Financial literacy is a critical life skill, and sharing personal finance lessons with students will prepare them to be financially responsible adults. Learning about money can start with the youngest students as they learn to count and identify different types of money, and the differences between wants and needs. As students progress to middle school and personal finances become more important, it is crucial that they learn how checking and savings accounts work, especially online accounts. High school students benefit from understanding the power of compound interest, as well as financial accounting, stocks and other economic factors.

April is Financial Literacy Month. Help your students be more financially literate with Thinkfinity.org’s special collection of finance-related lessons and interactive games.

Recommended Resources:

• Students learn how to build wealth over the long term in the Gen I Revolution: Mission 1 interactive. (6-12)
• Compound Interest Simulator allows students to see how money increases with interest as time progresses. (9-12)
• Buying vs. Renting takes students through the basic economics of buying a house versus renting. (9-12)

Visit the Thinkfinity Community
Join the Economics & Personal Finance group and start discussing:

• How do you teach about the financial crisis?
• How do you show students the value of savings?

 Recommended Civil War Resources:

• Take students on an interactive adventure through the Civil War with Who Am I? A History Mystery as they try to identify a character from the Civil War based on video footage, oral history reenactments and primary source objects. (5-8)
• Hear how a high school student helped find an explanation for a Civil War legend about soldiers with glow-in-the-dark wounds. See if your students agree with the information presented in the podcast. (6-12)
• Show students artifacts from the Civil War such as uniforms, mess kits, medals of honor and battle flags. Can students identify the proper use of the item during the time of the Civil War? (5-12)

Visit the Thinkfinity Community Join the group History Explorers and discuss: How do you teach secession?

Civil War Webinar for Teachers

Join us for the Civil War Stories from the Smithsonian’s History Explorer webinar on April 20th at 4pm or April 23 at 1pm. Learn from an educator at the National Museum of American History, a Thinfinity.org partner, and explore the museum’s interactives, videos, artifacts and lesson plans on the Civil War. Sign up for the 30-minute webinar.

Recommended Resources

• Encourage students to learn the Connection Between Poetry and Music as they develop language fluency skills. (Grades 3-5)
• Show students that Seeing Music is actually possible as they view the math behind the music in this math-related lesson. (Grades 9-12)
• Listen to a podcast and learn how computers can now produce music without a human composer in Computer Composer. (Grades 6-12)

Visit the Thinkfinity Community
Visit us today and see what other educators are discussing.

Thinkfinity Professional Development
Visit our complete lineup of free webinars and get started today.

Celebrate the 60^th anniversary of National Engineers Week from February 20-26, 2011. From the tallest skyscrapers to the longest bridges, engineers put their skills to work to design the infrastructure that keeps our lives moving along smoothly.

As you develop your STEM-related classroom activities, make sure to check out the special engineering collection below, and show your students how fun engineering can really be!

Are you part of the Thinkfinity Community? Visit us today and read the discussion: How do you encourage K-12 students to pursue engineering?

Interested in learning about more Thinkfinity resources that support 21st century skills? Sign up for a free 1-hour webinar.

Special African American Read-in Resource Collection

• August Wilson was one of the most significant African American playwrights of the 20^th Century. Share his writings with your 9-12th grade students and see why he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
• Explore the writings of Frederick Douglass in a 3-part lesson covering his autobiographies and his thoughts on how slavery was allowed in a land founded on the concept of freedom. (Grades 9-12)
• A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry, explores the concept of the quest for the American Dream during the of the economic and social climate 1950’s. (Grades 9-12)
• Maya Angelou, considered one of the finest poets of her generation, wrote a number of books that can be shared and incorporated into lessons for your 7-12th grade students.
• Explore the OurStory collection of American History stories and activities to find more great works by African American authors. (Grades K-12)
• In Folklore in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, students will learn to define folklore and understand its impact in the novel. (Grades 9-12)
• Help your students start Writing Poetry Like Pros as they explore poems from Langston Hughes and Paul Dunbar. (Grades 3-5)
• Analyze poem line breaks and the impact of enjambment on reading and interpretation in The Impact of a Poem’s Line Breaks: Enjambment and Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool”. (Grades 9-12)

Are you part of the Thinkfinity Community? Visit us today and see what other educators are discussing about great African Americans and join the discussion.

 Share the achievements of great African Americans with your students.  Explore EDSITEment’s collection of 23 Black History lessons. (Grades: 6-12)

• For science students, show the impact of African American scientists in the areas of science, technology, engineering and medicine. (Grades: 6-12)
• Help your students experience the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education and understand how the case impacts their education today. (Grades: 6-12)

Here are some great lessons to use with Letter Generator.  Try it today!

Are you part of the Thinkfinity Community? Visit today and read more about the interactive Letter Generator and the new save capability.

Interested in professional development?  Visit our complete lineup of free webinars and get started today!

What Are Your Classroom Goals For 2011?

Perhaps you are committed to try a new collaborative tool this year, or maybe you are focused on improving your students’ reading scores. Share your goals in the Thinkfinity Community, and see how others can help you succeed.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

If your goal is to…become more comfortable with your students using interactive whiteboards:
Try our Interactive Whiteboards feature and discussion.

If your goal is to…learn more about 21st century skills:
Try participating in our Reaching 21st Century Students with Verizon Thinkfinity webinar.

If your goal is to…start using blogs with your students:
Try our Discussion: How are you using blogs? or join the group, Blogging with Elementary Students.

We want to hear from you!  Post your goal today.

Take your science classroom online and watch your students engage in critical, scientific thinking through interactive play. Test your knowledge of the systems of the body with All Systems are Go! Or build a spacecraft that can withstand the trip to Mercury with Make a Mission. Finally, add A Touch of Class to students’ day to reinforce plant and animal classification.

Recommended Science Interactives:

• After 6-8th grade students build a spacecraft for their mission to Mercury, they can explore the planet’s geological structure in detail with GeoHunter.
• Then use a collection of Interactive Science Tools to collect data and track activity with a bar graph.
• After the mission to Mercury is complete, experience a rocket launch to find out how gravity really feels in Gravity Launch.

Celebrate National Geography Awareness Week from November 14-20 with lesson plans, interactives and podcasts from Verizon Thinkfinity. Freshwater is an important issue in the 21^st century and is the theme for this year’s celebration. Brought to you by our partner, National Geographic, National Geography Awareness Week highlights the importance of geography and provides lesson plans, activities and interactives to help enhance at-home and classroom geography education. Start exploring today!

Geography Resources

• Explore the Geography Awareness Week blog from National Geographic.
• In Water Nearby, K-4 students use Google Maps to find the closest body of water to their school.
• The Water Cycle shows students in grades 3-5 how the continuous cycle works.

Are You a Part of the Thinkfinity Community? Visit or join the World Geography group and check out ideas for creating exciting lesson plans and activities with other educators and parents. Sign up for the Community today!

Looking for professional development opportunities? Verizon Thinkfinity offers webinars to meet your professional development needs. Sign up for a webinar today!