Lesson Plans from the Internet

Could the Internet be a rich source of ready-made lesson plans (in all subject areas)?
A convenient starting point to look for these is the search engine Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com/). This is an excellent search tool for specific educational matters. Go to the Education subsection of Yahoo, and click on Teaching. (The independent URL of this page is: http://www/yahoo.com/Education/Teaching/a. Type the words Lesson Plans into the blank search box, and click on search. The result is an initial ising of some 80 sites (many of which are directly relevant to the primary school) which have links to lesson plans. Titles for these links include:
Educational Projects for the Primary Classroom Lesson Links
Teacher's Edition Online School House
Web Sites and Resources for K-6 Music Educators' Lesson Plans
Education Place

All of these sites contain lesson plans/ideas for the primary school, and information on other teaching resources. Education Place for example (http://www.eduplace.com) has resources for K-a (4-12 years) teachers and pupils, including a searchable database of lesson plans, interactive games, weekly brainteasers, and online projects for teachers.

Teachnet.Com
In terms of practical usefulness, an exceptionally good site for primary teachers is Teachnet.Com (http://www.feist.com/~lshiney/index.html) . This site has an online magazine for teachers entitled: Teacher's Edition Online, which serves as the Home Page. This magazine offers links to topics which teachers will find directly relevant, including:
Lesson Plans, Classroom Decor Classroom Organisation and Management, Classroom PR, Current Events, Involving Parents in the Learning Process, Keypals, and Web Links.

Ready-to-use lesson plans and general lesson ideas for primary pupils
are available for the following subject categories: Art, Music, Language
Arts (reading/writing), Mathematics, Science (Biology, Earth, Physics,
Space and Time, Weather, Technology), Social Studies (History,
Geography, Personal Growth, Society), Internet (general lesson ideas),
Health and Physical Education (Fitness, Nutrition), Parents, and
Miscellaneous.

Place Value made fun
A specific example taken from the Mathematics catetgory of Teachnet.Com (September 1996) is a set of lesson ideas on how to make place value (in base ten) more enjoyable for pupils. Some of these ideas are:

'1. Start by having pupils in groups of two/three roll three dice. Using the numbers they have rolled, have them make as many different three-digit numbers as they can. Have the pupils tell the places (ie. units, tens, hundreds) of these numbers as they write them on the board. Teacher can ask pupils if e.g. the 5 is worth more in this number or in that number. As pupils become more proficient, extra dice can be added (one at a time), giving experience of thousands, tens of thousands, etc., in the resulting numbers.
2. Dice can be used for this game too. Pairs of pupils each make four columns on a sheet of paper (or on the blackboard) and label these units, tens, hundreds, and thousands. They then take turns rolling one die. After each throw, the pupil must place the number in one of his columns. After four rois, pupils compare the resulting four-digit numbers. The high (or low) number winner receives one point, and play continues to a predetermined number of points scored. If both pupils pick the same number, no points are given. As they become more famillar, more columns can be added to give larger numbers (and less chance of ties).

3. Make three columns on the blackboard, labelled Guess, Digit, and Place. Write a three-digit number (no two digits the same) on a piece of paper. Now have pupils guess the number. Write their guess in the first column, how many digits are correct so far in the second column, and how many of the correct digits are in the correct place in the third column. Don't tell which digits are correct or in the correct place, only 'how many'. Pupils keep guessing, using the clues, until they have the number correct. They may need clues to help them along. You can start this out as a whole-class game, then let pupils in groups/pairs take over. As they progress, move into four- and then five-digit numbers.

4. Race to 100
Pupils play in pairs, with a base 10 place mat in front of them, and base ten blocks. Taking turns, pupils roll the die for units. As these mount up, pupils swap units for tens, until finally 10 tens are swapped for 100. First to reach 100 wins. The reverse of this is 'Go for Broke' in which each pupil starts with a 100 block Each roll of the die means the resulting number must be subtracted from the total. First to reach zero wins (last throw must be for the exact number of units required).

5. Base 10 Riddles
Pupils have to puzzle out a number which teacher gives in riddle form e.g. 'there are two tens, four times as many hundreds as units, and half as many units as there are tens. What is the number? Children can also invent their own puzzles for the class to solve.'

Involving parents In the learning process
Teachnet.Com also offers advice and lesson plans for involving parents with their children's learning To quote from the September '96 issue:

'The first step in involving parents in the learning process, is to remember that they are there. We often get focused on our job, and forget that parents could be a valuable time-saving resource. Changing your perspective means brainstorming a way to have them help with a lesson at home, share an experience with your class, make a treat for an end-of-the-week party, read to your class, have them enlist the support of their business in donating supplies, make phone cails, drive for field trips, donate old magazines/newspapers etc. And parental involvement shows their children they care'.

The following extract is a specific example taken from the online magazine:

Getting Parents Involved
'Learning can and should take place in the home; the problem is how to implement it. You can jumpstart the process once a week by sending home a 'Work-at-Home' worksheet with each pupil, giving both the child and the parent something to do. For example in class, have pupils estimate how many minutes of a haff hour TV programme are devoted to commercials. Then send a worksheet to parents describing how they and their child can list the commercials that occur during a 30-minute show, and time these to get a total advertising time for the show. The result? Parents and children work together on something that wuli be an educational process for one, if not both. Have the parents and pupils sign the sheet and return it to school the next day

Following from this, Teachnet.Com offers a teaching method for getting pupils to view local television news programmes with their parents, in order to analyse the content and discuss current issues. Both write comments about their discussion, and these are later shared in class.