
	April 2009 \| Thinkfinity Newsletter

THINKGREEN WITH EARTH DAY RESOURCES!

Searching for Earth Day activities and lesson plans? We have the best right here!
Thinkfinity has pulled together a package of Earth Day activities, videos, interactive tools and lessons about conserving energy, recycling and finding innovative ways to solve environmental challenges. Here's a look at 4 of the 90 resources in the package!

Featured Resources

	APRIL FEATURES

	MAKE IT COUNT FOR YOUR KIDS It's Financial Literacy and Mathematics Awareness Month and you can bank on Thinkfinity for the best math and economics resources around! Focus on Finance from EconEdLink A collection of hundreds of resources for teaching personal finance themes such as earning an income, saving and investing, credit and spending, and money management. The Cost of Being Late from Illuminations Students work through a credit card scenario with a teaser rate, minimum payments, fees and a rate change for being late. Don't be late, check it out now! Making Change from Illuminations Children model prices mentioned in a children's book, then make change from a given amount by counting on from the price. Count on this to challenge your preK-2 class! Invest in Your Education from Illuminations Students purchase common items used in their math classroom such as desks, chairs, calculators, etc. Students get a budget plus coupons to use when making their purchases. The goal of the lesson is to have fun applying the concepts of discount and percent. See how it all adds up! Looking Back and Moving Forward: Understanding the Economy A collection of lessons, activities and articles from the Thinkfinity Partners on our economic past and our financial future. Check them out! PEN A POEM FOR NATIONAL POETRY MONTH You can't go wrong with these top picks for National Poetry Month - try them today! Interactive Poetry Tools from ReadWriteThink Your students can use Interactive Poetry Tools to learn about and write Shape, Acrostic and Diamante poems. Check out the lesson plans for you! Shapes and Poetry from Illuminations Math folks have poetry resources, too! The Shapes and Poetry lesson lets students explore geometric figures and positional words using the poem "Shapes" from A Light in the Attic, by Shel Silverstein. Check it out! Participate in Poem in Your Pocket Day from ReadWriteThink Use this ReadWriteThink lesson to help your students celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 29, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. Write on! More Poetry, Please! Thinkfiity has hundreds of Poetry lessons, activities, tip sheets, tools and resources on poets. Check them out! GET YOUR CLASS JAZZED! Don't miss a beat - check out these resources for Jazz Appreciation Month! *Romare Bearden's The Dove--a Meeting of Vision and Sound* from EDSITEment Go upbeat in Jazz History month with a combined art and music lesson. Don't miss a beat! Groovin' to Jazz from Smithsonian's History Explorer Students will learn how to listen to and appreciate authentic jazz recordings by listening to recordings by jazz greats and reading introductions that discuss the relevace of the songs as well as how to listen to them. Get groovin'! Jazz, Dance & Music from ARTSEDGE Students will be introduced to jazz dance and jazz music. They will explore basic jazz dance movements and create a cinquain poem inspired by jazz music. Jazz it up!

	STIMULUS CHECK FOR YOUR BRAIN

	The current economic situation is generating questions for everyone from teenagers to senior citizens. But in order to answer them, you need to understand basic economic and mathematic concepts. Jim Rubillo, executive director of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and Joe Peri, the Council for Economic Education's chief operating officer, have teamed up to help everyone understand how math and finance affect their daily lives today.

	PARTNER NEWS & EVENTS

	National Council of Teachers of Mathematics / Illuminations Math Teachers! Apply for the 2009 Illuminations Summer Institute. Calculation Nation, an online world of math strategy games will be revealed April 23 at NCTM's Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Visit the Cybercafé to become a citizen of Calculation Nation! International Reading Association / ReadWriteThink There is still time to register for the IRA Annual Convention in Minneapolis, May 3-7. Be sure to visit the IRA Marketplace when you are there to see demonstrations of ReadWriteThink. National Endowment for the Humanities / EDSITEment Rethink American Indian history with a new NEH-funded series, We Shall Remain, complete with EDSITEment resources. Get blogged! Follow the adventures of students at Hobson Middle School, Washington, D.C., as they take a STAMPS trip to the Land of Lincoln. Read the new issue of Humanities - the magazine of the NEH.

	TRAINING UPDATES

	There's something for everyone in our FREE Training section: - Teachers can learn more about Thinkfinity and our Content Partner sites by attending our one-hour Educator Webinar. - Thinkfinity Trainers are invited to attend How to Manage Your Training Data to learn how to capture and manage training information. REMINDER: the Educator's Guide will be removed from the Trainer Toolbox on April 30, 2009. It has already been replaced in the Training Materials section by individual Partner Site Maps and Integration Plan resources.

	FOUNDATION NEWS

	Digital Advantage Improves Access to Works of W.E.B. Du Bois The Verizon Foundation is providing a $200,000 grant to the Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to enable digitization of 100,000 original diaries, letters, photographs and other materials from W.E.B. Du Bois. Once the materials are scanned and catalogued, the university will identify documents to make available to visitors to Thinkfinity.org. Read more. PBS FRONTLINE Project to Explore Life in the Digital Age The Verizon Foundation is providing a $1 million grant to PBS FRONTLINE to examine and help answer the question, "How has technology changed our lives?" The project, Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, will provide a Web site, extensive outreach to teachers and parents, and a national 60 minute FRONTLINE documentary to air in January 2010. Learn more. Protecting the Environment At Verizon, we are serious about protecting the environment and we continue to minimize the impact of our operations by conserving energy, recycling and finding innovative solutions to environmental challenges. And we're showing measureable results. Read about Green!