Scholastic For New Teachers

Resources, Tools, and Tips for New Teachers

In the past, I have used Scholastic.com for ideas for lesson plans. This specific site for new teachers allows inexperienced people to access tools for classroom management, student activities, suggested books to use in the classroom and lesson plans for all grade levels. Also, there are many links for surviving obstacles like getting students to complete their homework and game plans for tests–standardized and unit tests. Most importantly for new teachers, there is a support system with links on how to teach effectively, organize the classroom, communicating with families and colleagues, and growing as a teacher and furthering your career.

One interesting lesson plan followed the trail of Iditarod, an Alaskan dog race across mountains and rough terrain for 6th-8th graders. Scholastic provided a seven-day lesson plan that a teacher could easily follow and use DR-TA and other reading comprehension and writing techniques. In addition, there are various links in the lesson plan to worksheets and how-to activities. At the end, there is a list of NCTE, IRA, and technology standards that the lesson meets for each subject area (math, science, English, etc). Plus, there is a rubric for the teacher to assess the students. This website really goes into detail and everything is very beneficial. I don't think the creators could possibly leave anything out!

For high school students, Scholastic provided an interesting lesson plan on censorship. There are links to multiple lesson plans to cover writing position papers with outlines and how to write a solid paper and presentations. The site also presents various books that might spark interest in the students. However, I would recommend reading the books before distributing them to a class.

Overall, I believe this site would be really beneficial to new and old teachers. I have already bookmarked it to reference it in the future!