Spring Is in the Air

We can hardly believe that there are only two weeks left until the official start of the spring season. Soon after that, we will be enjoying spring break.

In honor of the upcoming holiday, we have an Easter-themed crossword puzzle. As you can see from this puzzle, it is secular and history-based.

One issue that we see come up again and again is teachers' need to teach about religious holidays, and the reality that so many materials covering these topics approach the holidays from a faith-based standpoint. Certainly, there is a place for faith-based learning experiences. But what of the public school teacher who wants to explain to Jewish or Muslim kids what Easter is all about? What about teaching the non-Christian origins of the holiday?

We are attempting to address the lack of secular-based printables for religious holidays. These are handouts that are safe for use in public schools, and which simultaneously do not offend religious groups.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Why do you think teachers (and publishers) avoid religious issues, even when approaching them from a secular standpoint?

News for March, 2010

We have been very busy revamping the site. Regular visitors will notice that the internal links options (that list of web pages on the left) have been expanded. Also, galleries have been created based on historical themes (e.g., Ancient Egypt, Imperialism, World War I). For those of you interested in getting a head start on next school year, we have uploaded a printable (.pdf) 2010-2011 weekly planner for the school/academic year. Just click here.

We have a great St. Patrick's Day Story Word Search Puzzle ready for you to print.

Check out the Just for Fun pages for more puzzles covering upcoming holidays.

News for February, 2010

We have been busy creating and uploading lots of materials, particularly quite a few new PowerPoint presentations under American History and World History. So some good has come of this bitterly cold weather! Our hope is that all of you are enjoying a busy and productive school year, as well.

News for January, 2010

As promised, we are updating the left sidebar to provide faster access to specific, popular web pages on the site.

We are also adding more textbook-specific materials. We understand how it is--you get a new textbook with a bundle of fancy CD-roms, etc.--but you can't find simple handouts to go along with each section of a chapter. Check here often to see if a textbook your class is using has been added to our database.

News for December, 2009

What a wonderful year it has been! Our biggest request has been for us to list our most popular links along the left sidebar, and that is exactly what we are in the process of doing. Starting in January, there will be a much more extensive list of links along the left side of each webpage. Enjoy, and happy new year!

News for November, 2009

Did the first quarter really come and go that quickly? Are we really shopping for turkeys already?

Our latest major project has to do with PowerPoint presentations. Several users have commented that they are using the older version of Microsoft PowerPoint (1997-2003), which goes under the file extension ".ppt", as opposed to the latest version (2007), which goes under the file extension ".pptx".

Here's the deal: We create all of our PowerPoints as .pptx files. Then we save them as .ppt files. This would be terrific, except that a lot of the fancy new features in PowerPoint do not work in the 1997-2003 version. The result is .pptx files that look terrific, and .ppt files that might not look so great. The complaint from users downloading .ppt files has been that they have had to waste time cleaning up the presentations before they could use them.

We have a better solution. And no, it doesn't require upgrading to the latest version of PowerPoint! Instead, we have saved each presentation as a .pdf file which you can read and display using Adobe Acrobat Reader. In fact, you can view and print the PowerPoints as .pdf files online (straight from your browser) without having to download them at all.

While we were at it, we went ahead and created student notes hand-outs of the presentations. Each page of the handouts looks like this: along the left side are three miniature versions of the slides, and along the right side are lines for student notes. These files are also in .pdf format, meaning that you can view or view and print them straight from your browser.

This project involves going through all of our PowerPoints and "redoing" them. We are more than halfway finished. We thank you for your patience and ask that you bear with us for just a little bit longer.

News for October, 2009

The weather here is changing very quickly! We hope that you are all well into the swing of things. Improvements and additions to the site continue. One of the new items this month is a PowerPoint presentation on the life and legacy of Macedonia's Alexander the Great: "Macedonia, Alexander the Great, and the Hellenistic World" PowerPoint Presentation - 18 slides including 7 review questions- Version PPT | PPTX. Enjoy!