February 2017 Picks

February Blog | App of The Month | What's Happening |
New- Online Practice | New- Printables | Answer Keys |
Teacher Resources | Parent Resources | Technology Tips |
Other Areas of Interest | Common Core |
SAT and ACT Test Preparation

February brings Black History Month, Children's Dental Health Month, Valentine's Day, President's Day, and much more. Visit our monthly newsletter to see all the details.

February Blog: Tips to Work Out Your Brain This Winter

Tips to Work Out Your Brain This Winter

This month's blog is Tips to Work Out Your Brain This Winter. There's nothing like the doldrums of winter to make you feel lazy - both physically and mentally. Health experts will tell you that it's important to get your daily exercise, even as the days grow colder and the nights longer. But it's just as important to remember to work out your brain - as the mind-body connection goes both ways. Guest blogger Larry Mager is passionate about the study of how to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's Disease. He believes in regular exercise of the brain as a means to do just that.

App of the Month

Every month we are going to feature a different, and hopefully FREE, iPad/iPod/iPhone/Android educational application. Visit our ever-changing app page.

The App of the Month for February is DropBox By DropBox ( iOS / Android ).

Need to share a file that is too big to send by email? Need a simple cloud storage solution to safeguard important files or images?

Dropbox is the place for your photos, docs, videos, and other files. Files you keep in Dropbox are safely backed up and you can get to them from all your devices. It’s easy to send large files to anyone, even if they don’t have a Dropbox account.

Features:
• Access your files on any device, even if you’re offline
• Create and edit Microsoft Office files from your smartphone or tablet
• Share links to your largest files without using email attachments

A Dropbox Basic account is free and includes 2 GB of space. You can download free apps to access Dropbox from your computer and mobile device. You can also earn more space on your Dropbox Basic account.

If you need a lot more storage, DropBox offers in-app purchases for Dropbox Pro, which includes 1 TB of storage and additional features.

DropBox is available for both Apple and Android devices.

Compatibility: Requires iOS 9.0 or later on Apple devices and Android 4.1 and up on your Android device.

WHAT'S HAPPENING THIS MONTH?

Here are some of the February events that you can celebrate or make note of this month:

1. Black History Month- Visit our Black History page. Find lesson plans, Black History activities and projects, timelines, quizzes, and tons of information. Some resources include Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, MLK, the role of African Americans in music, the Dred Scott Case, African flags, and an entire African American Odyssey exhibit exploring civil rights and slavery. Also find a Black History month lesson plan for every day in February by exploring our Who Is It list. Find other Famous African American Firsts here.


2. Children's Dental Health Month- Take a look at "Crawford Brushes His Teeth" on our Kindergarten Science page. It's an interactive online book from Crawford the Cat where students can choose to read it themselves or have the computer read out loud. It discusses how to brush your teeth and how to floss. Use dental health month as an opportunity to find health and the body lesson plans and activities: "A Brush Chart" and "Brush Chart to Color" offer tooth charts that you can print out and color. "Bright Smiles, Bright Futures" is a link to teacher's content on the Colgate site. Learn how the body works - especially your teeth, cavities, braces, and more with these fun facts and activities.
3. American Heart Month- Teach students about the human heart and the importance of taking care of their bodies with our health resources section for grades K - 12. Included are links to everything from the human body and the heart to the dangers of smoking, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity, adolescence and more. There are physical education resources as well. For the upper levels I4C has resources about and anatomy videos of the heart in our Biology section, specifically "The Heart: an Online Exploration", "Heart and Circulation", "Heart Transplant from NOVA" and "Heart Videos". Find a map of the heart, the circulatory system, and how it all works together.
4. Groundhog Day (2/2) - You can find out why we celebrate Groundhog Day and why the groundhog was chosen to be the face of the holiday.


5. National Inventors' Day (2/11) - Did you know that National Inventors' Day is in honor of Thomas Edison's birthday? Learn about Thomas Edison, other famous inventors, and famous inventions. You can also check out our Inventors page to find lesson plans and other activities.


6. Valentine's Day (2/14) - I4C has a great page of Valentine's Day lessons, crafts, online games and Valentine's printables. Have your students write a story using the phrases of 5 or 6 heart candy message pieces . Get creative!


7. Presidents' Day (2/20) - Celebrate two presidents that have February birthdays- Abraham Lincoln (2/12) and George Washington (2/22). Find lesson plans, history, timelines, reading exercises, and quizzes on both Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Celebrate Presidents' Day with these puzzles, printable fact cards, printable biographies and prompts, coloring pages, web quests, and more.

New- ONLINE PRACTICE AT I4C

Internet4Classrooms now offers Online Practice and Interactives, covering Kindergarten to Eighth Grade Common Core Mathematics. Look for a rapidly growing variety of thousands of practice quizzes tied to the Common Core State Standards, School Subjects, Activities, and Holidays.

