Common Core State Standards in your classroom. Do you have any favorite Common Core apps? If so, share them in the comments so other teachers and parents can check them out!

When you’re done reading, don’t forget to browse our library of pre-made tests and lessons for math and English Common Core codes!

Standardized tests have become a hotly contested topic in the world of education. With many teachers and parents arguing that students spend too much time taking tests and not enough time learning, it may seem insane to suggest that teachers test their students even more. However, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

While standardized tests and other more formal summative assessments may not always be the best for students, quizzes actually have the potential to improve student learning. These low-stakes, more formative assessments encourage students to learn and retain knowledge, while helping teachers better structure instruction in the classroom.

Quizzes Reduce Test Anxiety

How could having students take more quizzes possibly reduce their anxiety? It’s simple. Standardized tests and other summative assessments come with high stakes. Quizzes, on the other hand, come with much lower stakes. They’re less formal and designed to test a smaller set of skills. The more quizzes you give, the less doing poorly on a single quiz will have a negative effect on a student’s grade, lowering the stakes even more. If you give quizzes regularly, eventually students will become so used to taking quizzes that their nervousness will fade. This will also transfer to bigger tests, making students less likely to face anxiety when it comes time to take those high-stakes standardized tests at the end of a unit or the end of the school year.

Quizzes Get Students to Pay Attention in Class

“Is that going to be on the test?” is a question commonly heard in the classroom. While teachers want to encourage a love of learning, many students only focus on learning what they know they’ll be tested on. By regularly bringing quizzes into the classroom, teachers encourage students to pay attention to all of the material in class. Whether you have a regular quiz schedule or randomly give students pop quizzes, they’ll come to realize that all of the material has the potential to make it on to a quiz in the near future.

Quizzes Encourage Students to Study Regularly

When students are only tested on what they know at the end of a unit, during midterms, or finals, they often put off studying until the days before the test. Studies, such as this 2012 UCLA study, have shown that cramming for big tests doesn’t work and could actually have a negative effect. By quizzing students regularly, teachers can eliminate the need for cramming and encourage students to study the material on a regular basis.

Quizzes Help Teachers Focus the Learning

Also when teachers quiz students regularly, students won’t be overwhelmed by the amount of material they need to learn and they won’t have to wonder what they need to study. Instead, teachers can focus the learning on a few key concepts at a time. This will help students maximize their regular studying and give them a chance to build a thorough understanding of each part of a unit.

Quizzes Allow Students to Build Knowledge Gradually

Rather than only testing students on the big picture, quizzes give teachers a chance to test students on the smaller pieces. For example, you can quiz students on individual chapters of a novel to help build understanding of the text chapter by chapter; or while teaching the periodic table, you can quiz students on individual groups of elements or sections of the table rather than requiring them to learn about the whole table at once. This scaffolding of learning and quizzing students at each step helps make sure they have mastered understanding of one part before moving on to the next part.

Quizzes Allow Teachers to Modify and Adjust Instruction

To be most successful, quizzes should be used as a type of formative assessment. This means they’re used to inform teachers and students and help monitor understanding. So if a quiz shows students haven’t mastered a part of a lesson or are having a difficult time with a particular concept, teachers can modify and adjust their instruction to help cover that concept before it’s too late.

Quizzes Can Be Completed and Graded Quickly

Giving students a quiz doesn’t have to take a long time, nor does it require a lot of grading. With online assessment platforms such as Help Teaching’s new Test Room feature teachers can quickly put together an online quiz and schedule a time for students to take it.  Once students take the quiz, teachers can see statistics on student results, allowing them to quickly modify and adjust their instruction or share the results with students.

Quizzes Offer More Immediate Feedback

One of the reasons people criticize standardized tests and other larger summative assessments is that the results don’t really help students. By the time students receive the results from the test, they’ve moved on to the next unit or the next class and have already dumped a lot of the information they learned. Quizzes, on the other hand, give students a chance to gain more immediate feedback. Even if a teacher doesn’t adjust instruction based on student performance, individual students know what skills and concepts they had trouble with and can work on improving their understanding before it comes time for the final assessment.

