Curricula, Tips & Tricks for Educators and Parents
CFT's curated collection of distance learning resources
Educators and parents alike need resources for at-home learning. Our thoughtfully curated collection of helpful and creative resources aims to assist educators and parents with learning at home — for all ages of students. Here you can find online resources by subject matter.
We have a separate collection of resources for higher education faculty. However, many of the subject matter resources below, and others, may also be helpful for teaching in higher education.
GENERAL
Hundreds of free lessons, resources from educators
ShareMyLesson
AFT’s ShareMyLesson offers hundreds of resources and lesson
plans for preK-12 educators, plus online webinars and
conferences. You can join discussion groups, download dozens of
lesson plans and resources, and upload your own lesson plan.
Watch for announcements of webinar and virtual conferences.
Join the new Remote Learning Community
ShareMyLesson
In ShareMyLesson’s new online community, educators can share
lesson plans and collaborate in discussions, as well as access
grade-specific, learning-at-home lessons and
activities, countless online resources to share with
parents (most are free), lesson plans on teaching about
coronavirus, and resources for prevention and preparation.
Resources for students with disabilities
ShareMyLesson
AFT has set up a ShareMyLesson resource page for supporting
students with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. It
includes webinars for educators, families, caregivers and staff,
apps for children with special needs, and podcasts for special
educators. There’s also an overview of the recent guidance
by the U.S. Department of Education on how to support students
with IEPs.
Parent resources and online tools
Share My
Lesson
To help families who are learning how to support their children’s
distance learning while still dealing with many other
responsibilities including work, the AFT and the Share My Lesson
team are providing resources for parents with children from pre-K
up through seniors in high school. They include tips about
student privacy and how to support students with disabilities;
blogs by and for parents about mental health during this time and
how to support English Language learners; and webinars about
subjects like dealing with stress and preventing a learning slide
during this time.
At-home learning with PBS SoCal
PBS
SoCal
California PBS stations are offering broadcast programming and
accompanying digital resources that adhere to California’s state
curriculum for continued at-home learning. This website, in
partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District offers
PBS schedules, how to watch, and a newsletter sign-up. Activities
and programs are broken into PreK–grade 3, grades 4–8, and grades
9–12.
How to transition to online teaching – Zoom
PBS
This short article from PBS gives tips for how teachers can
transition to online teaching, focusing on the free video
conferencing app Zoom. The
article explains useful things such as how you can see everyone
and they can see you, how to make the camera more flattering (!),
how to mute students and how they can raise their hands to ask a
question or share something, and how to share a picture or sound.
There’s also a link to
Zoom’s Help Center.
Change your Zoom settings for more security
CNET
Many teachers are spending a LOT of time on the
video-conferencing software Zoom. Researchers and journalists
have been noticing that there are a number of potential security
issues on the platform which has had a huge surge in use with so
many people working remotely. One issue is “Zoombombing,” when
uninvited guests can break into your meeting or class. This
article gives you four settings to change to prevent this,
including using the “Waiting Room,” feature so you can see who is
trying to join the meeting before allowing them access, and using
a per-meeting ID, not your personal one.
Linda Darling Hammond on teaching our kids from home
YouTube video
CalMatters hosts a virtual conversation with Dr. Linda
Darling-Hammond, the president of California’s State Board of
Education, and Cindy Marten, the superintendent of San Diego
Unified School District. Marten emphasized that parents need to
be gentle with themselves. The professional teachers are doing
everything they can, she said. She suggested parents can do
things like writing a journal with their families about this
time, which Marten said would be something their children could
share with their own children and grandchildren. Cooking, Marten
said, is another thing parents and children can do together –
which has the added benefit of meeting math and science
standards. Darling-Hammond addressed what the state is doing to
get connectivity for all students, and how standardized testing
has been cancelled so teachers and students can just focus on
learning. She said she is hopeful that caring for one another
during this stressful time and seeing others’ struggles will lead
to a transformation to a more equitable society.
Stanford’s tips for educators and families
Stanford
University’s Graduate School of Education
This site has a number of resources for teachers both K-12 and
college level transitioning from the classroom to teaching from
home. They include online courses to help multi-lingual learners,
resources put together by Stanford education professor Linda
Darling-Hammond, ways to keep students interested in learning at
home, tips to help college instructors build community and
collaboration, and a curriculum to help students evaluate online
information.