Check out our Online Practice Quizzes! More grades and subjects coming soon!

New- COMMON CORE MATHEMATICS PRINTABLES AT I4C

Internet4Classrooms offers Printables, covering Kindergarten to Sixth Grade Mathematics. Look for a rapidly growing variety of thousands of practice worksheets tied to the Common Core State Standards, School Subjects, Activities, and Holidays.

Check out our Common Core Printables! More grades and subjects coming soon!

Answer Keys




We have thousands of answer keys for our printables worksheets supporting the Common Core Standards.

Remember that you can sign up for answer key access here: https://i4c.xyz/n89msyv.





TEACHER RESOURCES



1. Many historical events happened this month which you can cover in your classroom. Check outI4C's History page for lesson plans, videos, activities, and other resources to supplement your lessons!


2. February honors Black History Month. As we mentioned in the section above, I4C has a large page of resources dedicated to Black History month and African American History. Take our online Black History Quiz. Discover 500 Famous African American Mathematicians. Click on the many links to timelines, historical exhibits, and Black History teacher resources.
3. In need of project ideas for the second half of the school year? We have them: subject areas, inventors, biographies, middle/high school level projects, and countries and continents.


4. Keep your students and yourself healthy this cold and flu season! Here are some great tips to share with your students and their parents.


5. Looking for lesson plans to bring in the new year? We have a whole page dedicated to lesson plans by grades and subjects.


6. Are you using our Site Map? Don't forget it's an easy and quick way to search alphabetically by topic.


7. Be sure to check out I4C's collection of free educational iPhone and iPad apps!


8. Remember to visit our Teacher Tools section! This home page contains all the topics you need to use during the school year.


9. Go to our grade level help for lesson plans, activities, instructionals, and tools organized by grade and subject.



PARENT RESOURCES



1. Are you looking for Valentine's day crafts you can do at home? We have them!
2. Celebrate Black History month with printables, projects, and crafts you can do with your kids to honor this important month.
3. Work puzzles in to your day! I4C has word search and crossword puzzle makers and tons of brain teasers!


4. Want to reinforce a concept with your child? Check out our Grade Level Skill Help page for tons of resources in math and language arts covering a variety of topics.


5. Be sure to check out I4C's collection of free educational iPhone and iPad apps for you and your child!


6. You can always visit our Parent Resources page to get grade level practice sites, find online sources, and information pertaining to homework, special needs, reading help, and more.


7. Don't forget our Technology Tutorial section in case you need refresher courses in your computer skills.





TECHNOLOGY TIPS



1. Screenshots and more screenshot methods for Windows 10: Need a screenshot of your entire monitor, want it saved in a file or just placed on the clipboard? Want to get an image of just the active window? How about only part of a window or parts of multiple overlapping windows? Need to annotate these images quickly? Learn the many ways of sampling parts of your monitor area with the screenshot techniques found HERE


2. Virtual Reality: Getting Started: Thinking about bring virtual reality technology into your classroom? This short "how to" article discusses use of the View-Master VR and Google Cardboard smartphone holders, and covers "do's and dont's" as well as possible classroom activities. Read more about it HERE.


3. How to Make the iPhone's Touch ID Work With Gloves: It's cold and with what feels like an eternity of wintery weather ahead of us, it's most definitely glove-wearing season. So learn how to get your gloves to work as an additional finger print with the touch ID sensor on your smartphone. Read about how to do it HERE.






We also have other basic instruction in Microsoft Office, including Word 2007, Excel 2007, Powerpoint 2007.





OTHER AREAS OF INTEREST



1. Resources for Educators - In this section you can find classroom resources for Exceptional Children, Smartboards, Character Education, Web 2.0 Resources and other topics.
2. Resources for Parents - Parents can find resources
   on assisting their children with homework, time management, Internet Safety, subject area resources, grade level resources and more.




Common Core State Standards at I4C




Our Common Core State Standards are full of resources for every individual standard. Students can take control of their own learning by clicking on the page with the standard number, and choosing their own resource to practice that skill.




Check out our Common Core Math High School Algebra Standards, Common Core Math Standards, and Common Core ELA Standards.




SAT and ACT Test Preparation

Free Online Practice Resources for ACT Tests and SAT Tests! I4C now offers free SAT and ACT vocabulary and math quizzes. Join our SAT and ACT Test Preparation program and log in as much as you'd like. Students can take practice tests on 5000 vocabulary words or over 1000 math problems. Parents and Mentors can log in to monitor your scores - including seeing which vocabulary words that were missed. Interactive quizzes allow the test taker to retake and study as much as they want.




Sign Up Here for ACT Test & SAT Test Preparation!