Lesson Plans

One of my main concerns for teaching is being able to think of interactive lesson plans for my students. One of my education professors told me that rookie teachers need not feel like they need to invent a whole years worth of lessons. Online there are thousands of great lesson plans within a click of a mouse that offer new teachers great lessons and interactive activities. One website that I have used and think is helpful for aquiring lesson plans and other activities on a variety of history topics is edtechteacher. This website offers a ton of free lesson plans, interactive maps and games, and other cool activities. Some of them may be better for the junior high level but can be applied to high school as well. For example the other day I was talking to my wife about gladiators and showed her a game on this website where you are given a slave and then in a certain time period have to equip him with the correct weaponry for his style of fighting. After the battle is over you can continue and then read more about which gladiators were favored and why. It is just one example of the types of activities that are on the web for new teachers to use. When I find good, free lesson plans online I like to save the websites for a future date because I know there will be busy times my first year of teaching where I will need to draw from other sources to stay ahead.