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[ezcol_2third]We would love to meet your staff and leave them with tools, resources, and energy to be master chefs, satisfying their students' educational appetites. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or make your reservations today.[/ezcol_2third] [ezcol_1third_end] [/ezcol_1third_end]

Tweets by @classroomchef

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ezcol_2third]We would love to meet your staff and leave them with tools, resources, and energy to be master chefs, satisfying their students' educational appetites. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or make your reservations today.[/ezcol_2third] [ezcol_1third_end] [/ezcol_1third_end] Tweets by @classroomchef

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https://teachflix.org/middle-school/

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Graphic Novels eBooks
Unlimited Access to the Graphics
Multiple readers at one time
Nonfiction and Fiction

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Smithsonian

Learning Lab

Discover the digital education platform that connects people to Smithsonian objects, resources, and stories.

Collections by Grade

Explore some of our most popular Learning Lab Collections. Use them as a springboard to continue your exploration of the many collections available on the site.

Talk with Me!
Learn about your community and neighborhood. In this Toolkit, leaners explore different homes, shops, and people in your neighborhood and have fun with related activities.

Talk with Me Toolkits provide you with chances to talk with your children to improve thinking, vocabulary, and language development. Talking with your child is great-and research shows that the quality of words children hear matters more than how much you talk.

Talk with Me Toolkits give you ideas to begin conversations that are organized around a theme. The Toolkits feature videos, photographs, paintings, and artworks along with questions to talk about with your child. At the end of each toolkit there are more activities to do and books to read together. Go through this toolkit with your child and see how many topics there are to talk about!
This toolkit was adapted with a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Links to third-party websites and videos are included in this Toolkit for informational purposes only. They do not indicate the Smithsonian's endorsement, sponsorship of, or affiliation with the third party or content of the linked site, including any advertisements that might be posted.

Learn More

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

What inspires you? Get to know Alma Thomas, (b. Columbus, Georgia; lived and worked in Washington, DC, 1891-1978), an American artist and educator known for her signature painting style using bright colors and patterns inspired by nature. She became a full-time artist late in her life. Born in a time of horses and buggies, she lived through big advancements in technology, such as the space race and moon landing. Her art was inspired by the nature she saw outside her home studio, and awe for the exploration of our vast universe.
Get To Know Alma Thomas Use it in the classroom to teach:
is part of the Hirshhorn KIDS About the Artist series. About the Artist biographies are designed for kids under age 12. Modern and contemporary artists' lives reflect recent human history and events. Sharing these life stories and artworks can help kids see their own potential and better understand the world and their place in it. It is our goal to inspire future generations of artists, makers, and creative problem solvers-sharing artists stories is one way Hirshhorn KIDS realize this goal.
Art classroom: Color Theory, Pattern

Language Arts classroom: Biography

Social Studies classroom: 20th century

Learn More

National Museum of American History

In this playlist you will learn about how three of the first presidents shaped the executive branch of the United States government.

Start by clicking on the first tile in the upper left hand corner. Then move through the playlist by clicking on the ">" symbol at the bottom of the page. Look for the information and paperclip icons to provide more information about selected resources. There are 34 tiles in this collection.

Learn More

Educator Programs

Cultivating Learning is a professional development series where Smithsonian educators model teaching techniques for using digital museum resources to support student learning. This year's series celebrates America at 250. Programs are free and accessible to anyone.

Wednesday, April 15, 4:00 PM EST

Join Phoebe Sherman of the National Postal Museum to explore how postage stamps can be used in the classroom to encourage civic awareness and engagement. We'll examine how stamps can spark curiosity and deepen understanding of civics, American history, national identity, and commemoration by using thinking routines that focus on both subject matter and artistic design. You'll see how these approaches come to life with students and leave with classroom-ready resources and fresh ideas for incorporating postage stamps into your teaching practice.

Watch

Wednesday, May 20, 4:00 PM EST

Join Nyssa Buning of the National Museum of American History's Spark!Lab and Carol O'Donnell of the Smithsonian Science Education Center to explore strategies for cultivating an inventive mindset in your students. We'll discuss the history of STEAM innovation in America and try an open-ended invention challenge that uses object-based learning techniques to encourage creative problem solving and support curiosity and perseverance, skills essential to inventors throughout history. You'll leave with a set of facilitation tools to support students as they develop their own inventive identity and become future problem-solvers. You'll also receive access to a newly released e-book from the Smithsonian Science Education Center, STEAM Innovation: Celebrating Our Nation's 250 Years.

Register

Wednesday, June 17, 4:00 PM EST

As America turns 250 in 2026, young people are writing its next chapter. Join a group of educators who apply interdisciplinary approaches to learning to engage young people in civic dialogue tied to their communities.

