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"What an astonishing thing a book is.
It's a flat object made from a tree
with flexible parts on which are imprinted
lots of funny dark squiggles. But one
glance at it and you're inside the mind of
another person, maybe somebody dead for
thousands of years. Across the millennia,
an author is speaking clearly and silently
inside your head, directly to you. Writing
is perhaps the greatest of human
inventions, binding together people who
never knew each other, citizens of distant
epochs. Books break the shackles of time.
A book is proof that humans are capable
of working magic."
Carl Sagan

 

A Once-in-a-Century Pandemic
We’re repeating a lot of the same mistakes from
the 1918 “Spanish Flu” H1N1 outbreak.
by Joyce Rice, Eleri Harris and Sarah Mirk
Posted on April 13, 2020


These next three sites were collected and FB posted by Shelly Flack of YFS/Girls, Inc. of Rapid City!

Free, easy science for remote learning
from Mystery Science. "To help educators during this time of coronavirus, we have pulled our most popular science lessons and are offering them for anyone to use for free. No account or login is needed. Copy and paste the links below into your documents and use them however they might be helpful!"

List of Education Companies Offering Free Subscriptions Due to School Closings
from Kids Activities

 

Education Companies Offering Free Subscriptions due to School Closings
from Google


Free, easy science for remote learning from Mystery Science.
"To help educators during this time of coronavirus, we have pulled our most popular science lessons and are offering them for anyone to use for free. No account or login is needed. Copy and paste the links below into your documents and use them however they might be helpful!"

 

List of Education Companies Offering Free Subscriptions Due to School Closings
from Kids Activities

 

Education Companies Offering Free Subscriptions due to School Closings
from Google

.
"Welcome! Even when schools are closed, you can keep the learning going with these special cross-curricular journeys. Every day includes four separate learning experiences, each built around a thrilling, meaningful story or video. Kids can do them on their own, with their families, or with their teachers. Just find your grade level and let the learning begin!"
-The Editors of Scholastic Classroom Magazines.

Pre-K and K 1st and 2nd

3rd/4th/5th 6th and up

 


Download Free Coloring Books from 113 Museums

 

Use Your Time in Isolation to Learn Everything You’ve Always Wanted To:
Free Online Courses, Audio Books, eBooks, Movies, Coloring Books & More

 

200 Free Kids Educational Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Websites & More

"This collection provides a list of free educational resources for K-12 students (kindergarten through high school students) and their parents and teachers. It features free video lessons/tutorials; free mobile apps; free audiobooks, ebooks and textbooks; quality YouTube channels; free foreign language lessons; test prep materials; and free web resources in academic subjects like literature, history, science and computing. This newly-released list is a work in progress. Please tell us if we're missing something good."
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Gold StarBiology Corner "Biology lesson plans, worksheets, tutorials,
and resources for teachers and students." Understatement of the
year! Everything you need to teach biology and related subjects to
high school students, except the teacher. Very complex but easy to
navigate.

Biology Corner Archives
"Note: This is an archive page for biologycorner.com,
it is no longer maintained. Go to the main site at
biologycorner.com to find worksheets and resources
for teaching biology, anatomy, and physics."
That said, this is a big long page with well over 100
valuable links, organized into topic sections like "Phyla"
and "Genetics". There are even study guides and activity
sheets for a couple of biology textbooks

 

 

 

 


 

 

Children are human, too  

 Stimulation for Apspergers

Preschoolers' Manifesto

Childhood is not a race.jpg

 

 



CommonSinge

 

teach your kids to work

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian flag Two Awesome Visuals on ADHD for Teachers from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. This page briefly goes over three types of ADHD, then goes straight to the "visuals", or infographics. "To help teachers learn more about ADHD, here are two awesome infographics I want you to have a look at." Rather than discuss them here, we'll let you take a minute to look them over. If you can use them, use them. source : http://info.nspt4kids.com/adhd-infographic/

 

 

printerest buttonTwo "Ways to get yourself ungrounded" sample letters
from the Parenting Pinterest board of Stephanie Lavin.
Kids redeem themselves by doing necessary chores for points.
"My kids got themselves grounded for being late to school, so I thought
I would use it to my advantage. I came up with a clever way to get them
ungrounded."

 


 


 

 

5 Minute English is a very technical site, oriented toward ESL teachers -
their content is way above average ESL learners. Very valuable for the lesson
examples (which teachers could model). Grammar section is full of technical
terms, the pronunciation section minutely goes over phonemes.

 

 

5 reasons to teach kids to code

 

 

5 Unbeatable Reasons Your Kid Should Be Coding "Coding empowers kids to communicate with the machines and acquire the ability to turn creativity into interactive reality. The computer language like any other language is best learnt at a young age. If you want your kids to crack complicated problems through logical reasoning, introduce them to the world of coding early on. Kodable made this infographic which illustrates how introducing programming to kids at an early age can help them in many different ways."

 

 

 

 

8th Grade Introduction to Poetry Using Music and Film (from Curriki) It says 8th grade but the Educational Level states "Grades 6-8 / Ages 11-13". "This lesson plan introduces a poetry unit using music and film to get students thinking about the definition of poetry and how it fits into their lives. The end of the lesson introduces the concept of Found Poetry." This is a .docx file that you download. You must login first. That's OK, you really should join Curriki and take advantage of tons of free lesson plans and ideas. If we keep getting good poetry "stuff" there's going to be a Poetry section pretty soon.

 

10 LESSONS I WANT MY KIDS TO LEARN AND BOOKS THAT HELP TEACH THEM
from No Time for Flash Cards. 10 important lessons and dozens of good picture books to help
teach/reinforce those lessons. This review deserves more time and space.
"Picture books are valuable tools not only to teach lessons but to break the ice for parents and
teachers to dive in further and get to the heart of the lesson more easily...
I have been thinking about the core lessons I want my children to take out into the world..."

 

15+ Sure-Fire Tips for Calming an Angry Child from Lemon Lime Adventures. "Do you have a child who can get frustrated, angry or downright explosive? Do they need your help calming down? If you are a regular here, you know you are not alone. Due to our son’s sensory needs and anxiety we deal with frequent meltdowns and are constantly looking for ways to help him. I am excited today, because I have gathered over 15 resources and tips for calming an angry child that are sure to help you and your child." Obviously not all of these will help with every child, but some will help yours.

 

 

20 Mother’s Day Keepsake Gifts That Kids Can Make "Looking for some inspiration for a craft that the kids can make for Mother’s Day? I’ve rounded up some of my favorite keepsake crafts that will make the PERFECT gift for mom. This list includes crafts for children of just about any age, the younger ones will love the handprint & footprint art and the older ones will love creating some colorful masterpieces. These would make the perfect gifts for grandparents too!" These are sooo cute!!

 

The 25 Best Art Materials for Kids! "The 25 Best Art Materials for Kids! Including The Artful Parent's top 10 can't-live-without, all-time favorites." From Artful Parent. List includes things you know about and things you haven't thought of yet. This site has plenty of other good things as well.

 

 

29 Dollar-Store Finds That Will Keep Your Kids Busy All Summer "Beat boredom on a budget."
BuzzFeed has 29 photos of creative things you can make with things you might find in a local low-budget store
Each photo has links if you want to find out more.

 

 

40 Best Online Libraries for Counselors "Counselors might work in schools, clinics or in private settings, and they might specialize in specific fields such as student, family or addiction counseling. But, they all look to use resources in their studies and in practice. The following 40 best online libraries for counselors can provide those resources, with free downloads of journal articles and books or tools to help build a counseling library of your choosing." From The Counseling Courier - "Blogging about counseling, therapy, psychology, and coaching". Thanks Lindsey Webster and Madison.

 

 

40 iPad Apps for Reading Disabilities Parents of children with reading disabilities, and educators who work with learning disabled students, are always looking for new tools to help the kids meet their potential and work through their disability. This is a list of 40 iPad apps designed to meet the needs of learning disabled kids and beginning readers alike. The apps are sorted into Helps, Fundamentals, Reading, Writing, and Spelling. This article is posted at Educator Technology and Mobile Learning, where there are a lot more articles like this one.

 

 

50 Halloween Craft Ideas For Preschool from No Time for Flashcards Crafty stuff for the younger set. Includes some math activities.