Downloadable children’s book on coping with COVID-19
World Health Organization
A group of dozens of humanitarian agencies has put out a book,
“My Hero is You, How Kids Can Fight COVID-19!” to help children
understand the coronavirus pandemic. Hundreds of teachers,
children, caregivers and parents shared how they’re coping with
COVID-19, and the writer and illustrator Helen Patuck, along with
a team, used that input in creating the book, meant for children
ages 6 to 11. In “My Hero is You,” a fantasy creature Ario
explains how children can protect themselves, their families and
friends from coronavirus, along with talking about ways to manage
difficult emotions in a sometimes scary and quickly changing
reality. The book has been translated into six languages, with 30
more coming. It’s a project of a group of United Nations
agencies, national and international nongovernmental
organizations, and international agencies providing mental health
support in emergency settings.
Facebook group: Members offer support, resources
Facebook
With over 10,000 members and multiple posts a day, you could
check out this Facebook group. “Is anyone else clueless as to
transitioning your courses online? Does anyone have fabulous
ideas or strategies they’d like to share? Let’s mingle from
quarantine!” reads the group description.
Facebook group: Pandemic Pedagogy
Facebook
This Facebook group offers educators and students a forum to
share advice, what’s gone well, what hasn’t, best (and worst)
practices, and research about converting to fully online
instruction while schools’ campuses are closed during this
pandemic.
A great source of stories on education in California
Edsource
For more than 40 years, Edsource has provided education
information, analysis and research in the state. Recent stories
include how university researchers are focusing on finding ways
to understand and treat COVID-19; a website that offers ideas and
resources for teachers serving special needs students online; and
a podcast with a superintendent and chief technology officer in a
rural district about how they are doing distance learning and
getting connectivity for their students.
ART
Creative activity ideas for kids
Los
Angeles County Library
This site has creative activities for kids ages 3 through 18,
using materials you would have at home. They include pressing
flowers to be observant of nature and create art; designing
uniforms and a spaceship and doing gravity tests for a space
mission; and going on an indoor scavenger hunt looking for items
like something very soft, a book with numbers in it and something
round.
Half hour art classes for kids on Instagram
Drawing
classes
On Monday through Friday at 10 am, illustrator Wendy MacNaughton has
half-hour drawing classes geared for kids on Instagram Live.
McNaughton, who illustrated the best-selling cookbook,
Salt Fat
Acid Heat, starts class balancing a pencil on her upper
lap, then does a dance. The classes have drawn a dog, a birthday
card, each other, and what they see out the window. McNaughton is
like an updated Mr. Rogers — so warm and full of enthusiasm about
the class and drawing. McNaughton plans to bring on a guest
artist on once a week, and she’s working with YouTube to get the
classes online. She plans to do the class for the remainder of
the school year.
Concerts and creative classes for kids
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
During the pandemic, the Lincoln Center in New York offers Pop Up
Classroom at 10 am EST (7 am PST) with subjects including hip hop
dance and puppet making. Concerts for Kids offers chamber music,
steel drumming, dance and opera.
Teacher artist launches homeschooling YouTube channel
Union
Teacher & Artist
Berkeley Federation of Teachers member and art teacher Miriam
Klein Stahl and Kate Schatz, the creators of the Rad Women book
series: Rad American Women A-Z, Rad Women Worldwide, Rad Girls
Can, and Rad American History A-Z, have a YouTube page where
Schatz reads parts of their books, and Stahl teaches art — like
how to make a mini-zine, simple mending and how to make a
papercut.
ENGLISH
Journaling prompts for kids during COVID-19
First Things First
Writing in a journal can activate the imagination, cultivate
self-awareness and calm stress. Those are great anytime, but
particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic with your children are
home from school, a journal might be a good idea. Not only can it
help clarify children’s thoughts and feelings, it can improve
their writing skills as well. This site suggests making it a
routine and offers some prompts depending on the child’s age. For
example “What is something that is important to my family?” for
elementary school; “If you could have been someone in history,
who would you have been? Why?” for a middle schooler; and “The
best and worst parts of quarantine are…” for a child in high
school.
Sonnets, podcasts, and plays
Shotgun Players
Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets. Shotgun Players, a Berkeley
theater, is offering a reading of one a day — hopefully this will
be over before they get through all of them. You can hear Shotgun
actors read the latest sonnets on the theater’s Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. They also have a podcast with
actor interviews, scenes, and audio recordings of plays. And a
few of the theater’s performances are available to watch on
YouTube.
Study guides to Shakespeare’s plays
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Members of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s education department
have provided helpful background for teaching Shakespeare’s
plays, including questions for pre- and post-reading, and
resources about the play and Shakespeare’s life.
HISTORY
Lessons on the history of the people
The Zinn
Education Project
You’ll find lessons and activities here that promote and support
the teaching of history in classrooms across the country, based
on the lens highlighted in Howard Zinn’s classic
A People’s History of the United States,
which chronicles U.S. history from the bottom up. Some of
the free lessons you can download include ones on the impact
of late 19th century factory work on workers’ home lives; the
1934 Longshore Workers Strike; and how to teach climate change to
elementary school children. The lessons and articles are
organized by theme, time period and reading level.