Quizzes Help with Long-Term Retention

Perhaps one of the greatest reasons to give quizzes comes from Dr. Henry L. Roediger, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Roediger argues that it’s not studying and reviewing materials that helps students remember material, it’s actually quizzing them regularly on the material. In a study by Roediger, three different groups were asked to study a series of pictures. One group studied the pictures the entire time. The second group studied the pictures and were quizzed on them once. The third group was quizzed on the pictures every 20 minutes. A week later, the third group still remembered 32 of the 60 original pictures, while the first group only remembered 16.

Quizzes Keep Students’ Minds Sharp

Aristotle once wrote, “exercise in repeatedly recalling a thing strengthens the memory” and that’s exactly what Roediger argues when he encourages teachers to quiz students more. When students study they simply look to a textbook, notes, or other resources for the answers, but when they take quizzes they must retrieve the information from their own brains. This retrieval process helps the information stick in the brain more, keeping students’ minds sharp and improving their long-term memory. This fits with the “if you don’t use it, you lose it” idea that many people have experienced. Quizzing students also helps improve their brain plasticity, keeping their minds sharp and allowing them to regularly create new systems and connections in the brain.

While Roediger and his colleagues who promote Test Enhanced Learning in Classroom (TELC) say that the best quizzes to give students are those with short answer and short essay questions, even multiple-choice, matching, and true/false questions incorporated into quizzes on a regular basis can have a positive effect on students’ learning. The key is that the quizzes are given regularly and that immediate feedback is offered to students.

Want to see if regular quizzing can help your students? Check out Help Teaching’s Test Maker and Test Room options to create and quickly administer quizzes.  Then share your results in the comments.

Happy quizzing!

Bringing the Common Core State Standards for ELA into the classroom may seem like a challenge. With the new shifts in ELA instruction and a wealth of standards, it’s hard to know where to begin. While they look intimidating, the Common Core ELA standards simply promote a comprehensive approach to ELA, focusing on the skills students need to be ready for college and their future careers. Keeping this focus in mind and incorporating a few key elements can make teaching the Common Core ELA standards much easier.

#1 Introduce Informational Texts

One of the biggest elements of the Common Core ELA standards is the focus on informational texts. While literature still plays a key role, kids need to learn to read texts with more technical vocabulary, analyze arguments, and pay attention to key text features such as charts and tables. When reading these informational texts, kids can also focus on key reading strategies, such as analyzing cause and effect relationships, finding the main idea, and comparing and contrasting ideas within and between texts.

#2 Introduce New Formats

Along with introducing informational texts, teachers should introduce new text formats. This includes showing kids the movie version of a book they’re reading or even using movies as a teaching tool. It also includes incorporating newspapers, advertisements, and other text types to help kids learn in different ways. Websites such as LearnZillion provide videos to help students learn and teachers can also search for interactive websites on the subjects they want to teach to help students see the information in new ways.

#3 Bring in Modern Texts

While teachers need to bring in new text formats, they also need to move to teaching more modern texts. The Common Core has a place for teaching traditional literature, but kids also need to see how writing has changed over time and read texts that deal with more current issues. This includes some of the latest children’s books and young adult literature. To find books, teachers can look to resources such YALSA’s book awards and selected book lists and the latest Caldecott and Newberry Medal winners.

#4 Compare Texts

As students read a variety of texts, teachers should encourage kids to read texts with similar themes or topics, both literary and informational texts. They can then compare and contrast how those texts deal with their specific themes and topics. At lower grade levels, teachers can take a traditional fairy tale and have kids compare and contrast different versions. At higher grade levels, teachers can introduce two passages on the same topic and have kids compare and contrast the point of view or author’s approach to the topic.