 

66 Things You Can Grow In Containers! from Urban Organic Gardener "No Excuses – Just GROW FOOD! Growing your own food is exciting. Here’s a starter list of all the crazy things even urban gardeners, without space for a garden, can grow at home." Kids can learn how to grow their own food (as can adults) which is certainly a life skill. There are three other articles in the same vein:

  • WHAT?!! 66 Things You Can Grow At Home?? In Containers?!?!?!?
  • 66 Things You Can Grow In Containers Feb 2016
  • 66 Things You Can Grow In Containers Feb 2015
  •  

    70 Best Apps For Teachers And Students from Edudemic " Let’s examine some of the featured apps that you should be using this year. From time-saving tools to reading helpers, there are apps that do just about anything. Rather than have you sort through the endless parade of app icons, we’ve done the hard part for you. If you’re looking for some useful tools for the classroom, these apps are for you."

     

    75 TV Free Activities For Toddlers from No Time for Flashcards. Are you running out of things for your bored toddler(s) to do? Want new things that will encourage safe exploration while developing motor skills and problem skills, too? Are you out of ideas today? Then try these 75 safe and (mostly) non-messy activities! (We'd do #3 out in the yard.) There should* be something on here the kids will like. "Kid tested, mother approved." (* Hey, dealing with toddlers here!)

     

    80+ Free STEM Curated Collections You Can Use Today from Curriki! Lesson plans and more! Scientific Method lessons, all sorts of biology plans and activities, videos, earth science, cardiovascular, dinosaurs, astronomy, math activities, etc. "These new collections are available to you for FREE and we simply ask that you share Curriki with your colleagues so they can take advantage of these time-saving, best-of-the-best lessons and activities." So, we're sharing. "Stay tuned for new resources in the humanities, arts and health areas." OK!

     

    200 Free Kids Educational Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Websites & More "This collection provides a list of free educational resources for K-12 students (kindergarten through high school students) and their parents and teachers. It features free video lessons/tutorials; free mobile apps; free audiobooks, ebooks and textbooks; quality YouTube channels; free foreign language lessons; test prep materials; and free web resources in academic subjects like literature, history, science and computing. This newly-released list is a work in progress. Please tell us if we’re missing something good." From Open Culture.

     

    1,000+ Ideas About Education Glad to find this one! Lists of links, lists of free apps, special ed helps, elementary math and science ideas, TED talks for teachers, TAG ideas, team building guides... There's a lot of nuggets in the rich veins of this gold mine! You should go there and slowly scroll through this massive wall!

     

    A0KTeacher Stuff This Good Site has a large amount of "stuff." The home page has two columns. The column on the left concentrates on history mainly Texas and Southwest history, but there is more further down. The right column has their Teacher Freebies and Educational Material (lesson plans), Coloring Pages, and more miscellaneous good stuff

     

    A to Z Teacher Stuff From the site: " A to Z Teacher Stuff is teacher-created, and designed to help teachers find online resources more quickly and easily. We offer lesson plans, thematic units, teacher tips, discussion forums for teachers, downloadable teaching materials & eBooks, printable worksheets and blacklines, emergent reader books, themes, and more."

     

    abcteach From the site: "This is the place for kids, parents, student teachers, and teachers. Free Printables: 5000+ free printable pages and worksheets." They also have a members-only section, membership $35/yr US.

     

    Spinning gold star Activity Village  Here's a site from the UK that will help out parents and teachers. "Welcome to Activity Village, where you will find coloring pages, home school resources, educational resources, kids crafts, puzzles, printables, Sudoku for kids and much, much more ... Click on the menu bars above to explore over 3000 pages of activities to help you keep your kids busy!" Tons of coloring pages! The site has a popup to start, x it out or just subscribe.

     

    After School Mathematics "The After School Math website is a full-featured math website for grades 5-8 created by after school staff and credentialed teachers. The site consists of 10 thematic activity modules, each with at least four activities. These content standard aligned activities are fun, hands-on, and provide opportunities for small group interaction, cooperation, and student leadership." Go for it!

     

    Afterschool Training Toolkit "Use these research-based practices, sample lessons, video examples, and resources to support academic enrichment in afterschool." Valuable helps for literacy, math, science, arts, technology, homework, AND professional development for anyone doing organized after school programs for kids. From the National Center for Quality Afterschool. WGBH Boston, the revered PBS station, is also involved in this. This is a pretty useful site for grownups.

     

    All About Money is a good, long listing of 40 money learning activities, both online and printable, with lesson plans, too. Broken into sections: Identifying Money, Counting Money, Using and Spending Money, Earning Money, Saving Money, and Additional Resources. Kudos to Interbank FX LLC of Salt Lake City, Utah for putting this together. Special thanks to Cara Chandler at Arroyo Vista Charter School in Chula Vista, California, and her 5th graders, especially Kyle!, for the email re: this site! You guys find the coolest things! Keep 'em coming!

     

    All Science Fair Projects Here's a site that has searched for and categorized all kinds of science fair project links, and offers it to you free! 10 different topic sections, subcategories, lots of projects under each heading. Look for ideas here!

     

    DownloadAmerican Sign Language Learning Aid Link goes to the program page. Download the program here. This is the Windows version, there are others. "A set of programs designed to help the beginner ASL student learn ASL. It is composed of two parts: ASLLA-Dictionary and ASLLA-Fingerspeller. ASLLA-Dict allows the student to look up English->ASL sign. ASLLA-Fspell allows the beginner to practice seeing fingerspelling." Thanks to Andy Uehara, who wrote these programs and is deaf, if that matters to you. Cool. A short manual and other info may be found inside the unzipped program folder. Found it on Sourceforge.

     

    Ancient Mesopotamia for Teachers Lesson Plans & Activities from Mr. Donn.org Oodles of pre-made lesson plans about ancient Mesopotamia, with links to other "ancient" lesson plan sources and even K-12 Social Studies units.

     

    Anxiety in Kids: How to Turn it Around and Protect Them For Life One page article principally for parents and non-specialist teachers. Helping kids with anxiety by explaining what it is, how it affects them, and techniques for dealing with it. Also has a link to "...other proven ways to deal with anxiety."

     

     

    Apples4theteacher.com - A Primary Website " We are adding more educational resources for teachers and kids (preK-grade 6) every day. Excuse our 'dust' as we move into high gear! Our site includes interactive learning games, quizzes, and worksheet generator tools by subject (creative arts, foreign languages, language arts, math, science, social studies), articles, literacy coloring pages and more."

     

    Arbor Day Foundation Youth Education Learn about trees here! Lesson plans, activities to download, online games for older kids, lots more.

     


    Two minute Edutopia video

     

     

    Artists Helping Children "Children & Art Resources for the Budding Child Artist" Tons and tons of arts and crafts resources for kids! There should be something in here for whatever you have in mind.

     

    BBC Skillwise "Improve your English and maths with Skillswise. Factsheets, worksheets, quizzes and games to help improve your skills." From one central location, you can access all the BBC Schools quizzes! Also has a Tutor Center with lesson plans, tracking sheets, and more. Links to a Games page with 50 MORE math(s) and literacy activities. Thank you, BBC

     

    Basic Venn Diagrams Here's a quick introduction and suggestions for lessons, for lower grades. Venn diagrams are a quick graphic way to teach basic elements of logic. A good grounding in principles of logic is essential to developing critical thinking skills.

     


     

    BetterMoneyHabits.com™ is a team effort by Bank of America and Khan Academy. "You're on your way to Better Money Habits™ Build your financial know-how with free tools and information to help you make more confident decisions. It's a simple way of getting real, practical knowledge, brought to you by Bank of America in partnership with Khan Academy." Featuring gobs of instructional videos - learn at your own pace! A big Thank You to BoA and KA for these! Videos are organized this way:

  • Credit (20 videos)
  • Saving and Budgeting (8 videos)
  • Debt (12 videos)
  • Home Buying and Renting (31 videos)!
  • Taxes (10 videos - all USA taxes, sorry)
  • Car Buying (5 videos)
  • Personal Banking and Security (15 videos)
  • Paying for School (12 videos)
  • Families and Money (13 videos)
  •  These videos don't discuss credit unions. Credit Unions also have checking, savings, give loans, & have credit cards. In your personal financial situation, credit unions might be a better way to go (or not). Credit unions cost as little as $5.00 to join. Some banks do not like them.

