The CECH Library provides access to teaching activities and lesson plans in various ways. Listed below are some approaches you might use once you have decided on the topic for which you want to build a lesson or unit.
Teacher Handbook Collection (teaching activities books)
This first approach involves searching for activities books in the Teacher Handbooks (teaching activities books) section of the CECH Library using the UCLID online catalog. The CECH Library has an extensive collection of teaching activities books called teacher handbooks. These books are shelved in the Teacher Handbook section of the CECH Library and are arranged so that all books for a given curriculum area are shelved together. The areas are art, general (multiple subject areas in each book), health, pre/kindergarten (includes preschool levels from toddler through kindergarten), language arts, math, music, science, social sciences, and social studies. This collection provides access to a phenomenal number of teaching activities and lesson plans. Teacher handbooks may be checked out for three weeks and renewed twice.
This approach begins with a search in UCLID (the UC Libraries online catalog)
You will now see a list of mainly teacher handbooks that contain teaching activities for teaching your curriculum topic.
Some topics that you teach may appear in activities books in various ways. For example, “weather” may also be called “meterology.”
So in order to find all activities books on this subject you will need to type in both terms in the top Search Window separated by “or” weather or meterology.
Other Examples:
Topic: circulatory system or heart or physiology
Topic: composition or writing
The above searching will net many examples of teaching activities books to locate in the Teacher Handbook section of the CECH Library but because many books have activities on a variety of topics, it may be very advantageous to go to the Teacher Handbook section (books are arranged and shelved by broad curriculum area – language arts, math, science, social studies, etc.) and locate the books for the broad curriculum area in which your topic falls. Next, select various books and look in the index and table of contents for your topic. This browsing technique will net you many activities and lesson plans as well. You may even discover more activities on your topic than you found in your UCLID search.
Kraus Curriculum Development Library (KCDL)
Searching for teaching activities in the Kraus Curriculum Development Library (KCDL) is a second approach. KCDL is a library of thousands of curriculum guides, frameworks, courses of study, and curriculum standards. Many of these documents contain teaching activities and lesson plans. Through the online index KCDL Online, you can locate online full- text copies of newer curriculum guides as well as earlier guides located on microfiche and filed in the CECH Library.
This approach to locating teaching activities and lesson plans begins with a search in UCLID (the UC Libraries online catalog)
To access the KCDL:
You are now at the KCDL Index. At this point you can type in a “Keyword” or preferably scroll down to the “Primary Section” and choose a curriculum area, such as social science. You may also combine the above curriculum area with a “Specific Subject” Just click on the arrow in the “Specific Subject” window and hold down the mouse key until you find an appropriate subject, for example, U.S. History.
Then to find teaching activities and lesson plans, click on the arrow in the “Educational Content” window and hold down the mouse key until you find Learning Activities (click on this). Also while holding down the Control Key, scroll down and click on lesson plans. You must hold down the Control Key as you click more than one selection in a window.
You can click on the appropriate grade level(s) in the “Grade Level” window.
You can click on the appropriate grade level(s) in the “Grade Level” window or possibly a state(s) in the “State” window as well. You can also select particular years by holding down the Control Key and clicking on your selections. HINT: by choosing at least 8 years, more variety and hits will be found.
If you wish to find full-text guides only, click in the box labeled “ Results with Full-Text Documents.” Most documents in the database since 2000 will be full-text.
After clicking on “ Search,” you will get a list of documents that meet your criteria. If you did not limit to full-text only, the non full-text listings will provide abstracts and the number of the microfiche. Many of these microfiche are located in the CECH Library and can be viewed and/or printed out on the microfiche reader/printer in CCM Library, Classics Library, or Langsam Library.
The Web also provides access to many teaching activities and lesson plans. The following are some typical sites and metasites providing teaching activities and lesson plans.
Jump to:
Multi-Discipline/Grade Level
Art
ESL/Bilingual
English Language Arts
MathMusic
Physical Education
Science
Social Studies
World Languages
Multi-Discipline/Grade Level
Kinderart
http://www.kinderart.com/lessons.htm
A fourth approach to use in locating teaching activities is through using the teacher’s edition of textbooks for the curriculum area in which your teaching topic falls. These teacher’s editions can be found in the Textbook section of the CECH Library. CECH Library textbooks are shelved by the Dewey Decimal system. Charts are available in the Textbook section of the CECH Library that provide you with the Dewey classification number for various curriculum subjects (e.g. Algebra, U.S. History, Biology, French, etc.) so that you might readily find the area you are looking for.
Curriculum Resource Center (online database)
Finally, another source for accessing teaching activities is provided through the Facts on File database, Curriculum Resource Center.
To access the Curriculum Resource Center:
Web site content: cheryl.ghosh@uc.edu
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