#5 Connect to Other Subjects

In the ELA classroom, teachers should also pay attention to what kids are learning in other areas. By connecting other subjects to ELA, kids can start to see the importance reading and writing play in nearly all subject areas. They can also start to develop the skills to help them read and analyze subject-specific texts, thereby improving their performance. Many of Help Teaching’s reading strategy worksheets focus on subjects such as science and social studies, but teachers should not limit themselves to traditional reading passages or worksheets. They can also bring in charts and tables and take the time to review them with kids or even solve a set of math word problems, focusing on helping kids recognize the vocabulary they’ll find in traditional problems.

#6 Focus on Vocabulary

In fact, the Common Core ELA standards place a greater emphasis on vocabulary, especially domain-specific vocabulary than most previous ELA standards. While teachers may still want to incorporate spelling and vocabulary tests into the curriculum, the words they choose should tie directly to the texts kids are reading or the subjects they are talking about. Teachers can find a wealth of vocabulary words related to science, social studies, math, and other key subjects in Help Teaching’s collection of vocabulary questions and use those questions to create their own vocabulary worksheets for students or get started with some of Help Teaching’s subject-specific free vocabulary worksheets.

#7 Change the Way You Teach Grammar

The way teachers teach grammar also has to change. Instead of simply diagramming sentences and filling in the blank, kids should move to analyzing how certain elements of grammar are used within a text and to actually putting those elements of grammar to use in their own writing. At the younger grade levels, this will still include a lot of simple grammar activities, but at higher grade levels, grammar instruction should be more complex. For example, instead of simply identifying adjectives, kids can analyze the degrees of meaning in adjectives and determine whether the correct word was used.

#8 Encourage Analysis

In everything they do, teachers should encourage analysis. This includes analyzing the author’s word choice and determining how the words help shape the meaning of a texts. It includes comparing and contrasting within texts, making inferences and drawing conclusions as they read texts, and determining the main idea and theme of a text. Instead of simply saying “what does this say?” kids should be asking “how does it say it?” “why does it say it that way?” and “how does this compare to or differ from other things I’ve read and heard?”

#9 Conduct Research

As kids start to analyze and ask questions about texts, they start to come up with ideas for mini research projects. Instead of providing kids with the answers, teachers should encourage kids to look the answers up themselves. As they conduct research, kids will learn to read a variety of different texts and learn to make meaning from those texts.

#10 Get Kids to Write

After conducting research, kids can write about what they’ve learned. They can also write essays, short stories, poems, and other traditional texts. However, the Common Core ELA standards encourage kids to write more than just the traditional types of texts. They should write in journals and write as they answer open-ended questions on exams. They should write letters, speeches, advertisements, experiment summaries, and a wide variety of texts that help them get used to different types of writing and express their thinking using the written word.

When teachers incorporate these 10 different elements, the Common Core ELA Standards will become less intimidating for both kids and teachers. Kids will also get the opportunity to think more critically about what they’re reading and gain skills to help them in college and their future careers. Many of Help Teaching’s ELA worksheets support the Common Core State Standards, but we know there are other resources out there as well. What are some of your favorite resources or strategies to help bring some of the elements above into the classroom?

When it comes to reading a novel, many students shrug off the reading and just watch the movie version instead. Well, two can play at that game. Teachers can give students a little of what they want by incorporating the movie versions of books into their discussion and activities, but that’s not the only way movies play a role in the ELA classroom. A movie is just another type of text and it can be analyzed just as easily as a novel, a short story, or a poem.

The Movie Version

The easiest way to incorporate movies in the ELA classroom is simply to have students watch the movie version of the novel or short story they are reading. While many teachers typically show the movie version after students read, others choose to show the movie before they read. This may be particularly helpful when it comes to reading more difficult texts such as Shakespearean plays or ancient texts such as The Iliad and The Odyssey. Watching the movie first provides students with a context and general overview of the book, making it easier to understand and recognize key details as they read.