     


     

    Biology Corner (updated review!) is a resource site for biology and other science teachers. It has lesson plans, web lessons, web quests, images, and quizzes. "The Biology Corner is a resource site for biology and science teachers. It contains a variety of lessons, quizzes, labs, web quests, and information on science topics. Biology is the study of life and living organisms, from the smallest bacteria to giant sequoias. Biologists use observation and experimentation to gain an understanding about the natural world." It's a gold mine for science teachers! Take a look at the first page and you'll be hooked!

     

     

    BAM! Body and Mind is the "for kids" area of the US government's CDC site (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Primary grades could use parts of this, with teacher guidance. Older students can move through these pages easily.
    Coming straight down from the top of the page, there is the Feature Zone with four tabs displayed. "Please click on a tab below to see the current features" implies that they change periodically. Features at this time are:
    1 The Immune Platoon - "A super-powered team of white blood cells protecting your body from infections and other disease that threaten your body's health."
    2 Bully Roundup - Dealing with bullies - practical advice, with a cowboy theme
    3 Physical Activity This section features Activity Cards: Is there an activity you want to know more about? Not sure of how to play or what gear you'll need? Look no further — it's all right here! 32 activities from ballet to yoga are explored. Also there's Meet the Challenge: See how athletes overcome physical challenges to make it to the top. Two sections: 1- Don't Let Asthma Keep You Out of the Game. Today, more than ever, asthma is not a barrier to physical activity; and 2- U Can Do It 2. Whatever your challenge, if you ever wondered, "Can I be an athlete?", the answer is "YES"!
    4 H2O Smartz - When you're outside and active, make sure you know how to keep your smarts around the water. Don't forget to learn all about sun safety too!!
    Along the left margin the are links to more topics: Diseases, Food & Nutrition, Physical Activity (same as in the Feature Zone), Your Safety (includes Bully Roundup and H2O Smartz), Your Life "Got stress, conflict, and other pressures? These ideas and tools can help.", and Your Body "Puberty might feel confusing, but with BAM! it all makes sense." , "Help Kristie make all the right decisions to keep her teeth clean." and "Find out how heredity and your genes help make you who you are." There are eight topics in all.
    There is also a Game Room section of eight games. "Check out the BAM! Game Room. Try the games that will teach you more about your body and mind. It is a fun way to learn. "
    There is an Information for Teachers section, too. "Teachers: Incorporate BAM! topics into your classroom activities."
    A lot of effort went into making this a quality site.

     

     

    BrainCake Welcome to the Girls' Math & Science Partnership, a program of Carnegie Science Center. Based in Pittsburgh, "BrainCake is an online sisterhood for girls 11 – 17 and stakeholders focused on girls’ inclusion in the areas of math, science, technology, and engineering. BrainCake.org features forums, programs, scholarships, virtual mentoring, girl blogs, podcasts, homework help, research and resources in a framework that integrates pop culture, science, and learning."

     

     

    Download Brain Workshop logo Brain Workshop "What if a simple mental exercise could improve your memory and intelligence? A recent study published in PNAS, an important scientific journal, shows that a particular memory task called Dual N-Back may actually improve working memory (short term memory) and fluid intelligence. This finding is important because fluid intelligence was previously thought to be unchangeable. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the dual n-back task also enhances focus and attention and may help improve the symptoms of ADHD/ADD. The game involves remembering a sequence of spoken letters and a sequence of positions of a square at the same time. Brain Workshop is a free open-source version of the Dual N-Back mental exercise. Easy download, easy install. Another SourceForge discovery.

     

    Bratz to BFF's "Dolls' curvy, idealized bodies, overt makeup, and even skin tone can greatly affect the way young girls perceive themselves... How do you provide a little girl with this traditional and sentimental gift without the potential of harming her sense of self?" - Emerald Pellot #LittleThings.com. One Tasmanian mum's home project aims to "give old toys a new lease on life and a more down to earth, natural looking style." - Sonia Singh, artist and mum. How? As Emerald Pellot's headline says: She Takes Off A Doll’s Face With Nail Polish Remover. When You See The Result You’ll Want One! The video, which shows lots of little girls playing with dolls, is in the linked article. Sonia Singh's doll site, Tree Change Dolls, has even more dolls. Nobody thought this would go viral but did! It's tapped into a reservoir of concern.

     

     

    bread chem

     

     

    Buddy bench at Roundtown Elementary to help foster friendships. How a second-grader came up with the idea for his school. "The way the buddy bench works is if students feel lonely on the playground without anything to do, they can go to the buddy bench, and another student will come to the bench and ask if they want to play or talk." Wonderful and inspiring.

     

    Bug and Insect Crafts for Kids "How to Make Bug and Insect Crafts to use in Your Home School and Preschool. Insect Crafts, Science, and Creative Writing Learning Activities for Home School. Use 'nature bugs' in your science class to teach about insects and spiders, in your English class to promote creative writing or technical writing, and in your art class to promote creativity." Bunches of inexpensive kid-friendly craft projects. Make various insects, some spiders, and paper roly-polys (sowbugs, woodlouse). Everything's illustrated, with written instructions and parts lists, like a cookbook's recipes!

     

    Building A Classroom Community and Bully-Free Zone A great set of lessons from PBS. "For grades 3-7. Almost all children, at some point in their childhood, will experience or be affected by bullying behaviors. For the safety and welfare of ALL children in a positive learning environment, it is essential for teachers to establish a learning community void of bullying behaviors and to facilitate a sense of community in the classroom. This includes teaching children skills to deal with bullies, as well as promoting positive social skills such as cooperation, communication, and conflict resolution."

     

    Bullying from BrainPOP Junior. This is a good free video lesson aimed at K-3 kids. Covers bullying and what they can do about it.

     

    BULLYING: THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO from Miss O and Friends is for teens & tweens, with advice from girls of that age. Worth reading.

     

    Cal Ripken. Sr. Foundation  This site is a curriculum guide for middle school.  It uses baseball and softball based activities/lesson plans to cover health, mathematics, and physics.  All activities are PDF file downloads.  There is quite a lot of good "stuff" in here! Thanks, Shelly.

     

    Camp H - Building Camp for Girls. It's an innovative after-school and summer design and build camp for 9- to 12-year-old girls, offering girls practical creative and problem-solving skills. "I want to teach them how to weld, to work on projects that don’t feel artsy and craftsy... to balance the creative and the artistic side... to use hand and power tools, basic electrical equipment and automotive instruments to fix the things that need repair, installation, and maintenance in our everyday lives. Coupled with core-subject math and science concepts, we will tinker, experiment, build, and repair.” Camp H is one of three programs that together make up Project H . Studio H is an in-school design/build class for 8th-11th grade students that sparks community development through real-world, built projects. Workshop H, creative "boot-camp" training customized for teachers, leaders, and organizations, is outside the scope of GSFK. Project H's Toolbox section holds their entire FREE five years of lesson plans, activities, project briefs, and resources used in the Studio H and Camp H programs. Credit to Kristin Hohenadel for her Slate article describing Camp H. Kudos to Emily Pilloton for starting this whole thing!

     

    CardKiwi "Create flashcards together with your friends and save a ton of time! Our algorithm increases retention up to 50%" Everyone has made flashcards to study. With CardKiwi you can do it online! Think of the advantages! The principle of Spaced Repetition is the key. "The application is so simple to use, we even have kids in grade 2 using it." Free Technology for Teachers (a great blog, btw) gives more details: “Card Kiwi is a flashcard service whose appeal is its simplicity. Flashcards on Card Kiwi are text only. As you flip through your flashcards you rate your understanding by simply clicking thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs sideways. Card Kiwi will show you the cards that you rate with a thumbs down or thumbs sideways more often than the others until you're using the thumbs up on every card in your set.” Wikipedia article excerpt: "Several students can... collaborate on the same set of flashcards in realtime." Thanks, Michael Bollinger, for the timely email about this most impressive site.

     

     

    Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site - Reviews and teaching ideas for kids' books. A collection of reviews of great books for kids, and classroom activities and lesson plans for teachers about particular subjects, curriculum areas, themes and professional topics.

     

    The Cask of Amontillado "A lesson plan for grades 9–10 English Language Arts and English Language Development. The short story "The Cask of Amontillado," by Edgar Allan Poe is an effective venue for teaching English I literary terms. The following lesson plan is designed to engage the reader in a deeper than superficial reading of the text. It is also designed to elicit discussion and written critical-thinking responses. This lesson assumes that the literary terms have already been introduced. However, if they have not, the teacher may use this lesson to introduce these terms in the context of the literature." From Learn NC.

