Posts Tagged ‘high school’

Writing Instruction for Middle & High School

April 27th, 2022

It’s Wednesday, April 27, 2022, and time for Language Arts at ClickSchooling!

The New York Times: The Learning Network

(www.nytimes.com/spotlight/learning-activities-for-students)

Grades 8-12, with parental supervision

The New York Times offers free lesson plans, writing prompts, activities for students and more — all based on The New York Times journalism.

When you get to the site you will see Activities for Students:

  • Writing Prompts – Student Opinion Questions and Picture Prompts
  • Articles & Questions – Articles of the Day, Teenagers in the Times, and STEM Articles
  • Quizzes & Vocabulary – Weekly News Quiz, Word of the Day, Country of the Week, and Student Crosswords
  • Photos, Graphs and Videos – What’s Going on in this Picture?, Film Club, and What’s Going on in this Graph?
  • Contests – Check out the Annual Summer Reading Contest.

You can access the news stories for free, and no registration is required.

Science Journals Just In Time For Earth Day!

April 19th, 2022

It’s Tuesday, April 19, 2022, and time for Science at ClickSchooling!

The Natural Inquirer

(www.naturalinquirer.org/all-issues.html)

PreK-12, with parental supervision

Earth Day is this week! This website offers FREE science education journals: “The Natural Inquirer,” for middle and high school, “Investi-gator” for upper elementary, and readers for PreK-2. Scientists with the USDA Forest Service share their research in a fun and engaging way.

Each issue of “The Natural Inquirer” introduces students to the scientists who conduct the environmental research and includes an article or more on a specific research project. Some of the issues are entitled:

  • World’s Forests
  • A Burning Question
  • Chew on This!
  • Full Throttle Model
  • Fresh Water
  • Wilderness
  • Flower Power
  • And more!

Each issue also contains a “Discovery FACTivity” designed to help students learn scientific vocabulary words included in the articles. There are also discussion questions designed to help students think more about research. You can download the issue(s) you are interested in or order hard copies (only 5 issues at a time).

Be sure to check out the top menu under “For Educators” for links to lesson plans, science cards and posters, and more.

This is a treasure trove of environmental learning resources! Bookmark this one, as you’ll need to visit many times to explore the vast content!

Learn 3D Programming

April 9th, 2022

It’s Saturday, April 9, 2022, and time for Other Electives at ClickSchooling!

Computer Science – Free Alice Computer Programming Software

(www.alice.org/)

Grade 6-12, with parental supervision

This website offers “Alice” – free educational software from Carnegie Mellon University that teaches students computer programming in a visual, 3-D environment. It makes it easy to create animation for interactive games and videos and much more.

The description from the website best explains it:

“Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student’s first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

In Alice’s interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.”

When you get to the site you can read the latest news and media coverage about Alice software and then click on the menu items that include:

  • Downloads – Get Free downloads of the software designed specifically for middle school students and/or high school and college students that will allow you to get started learning computer programming in a fun and engaging way.
  • All About Alice – Click on this item and a new page opens that explains how Alice works – and provides promotional videos you can watch to better understand how to get started.
  • Teaching Materials – Alice provides instructional materials to support teachers and students in classrooms. Resources include textbooks, lessons, tests, and more that you can download and print out.

NOTE: Some of you may have heard about “Alice” in the context of media coverage about one of the developers, Randy Pausch. Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, died of pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008 at the age of 47, leaving behind his wife and three young children. He gained world-wide attention through an inspirational “Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” in which he recounted how he achieved his childhood dreams of becoming a football player, experiencing zero gravity, and developing Disneyland attractions. There are lessons in his last lecture for all of us. You can view it here: ClickSchooling

High School Math Video Lessons

April 4th, 2022

It’s Monday, April 4, 2022, and time for Math at ClickSchooling!

Mathplanet

(www.mathplanet.com/)

Grades 8-12, with parental supervision

Mathplanet.com is sponsored by a Swedish non-profit organization called Mattecentrum. It’s an online community where students can study U.S. high school math courses for free through theory, examples, and video lessons.

