If you have been around for a while, you ALREADY know my love for Tract. If you want to know exactly how to use tract, you can read my first blog post here. I think you will find that Tract.app is an incredible kid-driven website that is highly engaging and high-interest for upper elementary students. On Tract, students practice 21st century skills, find projects that they are passionate about, and create during project based learning. If you haven’t tried Tract yet, you can get FREE access to their website and ALL of their turnkey project guides at tract.app using my access code MSSMITH.
If you are new to Tract.app, I highly suggest you starting here. Tract has created an INCREDIBLE resource that shares EVERYTHING you need to get your kiddos started on their website. This amazing resource tells you how to get signed up, allows you to access demo sites, and explains all of the teacher features.
Tract-a-thon coming December 9th! Once you get your kiddos all set up on Tract and they begin to LOVE the platform, I highly suggest that you look into the Tract-a-thon taking place on December 9th. Tract-a-thon is a virtual event highlighting and celebrating incredible student creations from all over the world. (How cool is that?!) In partnership with inspiring changemakers like Malala Yousafzai, Carissa Cabrera, Art by Joudy, Always Alyssa, The Galactic Gal, Will Levis, and Jahkori Hall, TractLearning has launched a set of turnkey project guides that support PBL, Genius Hour, SEL, GATE, and more.
Using the guides, teachers can easily spark engagement as students work to solve real-world problems through hands-on challenges like designing an activism campaign to make a positive change alongside activists @Malala and @Carissaandclimate, building a plan to turn $100 into $1,000 with wealth tips from finance expert and future NFL quarterback, @w.lev, or investigating the pros and cons of space exploration with The Galactic Gal.
If you aren’t ready for the Tract-a-ton, no worries. Tract.app has incredible resources if you’d prefer to have your kiddos focus on a specific subject. As an ELA teacher, I can use Tracts ready to use project guide to easily spark engagement as students identify a message they want to put out into the world and then work to put it into a shareable communication–from a song or letter, to a flyer or film!
These project guides won’t replace my current lessons and projects, they will just supercharge them. Through Tract’s collection of project guides, I can transform what I teach in the classroom into interactive and fun educational projects led and created by kids. Each Project Guide is curriculum-aligned, and designed to help teachers easily integrate short videos from their library into classwork, turning kids' media consumption into a launchpad for an enriching, educational experience that supports project-based learning, Genius Hour, social and emotional learning, GATE, and more. Access ALL of the project guides here.
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