     

    Charlotte Holter's portaportal is a very good portal with many links to various elementary/middle school subjects and activities! We could just sit and look at this site. Love that green background - which doesn't look so hot here but Really Works on her site! Excellent use of Javascript puts everything on one page. Just click on the arrows next to the subjects. Very eclectic, there are Vikings, nanotechnology, bridges, Romans, flight, rainforests, lighthouses, math, mammals, and marbles, to name some!

     

    Chegg Homework Help - free material from this commercial site. "Chegg is one of the leading providers of homework help for college and high school students. Get homework help and answers to your toughest questions in math, calculus, algebra, physics, chemistry, science, accounting, English and more. Master your homework assignments with our step-by-step solutions to more than 3000 textbooks. If we don't support your textbook, don't worry! You can ask a homework question and get an answer in as little as two hours... our free members can still view 2 step-by-step solutions from any book and in any subject they’d like. Additionally, we have a number of free offerings such as access to our glossary of over 1,000 common tough definitions and a GPA Calculator. As it turns out, 80% of our users stick with the free products and find it suits them well." They offer a free trial period. Answers to questions and help with textbook answers are excellent. There you have it! Thanks to Heather at Chegg Homework Help for her emails.

     

    Chemistry for Grades 11-12 from Curriki. "This course contains resources, including slideshows, reviews, labs, worksheets, activities, quizzes, and diagnostics, for high school chemistry students. Units include Lab Setup and Safety; Nomenclature; Chemical Reactions and Balancing; Metric Systems & Conversions; Periodic Table and Trends; Atomic Structure; Nuclear Chemistry; Acids, Bases, & Salts; Bonding; Percent Composition; Solutions, Molarity, and Concentrations; Stoichiometry; Energy; Gas Laws; Reaction Rates and Equilibrium; Electron Configuration; and Redox Reactions." Starts with a diagnostic test (.doc file) to measure prior knowledge. The whole course is right there - no downloads, no pdf files, just click on the folder.

     

    Chemistry from Curriki. This is a high school-level chem course from South Africa, for grades 10 - 12. Comes in PDF files organized in five folders. Covers most chem topics, as well as earth science, chemical industry, and gold mining (hey, it's South Africa.) Click the page's Information tab to learn more. Part of reviewer Comments: "This FHSST (Free High School Science Texts) Chemistry textbook contains a full course of material in the form of a 23-chapter textbook to be used in grades 10 through 12. The text can be freely modified and distributed, so long as no one attempts to limit its later distribution. The collection covers three main topics (Matter and Materials, Chemical Change, Chemical Systems) and then within those topics, they are broken down into G10, G11, and G12 chapters. The material is also available in folders organized by grade level. Each chapter is available for download as a .pdf document. Throughout each clear and comprehensive chapter are embedded activities, worked examples and exercises for exploration and assessment." Not aligned to US state standards but still very good.

     

    Free Chemistry Resources from high school chemistry teacher Mister Guch. "This site is for you, the high school chemistry teacher. Whether you’re a new teacher or have “been there and done that”, I hope that these resources can make your job just a little bit easier." Free worksheets, free labs, free curriculum books, his actual homework assignments, more.

     

    The Children's Literature Web Guide from the University of Calgary. "The Children's Literature Web Guide is an attempt to gather together and categorize the growing number of Internet resources related to books for Children and Young Adults." Lots of websites, discussion boards, book awards, best sellers, teaching ideas. Nice to look at and well organized.

     

    Choosy Kids "The mission of Choosy Kids, LLC is to promote the development of healthy preferences. We are committed to providing products and services that promote healthy decision making and healthy, active lifestyles. We recognize that the first five years of life lay the foundation for learning and behavior preferences that may last a life- time; therefore we focus primarily on young children and the adults who make decisions on their behalf." All kinds of good things and activities for children and parents. We love their music and videos!

     

    Christmas Around the World - Christmas Cultures from whychristmas.com. "Find out about Christmas Traditions around the world and how Christmas is celebrated in different countries and cultures." There's a list of 60 countries to click on!

     

    Classroom Resources from the National Science Foundation. "...a diverse collection of lessons and web resources for classroom teachers, their students, and students’ families. Materials are arranged by subject area to help you quickly find resources in your interest area, and then use them to create lesson plans or at-home activities."

     

    Coloring for kids Free, printable coloring book pages ! You can choose from 1000's of printable coloring pages. Coloring pages for children of all ages with drawings to print and color. A large selection of colorings so your children can find their favorite cartoons . More than 10,000 printable coloring sheets.

     

    Columbia Education Center (of Portland, OR) Teacher-submitted lesson plans. Text files so you can Save or Print with no hassles. Anywhere from 50 to 90 plans per category. Lesson Plans are broken out into these categories: Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Miscellaneous. "These lesson plans were created by teachers for use in their own classrooms. We hope that you'll find some of these useful in your classroom as well."

     

    Common Core math, explained in 3 minutes from Vox. Well done 3 minute video. Besides the video, there's a card stack of 18 cards that explain Common Core in great and non-confusing detail (think PowerPoint slides, only without PowerPoint). If you watch this unbiased, you'll know where the Common Corps advocates are coming from.

     

    Common Errors in English Usage "The aim of this site is to help you avoid low grades, lost employment opportunities, lost business, and titters of amusement at the way you write or speak." You should read over the intro page at least once before going on to the list of errors. The errors list page is alphabetized and very comprehensive. A very useful tool and an aid to better American English. We should all thank Professor Paul Brians of WSU Pullman.

     

    Computer Lab Favorites from Scholastic.com! "Here are all the quick, compelling one-session activities you need to incorporate interactive learning and technology into your curriculum. Each activity requires no prep and can be completed in 15-30 minutes... Use these 50+ activities in the computer lab." The ones we played are good! Tabbed by subject!

     

    Conversation Pieces: Building Bright Ideas "My site targets students in grades 2-8, and it includes almost 200 book recommendations, and some of those include online book quizzes (over 90), discussion questions, vocabulary lists, and writing activities. I offer writing contests for students, and am adding a new section with Daily Writing Prompts. The site also includes independent study project ideas, online vocabulary quizzes, and a math problem of the week. Students can earn virtual badges in the Hall of Fame for Book Quizzes, Math Problems, and Vocabulary Quizzes when they earn high scores in those areas. Teachers and homeschooling parents can incorporate many of these activities into existing literacy and math programs, or use them to facilitate book clubs or enrichment activities." Wow! Yes, all that and more is in here! What a treasure for teachers!

     

    Cool School Now an online game! "Part computer game, part educational classroom tool, COOL SCHOOL: Where Peace Rules! is a whimsical interactive game where children, ages five to seven (grades K-2), journey to the fanciful world of Cool School, where everything -- from erasers to desks to books to basketballs -- are alive and full of personality. Here, in a vibrant and fun setting, children are taught invaluable social, communication, and problem-solving skills that promote conflict resolution through negotiation, compromise, cooperation, and reconciliation." Lots more at their web page. We played this and it was great. The download version is not available anymore - if you still have yours, make a backup!

     

    Crafts and Activities for Chinese New Year from Enchanted Learning is a page with both crafts and printables, plus information about the holiday. EL's usual excellent work here.

     

    Critical Thinking Concise Youtube video explains this "critical" concept. Skill at critical thinking is essential to good citizenship in a democracy, to science, to technology, and therefore to civilization! Teachers - please watch this video and think about it.

     

    Spinning Gold StarCurriki The Global Education & Learning Community. Go there and get plenty of lesson plans/activities/PPT's/ideas! "At Curriki, the sole mission is to educate. By building a world class learning environment that is community developed and supported, and publishing it for free on the Web, Curriki works to ensure that anyone, from anywhere can participate. This is about No Child, Parent or Teacher Held Back. This is about delivering access to free, quality curricula so that kids can go as fast as they can." These people are going at light speed. You truly owe it to yourself to investigate this site.

     

     

    cursive monsterspinterest buttonCursive Monsters by funkylindsay on Flickr. Pinned by Alina Hensley via PediaStaff. Your kids write their name in cursive and color in the gaps. Presto - monsters!

     

     

     

     

     

    Cyberbullying Free from Brainpop. Good video on this subject with advice for kids.

     

    CyberGuides From the site: "CyberGuides are supplementary, standards-based, web-delivered units of instruction centered on core works of literature. Each CyberGuide contains a student and teacher edition, standards, a task and a process by which it may be completed, teacher-selected web sites and a rubric, based on California Language Arts Content Standards."

