Saturday, April 19, 2014

FREE curriculum...

Yes...I said FREE!!!!

I just went to an EdTech Summit at a local college, and learned a few great things.

The TOP and probably most exciting for myself and my co-teacher was a website that was shared with us during a presentation by a 5th grade teacher.

I was pretty lucky and came from a county that had a massive (sometimes too much and overwhelming) amount of curriculum and materials. One thing that I really took for granted was the curriculum that was posted on their website developed and made by teachers. I loved the flow of the maps, and how the lessons lent themselves to "me being me" - allowing me to be a teacher, but addressing all the Common Core!

Fortunately being who I am, I made myself AWESOME binders that contained most of the lessons I loved and used.

So when we were showed this site, my co-teacher and I got excited. Our district (as you may have read prior) is/was looking for a new reading curriculum. We weren't the only teachers that were a little worried about "jumping the gun" when it came to adopting a new curriculum. We didn't want something that a company just slapped a common core sticker on and put it on the market. There also weren't many new common core curriculum out there that have been used and "tested". And as you may recall my worry was adopting a curriculum and being told I needed to have fidelity to the core!

Our district was starting to recognize the concerns of the teachers (WOW right). So a recent survey was sent out asking if we wanted to wait a year or get rid of the old adoption. I wanted both :)  Of course there was a section that asked if we didn't want a new curriculum this coming school year what suggestions did we have... (click below to go to the website)
It's a MASSIVE resource!!!!

To find plans aligned with Common Core for both ELA and Math click on the Common Core Curriculum and Assessments button at the top.


You will then see the Common Core Menu on the right.


Click on Common Core Curriculum, choose your subject area, then your grade level. Next you will see the modules that you can choose from!


For those of you still struggling with old adoptions, trying to make them fit common core, or have new adoptions with gaps...this is an amazing resource. I can't wait to dig deeper!

Let me know what you think!