If students watch the movie before they read the book, chances are they will notice that the movie version failed to include many details they find in the book and will begin to make comparisons between the two. To ensure students actually read the book, teachers should pay attention to the differences between the book and movie, not only giving students a chance to compare and contrast, but also testing their knowledge on facts and details they know were not included in the movie version. Help Teaching’s Comparing a Book and Movie Worksheet can give you an activity to start with.

Help Teaching also offers worksheets to help you quiz students on popular novels that have been turned into movies. Many of our worksheets can be used with either the book or the movie, particularly those that focus on characters because they can lead to discussions about how well the movie portrayed the characters in the book. Some character worksheets you’ll find on Help Teaching include:

• Characters in Twilight
• Characters in A Christmas Carol
• Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Characters in The Great Gatsby
• Characters in The Hunger Games

If your students get excited about new releases, such as The Hunger Games, incorporate their interests in the classroom with some of our other Hunger Games worksheets:

• The Hunger Games
• The Hunger Games Basics
• The Hunger Games – Catching Fire
• The Hunger Games – Mockingjay

Analyzing a Movie

Instead of watching the movie version of a novel, the movie itself can be the text. After watching a movie, students can still answer many of the same questions they’d be expected to answer after reading a book. In fact, Help Teaching’s General Movie Analysis worksheet has students analyze the theme, characters, and other literary elements found within a movie. The same can be done with the General Documentary Analysis worksheet to help students analyze documentaries and other informational films.

Learning through Movies

Teachers may also choose to use movies to introduce themes or introduce students to various literary concepts. For example, when teaching about the hero’s journey, teachers can have students watch the movie Hercules to familiarize themselves with what the different stages look like before tackling a book such as The Odyssey. Instead of having students read a book about a particular period in history, teachers could have them watch multiple movies that tackle the subject. For example, when studying The Holocaust, instead of reading The Diary of Anne Frank, students could watch Au Revoir Les Enfants, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and a movie version of the popular diary, comparing how they portray that specific event.

Incorporating movies in the curriculum also helps when teaching students about specific elements of literature or writing and teachers don’t always have to show an entire movie to do it. Want to help students understand the importance of public speaking or how to write a great speech? Show them a clip of an actor delivering a truly moving speech during a movie. Having trouble getting students to understand the concept of a flashback? Help them see it done in movie form. Movie clips can be used to teach about characterization, conflict, setting, symbolism, and other key elements of literature.

Teachers who need help getting started incorporating movies in their classroom can find a wealth of ideas through Teach With Movies, which offers lesson plans, and lists of movies and the skills they cover. For more information on how often to include movies in the classroom, also check out How to Use Movies in the Social Studies Classroom. While it is not focused on the English classroom, it may provide English teachers and teachers in other classrooms with ideas about how to get started showing movies in their own classrooms.

Watch Help Teaching’s literature section for more worksheets aligned to movies as they come out.

In the world of education, there’s nothing a teacher loves better than the word FREE and every teacher knows the internet is full of free content to use in the classroom. However, not every teacher knows how to find that content. Whether you teach early elementary school or are trying to keep seniors from checking out, many of these sites have been designed to help you.

Elementary School

Language Arts

1. Funbrain Reading offers games to help students brush up on their grammar and reading skills. Teachers and students will also find digital graphic novels and excerpts from popular children’s books.

2. Scholastic Student Activities feature lesson plans and interactives for multiple grade-levels and subject areas. While the site covers multiple subject areas, many of the lesson plans are text-based, making them ideal for use in a language arts setting, particularly when it comes to introducing students to informational or non-traditional texts.

3. Merriam-Webster Word Central is designed to help kids practice their spelling skills. The site uses games, a build-your-own dictionary feature and lesson plans to help accomplish that purpose.

