SCHOLASTIC.COM

Scholastic.com is a pretty neat resource not only for teachers, but for parents, students, administrators, and yes, even librarians. For the sake of this assignment I am only going to focus on the teaching resources, but feel free to peruse the site www.scholastic.com.

The first thing that caught my attention was the list of numerous lesson plans categorized by grade level, subject area, and month of the year. Listed under “popular themes for the school year,” there are lesson themes suitable for each month of the year. For example, March would be an ideal month to talk about Women’s History (as it is women’s history month), St. Patrick’s Day, Springtime & Life Cycles, Nutrition (March is also nutrition month--supposedly), Dr Seuss’s Birthday, and etc. Aside from this very extensive list of lesson plans, some other resources I would take advantage of are “shop $1 paperbacks,” and “10,000 free printable worksheets and graphic organizers.”

I do appreciate the lesson plan examples and free printable worksheets, but what I really like about this website is the “teachershare” section. This is like a teacher facebook where teachers can meet and share resources with other teachers around the U.S. (scholastic.com is international—there is a website for teachers in China, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and UK). Each member has a profile of the grade level they teach, subject area, school, class size, geographic profile, and the number of years of their teaching experience. I think this is a really beneficial networking site for teachers to meet and share resources—but more interestingly, you get a chance to see what a ton of other teachers are doing in their classrooms.

A few last things about the website—there is a book wizard function where you can search any book/author/genre/whatever else, and it compiles a list of books with a blurb about the interest level, the topics you can discuss, and the grade level equivalent of the book. Another great thing about this website is that it offers free giveaways, special chances to win grants or prizes, essay contests for students, as well as opportunities for teachers and students to give back to their community & environment.

I think the website is very organized and easy to browse—just don’t get overwhelmed by the abundance of resources surrounded by flashy pictures.