Teachers are constantly in need of ideas and encouragement. There are a multitude of websites that provide teachers with a place to ask questions or simply vent about their classrooms and even more websites that offer lesson plans for nearly every grade level and subject to help teachers stay on top of their game.

ReadWriteThink
Sponsored by the International Reading Association and the National Council for Teachers of English, ReadWriteThink offers lesson plans for kindergarten through 12th grade for all major subject areas. Most of the lesson plans focus on the areas of reading and writing as an attempt to improve student achievement in these subject areas. Teachers can find lessons by doing a keyword search or simply searching all grade-level lesson plans.

The website also offers professional development resources for teachers, including articles, strategy guides and notices of upcoming meetings and events. There are also a variety of parent and after-school resources to help supplement a child's regular education.

FREE (Federal Resources for Educational Excellence)
The U.S. Department of Education offers Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE). This website provides lesson plans, videos, primary documents, photos, animations and other resources from various federal agencies for teachers at all grade levels and in all subject areas. Resources are grouped by subject and narrowed by topic, but the website also offers a keyword search. This is an easy source for teachers to use in order to bring more credible sources and historical documents into the classroom.

Scholastic
Scholastic is best known as an educational book publisher, but the company also provides a website full of free resources for teachers. The website offers lesson plan ideas for all grade levels (although it has more resources for the elementary grades), worksheets and graphic organizers teachers can print and use, and a lot of interactive games and models for teachers to use with students in the classroom. Forums are also available for teachers to share ideas and ask for encouragement, and the website offers articles that provide teachers with strategies to help them in areas such as classroom management and student engagement.

ArtsEDGE
Sponsored by The Kennedy Center, this website encourages teachers in all subject areas to integrate the arts in their curriculum. It provides teachers with lesson plans that allow them to use music, paintings, drama and other artistic modes of expression to learn about important concepts in science, math, history and English. The website also provides numerous articles detailing the positive impact that integrating the arts into core curriculum has on student achievement.

Thinkfinity
Thinkfinity is a website that has partnered with other teacher websites to provide a large database of lesson plans, activities, games and other resources for students and educators. Over 55,000 standards-based lesson plans are offered at every grade level and for every subject area. The website also offers a wealth of professional development opportunities for teachers to help them grow in their field.