When you get to the site, look for the colorful menu on the right side of the screen to access lessons that include:

  • Pre-Algebra – Covers integers, one-step equations, graphs and functions, ratio and percent, probability, area and volume, etc.
  • Algebra 1 – Discover algebraic expressions, linear and quadratic equations, inequalities, exponents, polynomials, radical and rational expressions.
  • Algebra 2 – Explore equations, graphs, matrices, exponential and logarithmic expressions, sequences, probability and trigonometry.
  • Geometry – Study points, lines, planes, angles, parallel lines, triangles, similarity, trigonometry, quadrilaterals, and more.
  • SAT – Practice sample questions similar to what you’ll find on the SAT exam. If you have difficulty, watch the linked video lessons.
  • ACT – Try your hand at solving questions similar to those on the ACT. Linked video lessons explain challenging concepts.

If you want to interact with others using Mathplanet, check out their Facebook page.

Art Tutorials for Middle & High School

March 19th, 2022

John MacTaggart: Artyfactory

(www.artyfactory.com/)

Grades 6 and up, with parental supervision

This ad-supported website includes step-by-step, how-to art lessons. It also offers art appreciation tutorials on topics like “Still Life” or “Animals in Art” or broader “Art Movements.”

Description: When you get to the site, choose from:

  • Art Lessons
  • Art Appreciation
  • Design Lessons

Little ones can’t interact with Artyfactory on their own. The content and writing are at an advanced level. (In fact, it is suspect most of the content doubles as MacTaggart’s college course material.) But there’s tremendous potential here for a creative homeschooler as follows:

  • Use it directly as reading or coursework for a high school student.

  • Adapt the lessons for younger pupils. The “Pencil Shading” exercises, for example, found under “Pencil Portraits” in the Art Lessons section, would be a fun challenge. The “How to Draw Animals” lessons might work with a talented middle school student, too, but these are no Ed Emberley thumbprints: they require a good eye and a controlled hand.
  • Fill in holes in your own knowledge. After spending some time on this site you’ll be able to introduce your children to Expressionism paintings and more next time you visit a museum.

There’s a wealth of information here: color theory (both technical stuff like the color wheel and the emotional impact of colors in painting), a thorough overview of African masks and Egyptian hieroglyphs, shading techniques in pen and ink, etc.

NOTE: As always, PARENTS SHOULD PREVIEW the site to determine suitability of content for your own children.

Ultimate Homeschool Reading Lists

March 2nd, 2022

iHomeschool Network/Reading Lists

(ihomeschoolnetwork.com/homeschool-reading-lists/)

All grades; children with parental supervision

Here is a resource you’ll love! The iHomeschool Network has earned our praise for developing the reading list of all reading lists! They explain: “Sometimes it’s difficult to sort through all of the massive amounts of information to discover what is truly useful to our homeschooling children or our own selves. With so many resources available both online and in everyday chatter among homeschooling families, internet searches, Pinterest and chat groups it can be hard to narrow down to what works versus what doesn’t. That’s why we wanted to bring you our favorite reading lists for homeschoolers.”

They have gathered their top reading lists and sorted them by relevant categories and organized them alphabetically! When you visit the website, scroll down through the various categories to locate a myriad of reading lists. Choose from:

  • Reading Lists for Homeschool How-to, Resources, and Advice
  • Homeschool Educational Methods
  • Reading List by Age Groups:
  • Early Childhood
  • Babies & ToddlersPreschool – Kindergarten
  • Elementary School (1st Grade – 4th Grade)
  • Middle School (5th Grade – 8th Grade)
  • High School (9th Grade – Graduation)
  • Reading Lists by Subjects
  • Classics
  • Favorites/Topical
  • And Many More!

Bookmark this page and return often. You’ll find yourself falling in love with reading all over again while you share the love with your children!

Have fun!

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