Covid-19 History Project with helpful blog
UC
Davis
Educators at the California History Social-Science Project at UC
Davis wrote California’s new History-Social Science framework in
2016. This page is for teachers, parents, and students, and
includes an oral history toolkit, a COVID-19 History Project
where teachers at UCLA document the pandemic, homeschooling
resources, and student journal assignments, as well as blog posts
about teaching during the pandemic.
Smithsonian’s History Explorer
National Museum
of American History
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has more
than 1.7 million objects The museum’s History Explorer, designed
for K-12 teachers and students, offers hundreds of free,
innovative online resources for teaching American history. Topics
include, the Constitution, Civil Rights, Suffragism, and how
young people affect elections. Resources include lessons and
activities, museum artifacts, videos and audio, and theme pages.
Use archives to teach the history of the state
Teaching
California
These instructional materials from the California Historical
Society are arranged into sets of an investigative questions with
a collection of sources, historical background and context for
the topic, and source notes. A lesson for high school, for
example, uses the garment industry as an example of why and how
laborers organized for worker protections, while a lesson for 4th
graders looks at impact that the California Gold Rush had on the
people living in the state and the demographic, economic, and
environmental changes that happened during that time. NOTE:
This website is still in beta testing and is expected to fully
launch in 2021.
SCIENCE
Curriculum for marine and environmental science
Monterey Bay Aquarium
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has curriculum, activities and games to
learn more about science. There are some distance learning
programs and educators at the aquarium are working on more in the
coming weeks. For a dose of calm, you could look at the
Live Cams with your students and see what the
sea otters, jellyfish or sharks are up to.
Science learning resources and STEM activities
California Academy of Sciences
The mission of the California Academy of Sciences in San
Francisco is to “explore, explain, and sustain life.” The experts
at the Academy are offering options for preschoolers through high
school seniors to learn remotely — videos, lesson plans and live
online programs. You can listen to experts talking about climate
and weather, get an introduction to scientific sketching, or take
a tour of the night sky. You can also check out the Academy’s
animal webcams to see what the penguins and stingrays are up
to.
Science Snacks – 285 teacher-tested activities
Exploratorium
The exhibits at San Francisco’s Exploratorium are meant to get
kids and adults thinking about science and art. To extend that
beyond the museum’s walls, the educators there have put together
free science activities and materials around general science
activities as well as ones addressing COVID-19. These videos,
activities, and articles will help you address students’
questions about what viruses are, the effect of soap on them, and
fight against viruses. Along with lessons on viruses, there are
285 teacher-tested Science Snacks that
use cheap, easily available materials and are for middle school
and high school ages. Topics include chemistry, physics, biology,
visual perception, environmental science and more. You and your
students can use soap film to model a cell membrane, see what
your brain learns when you use distortion goggles or write a
message in DNA.
SOCIAL SCIENCE
Free labor curricula preschool through higher ed
CFT Labor Curricula
Members of the CFT’s Labor and Climate Justice Education
Committee have produced curricula for students from coloring
books for preschoolers to college readings. May is Labor History
Month and you can celebrate it using these free
downloadable lessons and materials produced by CFT
members — classroom teachers, classified employees, and faculty
from college labor studies programs.
Teaching Tolerance: What educators need now
Teaching Tolerance
This page from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching
Tolerance has a wealth of resources that teachers asked for —
including recommendations for online resources, emotional
support for both students and educators, best practices for
distance learning, materials on the teaching COVID-19 and
social justice, resources for students without online
access, and information to send to families trying to teach their
children.
Free lesson plans about women’s rights, sweatshops
AFT Human
Rights Department
The AFT has put together this resource of lesson plans for
educators to use when teaching about human rights. The lesson
plans focus on a human rights issue, such as sweatshops, or a
fighter for human rights, such as girls’ education advocate
Malala Yousafza. These free lesson plans are designed for middle
school and high school students and they all include hands-on
activities, interactive videos, and worksheets.
El Teatro Campesino and the United Farm Workers
El
Teatro Campesino Archives
El Teatro Campesino was founded by Luis Valdez in 1965 on the
picket lines of the Delano Grape Strike picket lines. The company
created short skits in Spanish and English that dramatized the
cause of the farmworkers. The cultural arm of the United Farm
Workers, they performed on flatbed trucks and in union halls.
The Chicano theater company’s archives are available online with a variety of materials for people interested in political science, labor studies, and theater arts, including a TV interview with Cesar Chavez, the first known film on El Teatro Campesino, “Huelga,” narrated by Chavez; and a documentary about “Zoot Suit,” one of the company’s most famous plays.