4. Paragraph Punch helps students learn to write a basic paragraph. This site is ideal for students in upper elementary school.

5. Storyline Online features videos of members of the Screen Actors Guild reading popular children’s stories. It is a great site for getting students to read and also offers a new way to present books to students in the classroom.

Math

6. Math Playground is full of games designed to help kids practice their math skills. Activities feature a range of problem types and many are aligned to the Common Core State Standards.

7. Figure This encourages families to get involved in learning math skills by offering fun challenges for them to complete. Teachers can also adapt many of these challenges for use in the classroom to help students build some real-world math and problem-solving skills.

8. Math Cats offers a fun math fact every day, as well as numerous activities designed to help kids learn and explore more about basic math and problem-solving skills.

9. Funbrain Numbers contains multiple games for students. They can solve math problems while kicking soccer balls, racing cars and playing other arcade-style games.

Science

10. Wonderville helps kids learn about science by answering questions kids may have and exploring unique topics in science. The site also offers a section on “Neat Jobs,” helping kids see some of the ways science is put to use in the real world.

11. Science Kids is full of fun science facts, experiments and other activities designed to help get kids interested in science. Teachers can also find lesson plans, videos and project ideas to bring science into their classrooms.

12. The Electronic Zoo allows kids to take a trip to the zoo without leaving the classroom. The site features information on all types of animals, from invertebrates to primates and many more.

13. Kitchen Chemistry shows kids how they can perform science experiments in their own homes. Teachers can adapt many of the experiments for use in the classroom as well.

Social Studies

14. BBC History provides games and activities to help make history fun for students. Special animations help students see what life was like during certain periods in history and interactive activities allow them to participate in history.

15. Geosense test students’ knowledge of world geography. Kids can play by themselves or compete against each other.

16. Xpedition Hall is an online interactive museum from National Geographic. Students can learn about geography as they explore the museum and teachers can download a special guide to help them use the content in their classrooms.

17. Archiving Early America provides teachers with videos and images to use as they teach students about early American history. Some documents and biographies are also available.

Middle School

Language Arts

18. Essay Punch takes students through a series of exercises designed to help them learn how to write an essay, a crucial skill for all middle school students.

19. Scholastic News helps get upper elementary and middle school students interested in the news by providing them with news stories geared towards their interests and reading levels. This is a great site for finding informational texts for students as well.

20. VocabularySpellingCity gives students a place to practice their spelling and vocabulary words. While the free options on the site are limited, students and teachers can build vocabulary lists and take quizzes to help them learn the words.

21. Sheppard Software’s language arts games help students brush up on their grammar and punctuation skills, as well as learn new vocabulary words and play fun word games.

Math

22. Aplusmath.com features flash cards, games and worksheets designed to help students brush up on their math skills. While the site covers elementary and middle school skills, the way its content is presented is better for middle school students.

23. AAA Math offers math lessons for students at multiple grade-levels. Teachers at the middle school level can find lessons and interactive activities on topics such as measurement, exponents and geometry.

24. CoolMath is not just for elementary students. Middle school students can also brush up on their basic math skills and practice basic algebra and geometry skills through these fun games and interactive lessons.

25. MathMovesU is full of activities, games, information and lesson plans designed to help get middle school students interested in math.

Science

26. Learner.org offers numerous interactives designed to help students understand complex scientific topics. While content is able for all grade-levels, some of most engaging interactives are geared toward students at the middle school level and cover topics such as DNA and divergent boundaries.

27. NASA Quest is focused on helping students learn to think critically and engaging them in scientific inquiry. Many of the activities found on this site are geared toward students in grade 5-9, making it an ideal resource to help students at the middle school level solve real-life scientific problems.

28. Physics Central offers a free comic book series called Spectra to help students learn about physics. The main character is a middle school student.

29. Exploratorium is a science museum that has filled its online site with websites, videos and other resources to help students learn more about science. Students can also view and interact with many of the museum’s exhibits online.