     

    Netherlands flagCyberkidz "is an educational platform for boys and girls in the age of 4 till 12 years. By playing the educational games, children will practise subjects they learn in elementary school (PK-5)." The games are sorted by year from age 4 to 12, using a sliding bar. There are dozens of fun, playable games in every curriculum category, with new ones being added. This is an excellent site from the Netherlands.

     

    DNA Interactive Amazing! Stupendous! Colossal! And other wow-type adjectives! This site for secondary and up students and teachers covers everything about DNA. Many videos, animations, and interactive games to play. There are 15 lesson plans ready for download, too. Really, this site could be used to help teach classes in genetics and human origins. Then there's the opportunity for educators to join the site community and create their own lessons and web pages for teaching the material.

     

    Daily Writing Prompt "This free resource provides consistent and meaningful "time on task". Students respond easily to our delightful menu of topics. Carefully crafted prompts appeal to a wide range of age, interests, and ability levels." Featuring The Daily Ten writing prompts, prompts by genre, ESL/TOEFL Prompts, story starters, grammar guides, punctuation rules, some good links, and more!

     

    Daily Writing Prompts from The Teacher's Corner "Creative Writing Prompts for every day of the year." These good prompts are organized by month. Check out January to see what's so great about these prompts!

     

    Gold StarDavidson Institute for Talent Development Got gifted kids? These good people, the original Math Blasters, want to help. "Our mission is to recognize, nurture and support profoundly gifted young people and to provide opportunities for them to develop their talents to make a positive difference."

     

    December Holidays section of Apples4theTeacher. This covers classroom activities and games for: Hanukkah, Winter, Christmas Fun, Religious Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year's. Good collection in one place.

     

    Design Squad Nation from WGBH Boston! "Design Squad Nation is a digital hub for kids, tweens and teens that promotes the message: You are creative and can solve problems. You can make things that help people. You can dream big. Design Squad Nation features include webisodes, hands-on DIY projects, team challenges, contests and an engaged online community. We also have resources, guides and training for parents, educators and engineers..." Featuring FIDGiT a fast-paced action thinking game that you can add onto! "DESIGNiT, BUILDiT, FIDGiT is an exciting puzzle game where you solve challenges and save tiny creatures called Fidgits! Think fast and manipulate blocks, springs, funnels, and other objects to bring the Fidgits home safely. Features:

  • Your Fidgits bounce and roll with a real physics engine!
  • A library of brain-teasing challenges
  • Make your own custom levels, and share with friends
  • Unlock new materials: paint buckets, tubes, pendulums, and more!
  • It's sandbox-style play with countless combinations
  • GSFK thanks Abbie Steinbacher, Online Community Manager, Children's Programming: Design Squad Nation at WGBH for her email about Design Squad Nation.

     

    Developing Biology From Curriki. "This course contains resources for teaching high school biology, from Developing Curriculum, Inc. It includes activities, labs, slide shows and worksheets on the topics of: Microscopes; Biochemistry; Cells; Cellular Transport; DNA; Photosynthesis and Respiration; Mitosis and Meiosis; Genetics; and Evolution." Lots of PowerPoints and .doc files, but it's all good information. Good resources for a teacher who knows the subject but is in a hurry to get something together.

     

    Diagramming Sentences Once upon a time, all grade school students were taught this. Like Latin, it's coming back into style in the educational community. Benefits include a better understanding of sentence structure, better parsing, better writing, and better public speaking. This page contains a decent Power Point about diagramming.

     

    Discovery Education from the Discovery Channel. Featuring Kathy Shrock's Guide for Educators, Puzzlemaker for printable crossword puzzles, clip art, Lesson Plan Library, Brain Boosters, Learning Adventures, Science Fair Central, lots more! You need to visit this site if you haven't already.

     

    DocsTeach.org - A Great Resource for Social Studies Teachers, as featured in Educational Freeware. DocsTeach has their own site, but this links to Educational Freeware because (1) you really should read EF's one page writeup and review; and (2) you really need to get familiar with all the downloads and online resources that EF has links to! Short version: Docs Teach offers online access to primary historical documents chosen for their value to Social Studies teachers. Go read EF's thorough review. Then go to DocsTeach and see for yourself.

     

     

    Dog_afraid_of_baby.jpg This is an EXCELLENT graphic! Pay attention to what a dog is telling you. And teach children to respect a dog's space! Too many dogs end up in shelters (or worse, put down) because the adults in charge were not monitoring the child/dog situation. Many times when a dog bites a kid parents say, "There were no warnings. He just bit him for no reason." The sad truth is that there are almost always warning signs, but the humans miss them. This photo shows warning signs that the dog is uncomfortable and may bite.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Dolch Word Lists from Jan Brett. "11 full-sized, printable lists with Jan Brett artwork." Great Jan Brett art, 20 words per page.

     

    Dolch words page from Education Oasis. "Dolch "Basic Sight Words" are the 220 most frequently occurring words in children's books, excluding nouns. Because many of the words do not follow decoding rules, they cannot be sounded out. Thus, they are learned by sight. Dolch sight words comprise 52-75 percent of all words found in children's books." These can be printed out for your use.

     

    Gold StarDonorsChoose Teachers, ask and you may receive! Sort of like grants, without the paperwork! "Here, teachers submit ideas for materials or experiences that their student need to learn." Individual or corporate donors then "choose a project and make it a classroom reality." NOT a government or NGO grant site! Teachers and donors, click on Help to submit a request or to contribute. Now with a video starring Michelle Obama, Colbert, and Oprah! This site works

     

    Dove® Movement for Self-Esteem is the successor to the Dove® Campaign for Real Beauty. Dove® is partnered with Girl Scouts of the USA, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and Girls Inc.®. "Dove® is committed to building positive self-esteem and inspiring all women and girls to reach their full potential—but we need your help. We're building a movement in which women everywhere have the tools to take action and inspire each other and the girls in their lives. It could be as simple as sending a word of encouragement to a girl in your life or supporting self-esteem education in your town. From mentoring the next generation to celebrating real beauty in ourselves and others, we can open a world of possibilities for women and girls everywhere... Dove® supports partnerships with after-school programs, self-esteem-building events and educational resources. Dove® also supports a partnership with Alliance for Women in Media."

     


     

    A whole bunch of dyslexia help!

    Dyslexia information from the National Center for Learning Disabilities (A large site covering various LD issues.) It has in-depth definitions, explanations, warning signs, many articles for parents, and many resources.

    Fonts for dyslexics - OpenDyslexic

    OpenDyslexic font sample

    Fonts for dyslexics - Dyslexie

    Dyslexie font sample

    OpenDyslexic "OpenDyslexic is a new open sourced font created to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. The typeface includes regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic styles, and 2 typefaces: OpenDyslexic, and OpenDyslexic-Alta. It was created to help with my reading, and is being updated continually and improved based on input from other dyslexic users. There are no restrictions on using OpenDyslexic outside of attribution. (It's free.) For attribution, a simple mention of the URL, and linkback where applicable is sufficient." (We did that.) OpenDyslexic is constantly evolving based on feedback from users and educators. Example: OpenDyslexic-Alta. The "a" in Alta looks something like the "a" in Comic Sans with a heavier bottom. This font is open-source with volunteer developers.

    Dyslexie offers another group of fonts, also designed to help dyslexics. Dyslexie seems more profit-oriented and businesslike, which could be an advantage for users. Dyslexie offers the Dyslexie Regular font free for home use only (annual license). Their Bold, Italic, and Italic Bold fonts are sold for school and business use on an annual license. At the bottom of the Home page are two videos about dyslexia and Dyslexie, which are well worth your time. There is also a user manual for downloading.

    Both OpenDyslexic and Dyslexie fonts work on all the popular OS's (iOS, Mac OSX, Windows, Android, Chrome, etc). With extensions/plugins, both work on most known browsers; Chrome, Opera, Safari, Firefox, etc). Both work on Office. E-readers: Dyslexie works on Kobo for sure, perhaps on others, these things constantly change. OpenDysleic works on Kobo, too. iPad, iPhone, Kindles: OpenDysleic, yes, yes, and yes, but. Both OpenDyslexic and Dyslexie have rave reviews, some people prefer one to the other, Dyslexie is older and proven, OpenDyslexic keeps improving and welcomes skilled volunteer help. It is a matter of preference which one you use.

