It is Spring! Time to Celebrate Science!

Hey teachers!  Spring is finally here!  This change of seasons means many different things to teachers everywhere in the nation.  Teachers in Pennsylvania might be looking forward to some warmer weather, while our teacher friends in Texas might be enjoying the burst of color from the bluebonnets that typically kick off the season.  Art and wine festivals pop up in Oregon, Florida and Ohio while North Carolina, New Jersey and Maryland look forward to catching blue crabs in the Atlantic.  The teachers working for The Teacher’s Academy are getting ready to attend the ISTE conference in Philadelphia, putting the finishing touches on a few new courses set to release this spring and celebrating Earth month with thousands of other teachers across the USA.  Earth day falls on April 22, but the entire month is devoted to the wonder of Science.  Hands-on, project-based, Science activities are totally cool for kids and we have some great ways to keep Science fun, fresh and not too messy in the classroom!

The Teacher’s Academy professional development courses for Science teachers emphasizes the importance of effectively teaching Science to an ambitious generation of learners. Our latest (and most popular ) course, Creating A School Garden will inspire teachers and students to think about garden designs, wholesome foods and getting dirty!   Our course, Teaching Science using Common Core Standards allows teachers to earn 15 hours of professional development while learning how the Common Core Standards can be used to support a Science curriculum.  Finally, we have gathered 25 Educational Science websites in our 2015 Science Website Review course for teachers to explore.  Once teachers have had fun checking out the Science sites, they can review 5 of them for 3 professional development hours.

Creating A School Garden is a unique course because it considers different size garden spaces, regions of the country and budgets. Teachers will get ideas from videos and websites about how to grow lots of different types of food in some very small spaces!  It also offers strategies on maintaining bigger gardens, year round.  There are resources that provide information on which types of plants to grow depending on the area and weather conditions, and designing gardens to take advantage of scarce resources.  Budget is always an issue no matter where you teach, so there is plenty of information on how to stretch a small budget or make wise decisions with a larger one.  The main focus of Creating A School Garden is still transferring knowledge to students.  This is done through fun activities and cross-curricular lessons.  The activity ideas keep students engaged and cross-curricular ideas help teachers cover a wide variety of learning goals.   We hope teachers enjoy the inspiring videos and refer to the valuable resources for Science fun all year long!

Common Core Standards are a controversial topic and our course, Teaching Science using Common Core Standards allows teachers to experience how Common Core Standards might affect Science lesson plans and activities.  Teachers get a chance to voice their opinion about the standards, react to an informative video and modify a Science lesson plan to experience exactly how the Language Arts and Math standards can support existing lessons.  Teachers might be working in a state that did not adopt the standards, like Texas – that is ok!  We encourage teachers from all over the country to see what all the fuss is over these standards!

Some of The Teacher’s Academy most popular courses are the Website Review courses.  Teachers love the abundant amount of resources and the freedom to review whichever 5 websites they choose.  Our 2015 Science Website and Apps Review course dives into 25 of the most highly rated educational Science websites and Apps for teachers. It’s your job to explore and determine whether or not they would be useful in your classroom.  Are you thinking, Professional development hours for classroom prep and research? The answer is, yes!

There are literally thousands of educational websites and apps on the Internet that claim to have information and activities relevant to current teaching practices.  The Teachers Academy gets suggestions from teachers, researches these sites and then chooses the websites based on teacher reviews, student engagement levels and how the website will improve learning.  These three factors help guide us through the maze of extraneous information and deliver only sites that have a track record of success in the classroom.  Regardless if you teach Science, Math, ELA, Social Studies, Health, Pre-K, or another subject, you can take this course and earn 3 professional development hours for playing and reviewing Science websites!  Or, check out our full course catalog to find a course in your area of expertise.

Be inspired by lots of great learning activities for your students and conveniently obtain professional development hours for your efforts!  Yay Spring!  Yay Science!

Enjoy!

Check out our website at: https://theteachersacademy.com

Check out our Science courses at: https://theteachersacademy.com/product-category/science/

Some of our tech & website review courses can be found here: https://theteachersacademy.com/product-category/computer-applications/