Resources & Materials Used in Elementary School Classrooms
Depending on the elementary school, there are various types of resources that teachers can use in the classroom to help their students learn more effectively. If you're a new teacher and you're looking for unique ways of teaching students, you can subscribe to Scholastic magazine, which has numerous resources to help you instill creativity and a love of learning in your students. It would also be beneficial to talk with fellow teachers and ask them about recommendations for teaching materials.
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Internet Educational Materials
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One important resource for elementary school teachers is the Internet; this tool allows students to develop a global outlook on life, and this will prepare them for a changing workforce and social landscape as they become adults. For example, when a social studies teacher lets students visit governmental websites such as White House.gov and Congress.gov, the students get to learn how the American political system works.
Books and Magazines
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These are essential resources for classrooms because they give students the opportunity to develop critical thinking and strong writing skills at a young age. For example, science teachers can use discussion questions at the end of each chapter in the textbook to allow students to examine the facts in those chapters and come to logical conclusions based on what they read through conversations or writing short reviews of those chapters.
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Visual Arts
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The use of art can also be a good resource for the classroom. If a Spanish teacher wants to teach students about various types of foods that are eaten in Latin America, she can take a Spanish-language magazine and cut out pictures of specific foods then give students both the Spanish and English words for these foods as well as in which dishes those ingredients can be found.
Music
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Teachers often incorporate music into their classroom instruction. For example, a physical education teacher who is teaching aerobics exercises to his students can make the experience fun by using decent hip-hop, rock and R&B songs for the students to exercise to. Or an English teacher may play some fun, kid-friendly songs that help her students learn about the parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit school image by dinostock from Fotolia.com