    Lastly - some dyslexics report that color changes help. Every dyslexic is different, some colors may well help some to read better. Example (only): (Done entirely with Word.) Play with these fonts and ideas. Good luck.

    color fonts for dyslexics

     

     

    ESL/TOEFL pages from the British Council and the BBC. Excellent source for plans and ideas for teaching English as a foreign/second/new language. Good source for grammar basics, too.

     

    South Africa flagE-Classroom This fine South African site has bunches of free elementary school .pdf worksheets to download. These fun and entertaining sheets are well illustrated and are grouped by subject. Oh, they also have printable Literacy Lesson Plans! This site is updated at least monthly.

     

    e-Learning for Kids This is wonderful! "e-Learning for Kids is a global nonprofit foundation dedicated to free and fun online learning for kids of all ages. (math, science, reading, health and life skills and computers, )... Children from 5-12 build and improve basic skills with the best quality e-learning courseware. Parents and educators have a pre-screened source of articles, research, and related links. People in the business of education contribute their expertise." Dozens of online learning games in math, language arts, science, computer, health & life skills (lots), and learning English. Found this at The Bishops School hotlist site.

     

     

    Typical Eagle links entryEagles Internet Resources from the Grain Valley School District, Grain Valley, Missouri. This is vast! A great and awesome resource for any school or district. Their lists of sites are literally too long to list in this space! Here's a list of SOME of the main topics (academics only - there are more). Be aware that each is broken out into many subtopics. Each subtopic has a list of relevant sites.

  • Young Eaglet (preschool and Kindergarten)
  • Language Arts, Reading (listed separately)
  • Mathematics
  • Science
  • Social Studies
  • Student and Teacher Resources (listed separately)
  • Once again, we urge you to "look upon these wonders, O Unbeliever, and be amazed."

     

     

    Union Jack Early Learning "This page features early learning websites for young toddlers and pre-schoolers. Fun ways to introduce your toddler to their abc, 123, shapes and colours with great games, downloads and flash cards." Also sites for older children. There are some wonderful things on here, many of which were new to us! Part of allkids, a fine learning & shopping site from the UK.

     

    Earth Systems Science Curriculum Five units and 34 individual detailed lesson plans for earth science, ready to go! Could be modified for different ages. "...a multitude of hands-on investigative units and activities..." Scroll your mouse over "Earth Systems Science Curriculum" on the site to learn more. Check out the printable lesson plans, of course! Another fine example of what you can find at Curriki!

     

    Echos d’école is a great site from France. It has at least 93 educational games split into ages 3 and over and ages 8 and over. Games cover 11 different curriculum areas and were fun to play. There are games for iPhones and iPads as well. In English, Spanish, and French. Money is in euros which was refreshing - and the arithmetic is the same everywhere. This is our third site from La Belle France, they are all excellent - maybe France is a gold mine of good sites! Thanks to Michel for the email about this site. Merci.

     

    Education Oasis An oasis for teachers thirsty for ideas! lesson plans organized by subject, printables, subject resources such as links to sites, help for new teachers and for classroom management, ideas and tips, discussion groups, bulletin boards, book reviews, lists of sites, Dolch words, and more.

     

    Educational Online Computer Software and Games 10 online games each in Mathematics, Science (9 because Roofus' Solar and Efficient Home has gone away), Language Arts, and Social Studies. Many of these are well known, you may know about some of them but no one knows all of them. Thanks Kelly Graves and the kids she mentors for the email!

     

    Downloads Educational-freeware Check this site out!!  "Welcome to www.educational-freeware.com! This site is dedicated to listings, descriptions and reviews of the best free educational software for kids and adults. Some of the software is web based (see the online section), and some is Windows software that you can download (see the downloadable section).  Many of the software titles are multilingual. In order to see what titles run in your language, you can list the software by language." There's more good ed software here than you can shake a stick at!

     

    Edu Gain "Learn Smart" Here's an international site (free registration) that emphasizes mathematics. Their essay on opening children's minds to mathematics is a good read on its own. The site has two sections; Math Olympiad (Higher Order Thinking Questions), and General Math (online and printables drills). Not a site for slackers, kids will have to work and think here. Thanks, Anamika Sinha, for the email about Edu Gain!

     

    Edutopia What Works In Public Education. The George Lucas Educational Foundation. As mentioned on NPR. Read about their Core Concepts, read the blogs and the special reports, watch the videos, join groups. We think this site is probably the wave of the future.

     

    Elementary Math Games Here's a good list of about 30 math ed links from Brazil! You may choose English or Brazilian Portuguese. These links are broken out by area of study. There is some nice stuff in here, and there's also a commentary on teaching math. Kudos to Ms. Erin Jones for emailing us about this, and thank you, Erin, for saying nice things about all our dog photos!

     

    Spinning gold starEnchanted Learning  (The ZOOM sites people.) Amazing site! So much to see and do, so much to print off! You could probably run an elementary classroom and fulfill all state standards using this site's online lessons and its printable activities, if not for NCLB demands. Subscribers get tons of even more goodies to use.

     

    Engineer Girl lets middle school girls find out more about careers in engineering. "Turn imagination into reality with a future in engineering! Engineering careers, women engineers, what to take in high school to get ready (hint: math & science), essay contest, Ask an Engineer, more. From The National Academy of Sciences.

     

    Engineer Your Life "Welcome to Engineer Your Life, a guide to engineering careers for high school girls! Imagine what life would be like without pollution controls to preserve the environment, life-saving medical equipment, or low-cost building materials for fighting global poverty. All this takes engineering. In very real and concrete ways, women who become engineers save lives, prevent disease, reduce poverty, and protect our planet. Dream Big. Love what you do. Become an engineer." Videos of successful women engineers of various ethnic backgrounds expose girls to all they could do and be in the field. From The National Academy of Sciences. Thank you Shelly.

     

    Evolution Teachers' Guide covers learning about evolution and teaching it. It's part of History of life on Earth - The Online Exhibits  from UC Berkeley, fabulous huge site about life on Earth. Using the scientific method to understand and teach evolution is well worth your time to read.

     

    Experiland "Welcome to our lab, fellow scientist! CAUTION: This website might be addictive! Fun Science projects for kids!Great care has been put into our science projects to provide the young student of today with the basic knowledge of the scientific principles of our world. Try not to have fun - We dare you!" LOTS of science experiments & projects, indexed by grade or by subject. Chemistry, earth science, weather, life science, electricity & magnetism, and physics!

     

    Exploring Planets in the Classroom hands-on science activities This Hawaiian site has hands-on activities and lesson plans! Now with volcano activities!

     

    FaceChipz Ok, we haven't ever done a social networking site for kids before. They have a good reputation and they definitely fill a need. Here's an excerpt from their pitch: "FaceChipz.com has all the features of a real social network – but with one big difference: kids can ONLY communicate with others they’ve physically exchanged FaceChipz tokens with – NO strangers allowed! No one can arbitrarily contact them. No one can search for them. It’s the social network they collect, but doesn’t collect them." We understand that the Chipz are now available at Toys R Us.

     

    (The) Fallacy Files This site's goal is to enumerate and explain all the fallacies of logic there are! There are plenty, this site has job security. Besides a taxonomy, there are explanations, examples, a glossary of terms, and (importantly in an election year) "How to Read a Poll."

     

    Flag of CanadaFamous Canadians "The infographic is a virtual Canadian Hall of Fame and showcases influential Canadians who have contributed to scientific and social development, economic security and prosperity, and the creative arts. The infographic was designed to show visitors that Canada is home to great people who were visionaries and history-makers." This very informative page is from CanadaFaq, a site devoted to "Everything You Need to Know About Canada"; geography, history, people, finance, education, economy, immigrating, jobs, etc. Kudos to Vera Johnes at CanadaFaq, for the email telling us about this fine web site.

     

    Figure This! You should really try this site out! En ingles y tambien en el espanol. "Welcome to the Figure This! Web site! Helping families enjoy mathematics outside school through a series of fun and engaging, high-quality challenges. Figure This! demonstrates challenging middle school mathematics and emphasizes the importance of high-quality math education for all students. Figure This! Mathematical challenges for families provide interesting math challenges that middle-school students can do at home with their families." say to follow, engaging site with 80 printable math activities for you to try. Uses .pdf files. From NCTM and others.