Register

What will you find in the Smithsonian Learning Lab?

Resources

Millions of Smithsonian digital images, recordings, texts, and videos in history, art and culture, and the sciences

Collections

Thousands of examples of resources organized and structured for teaching and learning by educators and subject experts

Resources

Millions of Smithsonian digital images, recordings, texts, and videos in history, art and culture, and the sciences

Collections

Thousands of examples of resources organized and structured for teaching and learning by educators and subject experts

Browse individual resources by type

Browse model collections on different topics

Tips

Tips

Create collections of resources to engage learners, or freely adapt ones already made by Learning Lab users like you.

Use Learning Lab tools to customize and enhance your collections.

Browse ready-to-use model collections by educational use

Browse ready-to-use model collections by learning strategy or theme

Tips

Tips

Subscribe to our Bright Ideas newsletter

To learn more about the Smithsonian Learning Lab and to read about strategies, approaches, new features, and more, subscribe to the Bright Ideas newsletter. We'll be sending out a new issue every few weeks.

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Smithsonian Learning Lab: Discover, Create, Share

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Smithsonian Learning Lab Discover the digital education platform that connects people to Smithsonian objects, resources, and stories. Explore some of our most popular Learning Lab Collections. Use them as a springboard to continue your exploration of the many collections available on the site. Talk with Me! Learn about your community and neighborhood.

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Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.

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Support for Smithsonian's History Explorer is provided by the Verizon Foundation

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Civics for All of US Civics for All of US is the new education initiative from the National Archives that promotes civic literacy and engagement. DocsTeach Teach with documents using our online tool. Explore primary sources. Discover fun and engaging teaching activities. Create your own online or print activities for your students!

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PBS LearningMedia | Teaching Resources For Students And Teachers

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Inspire your students with thousands of free teaching resources including videos, lesson plans, and games aligned to state and national standards.

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A required part of this site couldn’t load. This may be due to a browser extension, network issues, or browser settings. Please check your connection, disable any ad blockers, or try using a different browser.

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Open Author helps you build and publish Open Educational Resources for you and for the benefit of educators and learners everywhere.

Learn more about creating OER

Groups provides a flexible environment to organize, create, share, and discuss resources with others in your network. Collaborate with group members, tag and add resources to shared folders, create your own collections, all within a public or private group.

Groups

Search through collections curated by our digital librarians

Collections

Common Core resources organized for your needs

Common Core

Hubs

A Custom Resource Center

Projects, districts, states, and initiatives make use of Hubs to bring groups of educators together to create, organize, and share OER collections that meet their common goals. Explore Hubs

Microsites

Custom Digital Libraries

Microsites are custom, flexible sites that include all the features available on OER Commons. Microsites allow your users to search resource collections using a custom taxonomy at a unique URL. Contact Us

Our award-winning OER Professional Learning programs support instructors and curriculum specialists to gain the necessary skills required to find, adapt, and evaluate high quality open materials.

In-person and virtual OER workshops help focus instructors to develop a "commons" mindset, to experience the benefits of open processes using the platform's tools, collaborative features, and workflows. This can include using Open Author for creating, remixing, and publishing shared curriculum.

Learn More

How to Search OER Commons

View all How-to videos

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OER Commons is a dynamic digital library and network. Explore open education resources and join our network of educators dedicated to curriculum improvement.

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For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.

World-class content

Access thousands of reading lessons and our comprehensive ELA curriculum, CommonLit 360.

Accessible for all learners

Tailor instruction to students' needs with text-to-speech, translation, and digital note-taking.

Actionable data

Track students' reading performance, set goals, and plan instructional next steps.

CommonLit
Digital Library

Discover thousands of free, supplemental lessons and quizzes in English and Spanish - all featuring great authors.

CommonLit
Assessment Series

Measure growth in reading comprehension with three benchmark assessments when you unlock our premium packages.

CommonLit 360 &
Professional Development

Support a successful rollout of our research-backed ELA curriculum with personalized webinars and on-demand trainings.

"

CommonLit has made a tremendously positive impact on my teaching practice. I'm very proud to teach CommonLit!

Jennifer Lane ELA Teacher

"

CommonLit definitely keeps me organized. It's easy for me to grade and it's easy for me to see students' reading growth increase throughout the year.

"

The CommonLit assessment questions are aligned to our ELA standards, which is extremely helpful when prepping for the state exam.

Teachers trust CommonLit to foster students' reading comprehension

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CommonLit | Free Online Reading Passages and Literacy Resources

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CommonLit is a comprehensive literacy program with thousands of reading lessons, full-year ELA curriculum, benchmark assessments, and standards-based data for teachers.

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The world’s largest library. View historic photos, maps, books and more. Contact experts for help with research. Plan a visit. Home of U.S. Copyright Office.