Social Studies

30. Eyewitness to History provides teachers and students with lesson plans and media files designed to help them experience history. Students can access a wide variety of primary source materials to see history as it really was.

31. Teachable Moment helps take current events and use them to teach students valuable lessons. These lessons are especially beneficial in the middle school years when students are learning to think beyond themselves and develop their understanding of how they fit into the world around them.

32. Mr. Donn’s Social Studies Site is full of lesson plans, quizzes, worksheets and other activities related to various countries, cultures and periods of history. Many of the resources are ideal for middle school students and their teachers.

33. Virtual Tourist helps students learn about geography by taking them on a behind-the-scenes tour of many different countries. This is not typical textbook information; instead, it is designed to help students actually see what a visit to these countries would actually be like.

High School

Language Arts

34. Grammar Bytes helps students brush up on their grammar skills by going through sets of interactive activities. Students are then rewarded with off-the-wall virtual prizes.

35. Project Gutenberg features thousands of public domain texts in the form of free eBooks. Teachers can find numerous fiction and non-fiction texts to use with high school students. Students can also find texts to use for book reports or to help them explore specific subject areas.

36. Purdue OWL is the online writing lab for Purdue University, but it also features a lot of information that can be helpful to high school students. This should be their go-to resource when writing papers, citing sources and learning how to avoid plagiarism.

37. A Word a Day provides students with a new vocabulary word each day. Teachers can use this site as an opening activity in the classroom or just to help students build their vocab skills. Archives of previously featured words are available as well.

Math

38. S.O.S. Mathematics offers over 2,000 pages of lessons and worksheets designed to help students improve their skills in high school math. Subjects covered include algebra, trigonometry, complex variables and matrix algebra.

39. Math Bits features tutorials related to high school math and computer programming. Students can also find information on how to operate graphing calculators.

40. Math Planet brings math to students through video lessons. Teachers can use these lessons in the classroom or students can watch them at home to help learn more about complicated math processes.

41. Analyzemath.com contains numerous free questions for math teachers to use in the classroom or students to use to brush up on their skills.

Science

42. PBS LearningMedia features a wealth of videos, audio files and lesson plans related to science. Students can see the scientific principles they are learning about in action. While an account is required to view most of the materials, creating an account is free.

43. ScienceGeek.net was designed by a high school science teacher to benefit his students. Students can find review sheets, worksheets and problems related to high school chemistry, A.P. Chemistry and biology.

44. NSTA: The Science Teacher allows high school science teachers free access to some of the articles from its magazine designed just for them. Some of these articles, such as those about careers in science, can be used with students in the classroom.

45. PhET offers a variety of interactive simulations to use with science students. Simulations are organized by topic and grade-level, making it easy for teachers to find simulations to use to help bring science to life for their students.

Social Studies

46. PowerPoint Palooza contains numerous PowerPoint presentations for teachers to bring directly into the classroom. Topics cover a wide range of history and include collections designed to be used in A.P. European History and A.P. American History courses.

47. Teach with Movies helps engage students, especially high-schoolers by helping teachers find movie clips that relate to core topics. Social studies is only one of the many subjects covered on this site.

48. Econedlink offers free economics lessons for students at all grade-levels, but a majority of the lessons are focused on students in grades 9-12. Many feature interactive handouts and quizzes to help test students’ knowledge of economics.

49. Internet History Sourcebook is full of online texts for teachers to use in the classroom. These texts are geared toward major periods in history and ancient civilizations and get help students get a glimpse of history outside of the textbook.

50. Help Teaching offers a wide variety of free printable worksheets and activities that use unique map images.

Looking for more web-based teaching resources? Read Help Teaching’s articles Ten Social Studies Web Resources and Free Interactive Web Resources for Teaching Science.

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Joe Pizzuto-Pomaco is an educator, writer, and editor who has taught in public and private schools 15 years.