     

    Financial Literacy For Kids and Teens! Here are links to 28 financial education sites for kids, tweens, teens, and teachers! Some have lesson plans, too. Earning, saving, investing, bonds, the stock market, stock portfolios, borrowing and interest, what banks do, checking accounts, the Fed, currency exchange rates, recessions, inflation, the history of money, and more!

     

    Flashcard Exchange "Flashcards: 5,706,693 - The world's largest flashcard library." Covers K-12, higher ed, technology, medical, misc, science, languages, more. Basically, this site is flashcard heaven. Page after page of lists of flashcards. At random, we checked out the Dolch words flash cards under Early Education. The site has 17 pages of Dolch word lists. Each list has oodles of flashcards. Whoah. There were four pages of Word Wall word lists. We saw lists of phonics and pronoun flashcards, too. We picked high school geometry at random and found five pages of lists of flashcards people have made. Definitely where you want to go if you're into flash cards.

     

    Flight site from NASA, for kids, with lesson plans for teachers. What is Aeronautics, History of Flight, Dynamics of Flight, Airplanes, Engines, and Fun & Games, including a learning game about the Wright brothers!

     

    Free Earth Day Printable found on Pinterest. "Get kids thinking globally. Writing down a commitment makes us more likely to follow through with it."

     

    Free Language Arts Curriki Curated Resources! Here are 32 (it lists 33, but #2 and #14 are duplicates) separate collections of language arts lesson plans for middle school, high school, and ESL use. Not 32 lessons but 32 groups of lessons. Some could be adapted for upper elementary. Everything from parts of speech to Shakespeare. Lesson plans, lessons ready-to-go, rubrics, worksheets, videos, and more.

     

    Free Mathematics Books 258 math books available online for reading or downloading. We're talking high school to university-level mathematics here. "Here is an alphabetical list of online mathematics books, textbooks, monographs, lecture notes, and other mathematics related documents freely available on the web. I tried to select only the works in book formats, "real" books that are mainly in PDF format...The list is updated almost on a daily basis.."

     

    Team Stop SignsFREE Team Stop Signs from Laura Candler, as posted in TeachersPayTeachers®. Many rave reviews for this idea! "The team stop sign is a management tool that I created years ago help manage the noise level during cooperative learning activities. Print them out on card stock, cut out, and laminate. If a team becomes noisy or off-task, place a stop sign in the middle of the team. Ask team members to be quiet for one minute and think about how they can work more effectively and quietly. This strategy is simple, but it’s effective for bringing down the noise level in your room and helping your students to refocus on the assignment. They can also be used when doing math and literacy centers."

     

     

    Free Worksheets for Kids from K-5 Learning. This is a commercial site with a good reputation. They offer quit a bit of free material. "Our website has free resources for preschool through grade 5 kids... We have:

  • math worksheets for grades 1-6, extensive and very organized
  • worksheets for preschool and kindergarten (letters, numbers, shapes and colors, phonics, etc.)
  • grammar worksheets
  • reading comprehension worksheets
  • cursive writing worksheets
  • over 25 multimedia reading and math lessons
  • Visitors can also download our ebook: How to Help Your Kids Succeed in School.
  • Mastering these worksheets would give students a solid foundation to build on. Thanks to Joy at K-5 Learning for her email.

     

    Tropical frogFrogland (AllAboutFrogs.org) Name says it all! Fun site with real facts about, and pix of, all sorts of frogs & toads. This very busy site will keep your kids very busy! Games, coloring, pix, facts and more facts, printables, stories, myths, more fun than a barrel of bullfrogs! Teachers' Corner has suggestions, links, and lesson plan outlines for class projects!

     

    Fun with Fractions from Curriki is a three-week, 13 lesson unit introducing fractions, complete with lesson plans. "This unit will introduce the concept of fractions with activities and lessons that cater to visual, auditory, and tactile learning styles. Students will create fractions with a variety of manipulatives, solve problems with fractions, play games with fractions, and explore fractions in their everyday lives. The unit will also integrate language arts, as students write fraction stories and read literature related to fractions. Students will gain an understanding of basic fractions, including 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, and whole. Students will learn key vocabulary words: whole, fraction, numerator, and denominator. Students will understand how fractions relate to their everyday lives."

     

    Spinning gold star Fund for Teachers "Believing the teacher knows best how they can make a better impact in their classroom, Fund for Teachers awards fellowships for self-designed professional growth to PreK-12 teachers who recognize the value of inquiry, the power of knowledge, and their ability to make a difference.

    Each Fund for Teachers fellowship is as unique as the teacher who designed it, and since 2001, more than 4,400 teachers have been awarded $15.9 million in Fund for Teachers grants-up to $5,000 for individuals, or $10,000 for teams. Fund for Teachers fellowships have taken place in 120 countries on every continent, empowering teachers to explore countless ideas, terrains, and cultures." If this goes on, we'll have to gives these types of sites their own section - Teacher Gifts or something.

     

    Gambassa "Tools for Modernized Education. Designed to Work Together™" FREE for educators and students! "With the Gambassa educational platform you can instantly manage everything you need for the modern classroom: You can create virtual classrooms, ebooks, e-workbooks, online courses, as well as, adapt and leverage content created by others." The rest of their pitch is on their first page. Here's an example of a student made presentation. This has possibilities for teachers.

     

    Game On! The Ultimate Wellness Challenge How to build an around the year program to educate kids in nutrition, health and physical education before, during, and after school. Includes ideas, activities, and how to set up challenges for kids. This is from Action for Healthy Kids of Skokie, Illinois, USA. We need this sort of site. Thanks for another one, Shelly.

     

    Games for the Brain. "Play neverending quiz, memory & brain games to train your thinking." Around 40 games, some old, some newer, and the site is available in many languages. Easy to play, good for your mind.

     

    Gardening - Classroom Projects from Kids Gardening. Here are 26 gardening projects for school kids, with lesson layouts and notes. Nice for cross-curriculum springtime activities.

     

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    DownloadsGeoGebra "GeoGebra is free and multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for learning and teaching. It has received several educational software awards in Europe and the USA." Math teachers only - please read on: "GeoGebra is dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that joins arithmetic, geometry, algebra and calculus. On the one hand, GeoGebra is an interactive geometry system. You can do constructions with points, vectors, segments, lines, conic sections as well as functions and change them dynamically afterwards. On the other hand, equations and coordinates can be entered directly. Thus, GeoGebra has the ability to deal with variables for numbers, vectors and points, finds derivatives and integrals of functions and offers commands like Root or Extremum. These two views are characteristic of GeoGebra: an expression in the algebra view corresponds to an object in the graphics view and vice versa." It's easier to play with this program than it is to read the above! This is wonderful free software with its own wiki and support groups.

     

    Get Interactive: Teach the Middle Ages for Ages 5 to 25 Lesson ideas for everything from drawing monsters, storytelling, story writing, drawing maps, skits, cooking, crops, city planning, and more. "A list of activities, discussions, and assignments to support teaching the Middle Ages. Many of these suggestions can be adjusted for different ages, but I’ve arranged them in a roughly age-progressive order. For more great ideas and specific grade-level lesson plans contributed by others, check out this page. Happy teaching!"

     

    Gifted Education - A Resource Guide for Teachers From the BC Ministry of Education. Defining, detecting, strategies, process, lots more. A basic "how to" with resources in depth! A good quality TAG resource.

     

    spinning gold star Girl Rising Find out where this is playing and go see it! Watch the trailer on the site. Watch the teaser on YouTube. "Educate Girls and You Will Change the World." (Don't educate them and the world will change you.)

     

     

    Girls Not Brides logo "Girls Not Brides is a global partnership of more than 500 civil society organisations
    committed to ending child marriage and enabling girls to fulfil their potential."
    Learn about Child Marriage.
    Read Girls' Voices
    Check out the impacts at News and Analysis
    #MyLifeAt15 celebrates the dreams and ambitions we hold at the age of 15 in support of every girl having the opportunity to achieve hers, without child marriage holding her back.
    Download the .pdf file flyer

     

    Spinning gold star Gold Star Registry "Gold Star Registry is a FREE, online teacher registry that allows teachers to obtain much-needed student and classroom materials without dipping into their own personal funds... Just like a bridal or a baby registry, a teacher creates a registry "wish list" online from over 6,000 items. Anyone in the community can then go online and help the teacher receive exactly what he or she needs to help their students." This was on CBS News.

