Hello All,

In the search for teacher directed website I have found this particular preschool website. The Website http://www.prekinders.com/ by Karen Cox has many tabs on various types of information related to managing a preschool room and dealing with topics in early childhood education. Ms. Cox's website has many ideas on how to present an efficient well organized classroom. Another creative element was the use of  scrap book paper to decorate which she has many wonderful ideas. The website has many ideas on the use of classroom materials with many examples lessons, activity sheets, and ideas for hands on activities, and theme units. Classroom management fell under the heading of “Teaching Tips” with various helpful hints from lining up to noise levels, among other classroom necessities to keep a classroom running smoothly. The website shows very different ways to incorporate thematic units from weeks into months, which this idea could actually work better than weeks. Also along in the teaching tips there are more items on how to run the classroom/classroom management/methodology. Overall, there are many items like from to checklist on when to different ways to line up in the running of  a classroom. The website incorporates themes with core content along with holidays/ seasons and  much more. 

Another admirable preschool website is the website, which has more content than classroom arrangement or methodology on the website. The preschool express so many content items teaching diversity and social skills. http://www.preschoolexpress.com/    This website is produced by Jean Warren. The site has many beneficial areas to it by categorizing events with various ages from toddlers to preschool. Also, the website is filled various stations.  This is a great website for the early childhood teacher and for the PK teacher for hands-on activities for toddlers and preschool children. The website is organized like a train station. The content is 18 “stations” on the side with links under each subject and also links for the current season, Summer.  The stations are Market, Calendar, Party, Toddler, Art, Game, Food, Discovery, Alphabet, Number, Skill, Music and Rhyme, Story, Celebration, Inspiration, Theme, Learning, and Advice.  The current season, summer, has 16 links. While the classroom planning was not easily found on this site she provided plenty information on content activities and social skills to teach PK and toddlers. This website had many themed ideas on different materials and what to include in certain activities. The biggest real find on this website was the multicultural themes that were addressed in the tab called “celebration Station.”  This website is great for matching up the right activity or stations with current time of the year with theme based activities. The site provides teachers and parents’ tools to teach toddlers and PK students about nature to different cultures. Also the site correlates child centered activities with learning activities. The themes  units are matchup to provide a thematic lesson based to help students understand their world around them. Overall, the information is a vast amount of information from  school housekeeping to checklist.  The website incorporates themes with core content along with holidays/ seasons and more.  This website is full of great materials. It is arranged like a train  with the many stations. Also a huge amount of the content is literature based teaching for teachers to draw from the website

Also there are two kindergarten-3rd grade websites that I chose from many different sites, which are: http://www.mrsmcdowell.com/centers.htm  and the web site by Jessica Meacham, http://www.jmeacham.com/ .First of all,  Ms. McDowell's website http://www.mrsmcdowell.com/Literacy%20Boxes/boxes.htm  discusses the importance of arrangement of classroom centers and how centers keeps students engaged in learning with the use of many classroom centers. The materials are endless on this site,  I can truly say this is a great site because Mrs. McDowell has thought of everything from check lists to theme based projects. The methodology is basically student centered based learning rather than teacher centered based learning.  Also, there are huge amounts of resources to use with these thematic based literacy activities. Another nice find is the use of independent literacy based activities for students to explore many themes literacy, with a huge amount of content that literature based teaching for teachers to draw from this particular website.
However, after looking at primary grades websites I found the second website by Jessica Meacham http://www.jmeacham.com/.  This is a totally awesome website! Also, this particular website is one of the best website that I came across in a long time and it is  a perfect website for the brand new teacher. I have one word for this site “LOVE” and this website has many ideas about classrooms and technical layouts, which the tips are great. This website has everything from ideas on classroom arrangement, positive behavior supports, content methodology, to great content sources, and a wealth of themed activities. The website has so many materials need in today’s classroom. The methodology is centered toward child centered learning and also the methodology collection is extraordinary from managing behaviors to literacy skills. Meacham’s website is a phenomenal website for organizational skills along a multitude of content ideas and activities needed for the inexperience or first year teachers to pull from for lesson plans.

 

I hope this is helpful to new teachers,
Andrea Hatfield