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Argiculture, Climate, Local Government, Ocean

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Data.gov is the United States government's open data website. It provides access to datasets published by agencies across the federal government. Data.gov is intended to provide access to government open data to the public, achieve agency missions, drive innovation, fuel economic activity, and uphold the ideals of an open and transparent government.

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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Act now! For Giving Tuesday, your gift to the National Geographic Society will be matched dollar-for-dollar. Make your tax-deductible contribution today and make TRIPLE the impact for Explorers working to preserve threatened species around the world.

Donate today!

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Education Resources | National Geographic Society

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Inspire learners to explore National Geographic through interactive lesson plans, maps, storytelling and a wide variety of resources to illuminate their world.

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U.S. History Collection for middle and high school | PBS LearningMedia

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The U.S. History Collection covers the full U.S. History curriculum for middle and high school students. Find video and interactive resources covering the curriculum of a United States History course and is organized by era and by historical thinking skill.

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OpenStax | Free Textbooks Online with No Catch

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OpenStax offers free college textbooks for all types of students, making education accessible & affordable for everyone. Browse our list of available subjects!

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FREE Digital Escape Rooms

We hope you and your students enjoy these FREE digital escape rooms! Below you will find links to each escape room along with the locks, answers and explanations.

If you and your students are new to digital escape rooms it might be fun to try one out as a class so that you can experience it together. After that, you can assign these escape rooms to your students in groups or individually by giving them the direct link to the digital escape room (they don't need a special copy). Click on the images for links to the escape rooms.

Here are couple of tips to help you and your students feel successful:

Take a look at what lock combinations you are looking for first.

Share the link to the escape room with students, but don't share this teacher pack!

Click everywhere, clues could be hidden inside of text, hyperlinked in an image or multiple links could be hidden inside of an interactive slide or picture.

Don't give up. It's supposed to be challenging! Those answers are there for you in case you need to give little hints though.

Watch this quick video overview of our Halloween Haunt Digital Escape Room to see what a digital escape room looks like.

You will notice that many of these escape rooms are created with Google and Microsoft tools. Some school/districts block Google sites created outside of their domain. However, the escape rooms created with Microsoft tools seem to work.

Still have questions? Take a look at our digital escape rooms FAQs page for answers to our most common questions and if you still have questions email Karly at social@ditchthattextbook.com.

🚀 Take learning to a whole NEW level 🚀

with the Getting Started with Digital Escape Rooms Online Course!

You'll get:
🔐 Video tutorials to guide you in getting started

🔐 PDF guides to help you plan

🔐 LOTS of example escape room ideas you can use as inspiration

🔐 25 digital escape rooms with lock combinations and companion resources in a downloadable PDF

🔐 A step-by-step companion website with templates to help you and your students create your own digital escape rooms

🔐 A resource locker FILLED with BONUS resources

Digital Escape Room Teacher Pack

Digital escape rooms bring the excitement of hunting for clues and the joy of solving puzzles right to your student's devices. Here are over 40 digital escape rooms to try plus resources for creating them yourself!

Upcoming Speaking

There are no upcoming events.

©2024 Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller.

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FREE Digital Escape RoomsWe hope you and your students enjoy these FREE digital escape rooms! Below you will find links to each escape room along

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Easily create beautiful interactive video lessons for your students you can integrate right into your LMS. Track students' progress with hassle-free analytics as you flip your classroom!

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It’s easier than you think to bring the fun and excitement of a game play in to your classroom. Whether it’s the latest video game craze, a beloved

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Virtual field trips allow us to take our students on adventures we never thought possible. We can take our students under the ocean, across the globe and

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Virtual Field Trip Apps and Websites | Common Sense Education

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Virtual Field Trip Apps and Websites is a list of 29 apps, games, and websites curated by Common Sense Education editors.

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Search through collections curated by your peers

Collections

Site upgrade 1:00 - 4:00 EST Friday, January 13.

More

Open Author enables you to build and publish Open Educational Resources for your use and the benefit of other educators and students.

Hubs

Your starting point for discovering topic-based communities of practice. Share collections, resources, and goals, and invite colleagues to join your working groups. See All Hubs

Groups

Collaborate with peers within your school, library, or university. Create, evaluate, and share resources in a private or open environment. See All Groups

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OER Commons is a dynamic digital library and network. Explore open education resources and join our network of educators dedicated to curriculum improvement.

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researchIT CT Newsstream Chicago Tribune (1985-present) Hartford Courant (1992-present) Los Angeles Times (1985-present) Newspaper Source Plus New York Times (1985-present) U.S. Major Dailies (1980-present) Wall Street Journal (1984-present) Washington Post (1987-present)

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Open a world of reading. Try Sora, the new reading app for students, by OverDrive.