     

    Goldfish Climbing Trees (I Sued the School System) Six-minute video by Prince Ea discusses the failure of our traditional classroom education system. This video speaks for itself. It's a springboard for discussion. Watch it and think about it.

     

    Google Earth Resources from the Springfield School District in Oregon. Tutorials and lesson ideas for teachers who want to use Google Earth in class. Google Earth is free and it's a very powerful tool for teaching geography, history, and current events. Nicely laid out site, too.

     

    New SiteGraphing Sea-Level TrendsGraphing Sea-Level Trends a lesson plan from NASA/JPL and CIT. For grades 5 - 12.
    Standards-based. Resources/data are provided. Older students can track data sets using spreadsheets. Lots of
    additional information and links.

     

     

    Union Jackgrowing+beans+on+cotton+balls.jpgGrowing Beans on Cotton Balls from The Imagination Tree. "This is a really easy, visual way to teach children about root systems and is something I used to do with my school children each Spring time. Plus it’s very exciting to watch how FAST the plants grow! All you need for this easy activity is a glass jar or bottle, some cotton wool balls/ wads and a bean!" Anna Ranson is a veteran early education/art teacher and (now) stay-at-home mother of four littles. She has an amazing site full of low-budget activities and learning ideas for babies up into school age. There's a gallery of growing bean photos with descriptions of the learning going on. At the bottom are Extension Activities/Learning Links for older kids tie into science, mathematics, literacy, and PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education). If you like this, she has dozens? scores? hundreds? of other good things to try!

     

     

    Guide to Grammar and Writing from Capital Community College, Hartford, Connecticut. This site is for teachers and senior high and college students. Learn ALL about grammar here. This is an excellent resource. Teachers and pre-service undergrads, if you need a little brush-up prior to teaching grammar, here's the place to get it.

     

    Halloween Math Activities for Kids from No Time for Flashcards A list of fun and crafty hands-on math activities for the littler kids, full of manipulatives. There are more at the bottom of the page under More Fun & Learning.

     

    Halloween Songs and Activities for Calendar Time We found this page at Fantastic Fun and Learning, where there are hundreds of activities, crafts, songs, movement, dances, arty things, ideas, and many links; all pre-K and K related. They, in turn, got these from similar sites. Very, very nice. Check out the Skeleton Dance!

     

    Have Fun Teaching We really like this site. They simply have a TON of materials! Worksheets, coloring pages, flashcards, reproducibles, CDs, DVDs, music, songs, videos, activities, teacher tools, lesson plans! Had about 40 seven year olds singing their Planet Song yesterday! Download their music via iTunes, Amazon, more. Thanks Trish.

     

    Hidden Messages in Spirituals lesson plan unit from the NYS Core Curriculum - Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects, 6 - 12. Covers:

    Reading: Craft and Structure (meaning of words).

    Writing:
  • Test Types and Purposes (organize ideas, develop topic with facts)
  • Production and Distribution of Writing (develop, organize appropriate to task)
  • Research to Build and Present Knowledge (short research project, using term effectively)
  • This could also be used for history!

    This is a complete lesson plan with pdf printables and a video. You can also download Hidden Messages in Spirituals (608.2 KB) Lesson Plan (PDF).

     

    High Achiever, Gifted Learner, Creative Thinker Published article by Bertie Kingore, Ph.D. The objective is to help explain the differences between high achievers, gifted learners, and creative learners, to classroom teachers and parents. This is done by using cartoons to show examples of behavior: Response to an Assignment and Response to a Question. There's also a good sized table of comparisons between the three types, and discussion. This a useful article that definitely fills a need. Stereotypical examples were used of necessity to illustrate the ideas presented here. We all must keep in mind that individual learners may exhibit combinations of these traits. Real life instances may be more like a Venn diagram of the three types presented.

     

    Hillbilly Housewife has weekly menus, inexpensive recipes, planners, and advice for people on a budget. "The focus here is on low-cost, home-cooking from scratch. The recipes are all tested in a real kitchen. The ingredients are affordable and readily available in most areas. " This is timeless advice for parents on a budget, and it's free.

     

    The History and Future of Everything -- Time a video from Kurzgesagt "Videos about Science, made with Love. We are a team of Information Designers and Motion Designers that specialize in the art of explaining stuff." This video gives kids a better understanding of time and history in proportion. Fine graphics, nice music, wonderful narration. They have (as of now) five more videos, from evolution to the stock market.

     

    History-Social Science Course Models from the California Dept. of Education. Model lessons (lesson plan ideas) by grade level K - 12. Maybe 100 or so that cover various social science topics. Free registration is encouraged, but you access lessons without it.

     

    Spinning gold star Hoagies' Gifted Education Page The "all things gifted" page. This jewel of a site is trying to pull together all sorts of activities, ideas, and resources for gifted kids, parents, and teachers. As we all know, public schools always cut gifted funding first, so a site like this one can help a lot. They've tried to post something for every gifted kid, so there's a huge variety here.

     

    The famous letter about homework This is all over social media, such as Facebook and Reddit. For anyone who has not read it, here it is:

    New Homework Policy

    Dear Parents,
    After much research this summer, I am trying something new, Homework will only consist of work that your student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year.

    Research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance. Rather, I ask that you spend evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early.

    Thanks.

    Some elementary and middle school teachers around here have always done this and have no problems with student learning and retention. One teacher has been doing this for 36 years.

     

     

    Gonfalon di Venezia Downloads Horazio's freeware  Here is a real potpourri of good download ed games, by a guy from Venice, Italy named Horazio. Among them is TurboFarm, for 5 - 7 year olds, which is an animal names matching game. There are also some excellent interactive map games to help kids learn the names of states or regions. Examples are Liberty Map to teach the names of US states, another for Greater London, one for Italy, etc. There are also games to learn Japanese characters, vector math plotters, calorie counters, and more. Your choice of English, Italian, and Spanish (one game also has Korean.) "Grazie Horazio"

     

     

    How playing an instrument benefits your brain.pngHow playing an instrument benefits your brain "When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout." 4:44 TED Lesson by Anita Collins, animation by Sharon Colman Graham. Kids should all play some sort of musical instrument!

     

     


     

    How to Create a Jeopardy-style Game in Google Spreadsheets "In the video embedded I demonstrate how to use Flippity to create a Jeopardy-style gameboard." Use it for any subject. Use it on an overhead such as Promethean.

    Flippity.net Easily turn a Google™ Spreadsheet into a set of online flashcards. Easily turn a Google spreadsheet into a trivia game show.


     

     

    HOT X: Algebra Exposed Danica McKellar is back! This time she explains algebra to girls. Is she qualified? Here's her chops: "Best known for her roles on The Wonder Years and The West Wing, Danica McKellar is also a three-time New York Times bestselling author, internationally-recognized mathematician and advocate for math education. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA with a degree in Mathematics, Danica has been honored in Britain's esteemed Journal of Physics and the New York Times for her work in mathematics, most notably for her role as co-author of a ground-breaking mathematical physics theorem which bears her name (The Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem)." So yeah, she's qualified. What we like about this book, and all her math books for tween and teen girls is - she's been there & done that - she explains things in a special girl-to-girl BFF way, without dumbing down the math. Teen girls and co-eds use this book and it really helps!

     

    Household Science Projects 17 easy & good projects for home education or in a classroom. Pj Finlay suggested this site in an email; and also wrote "P.S. your site is awesome" which of course did not influence us in any way. Going in Homeschool and in Teachers & Parents.

     

    How and Why to Teach Your Kids to Code This informative article from Lifehacker lists and discusses 10 free or inexpensive programs that will introduce kids to coding by letting them code. Scratch is on this list (hurray)! We've used Scratch with kids and they liked to play with it. Fun and colorful, Scratch is an MIT effort. Stykz "the first multi-platform stick figure animation program in the world" is another fun coding program, maybe for older kids. You'll want to read "What We've Learned About Teaching Kids to Code" near the bottom of the article.

     

    How To Save Money With Coupons has links to 15 sites, .pdf files, and PowerPoints on the subject. Could be used in FACS ("Home Ec") classes or as a supplement. Also of use to teachers and parents. Thanks to Susan Bowen for the email suggesting this site.

     

    I Am Moving, I Am Learning (IMIL) "is a proactive approach for addressing childhood obesity in Head Start children. IMIL seeks to increase moderate to vigorous physical activity every day, improve the quality of movement activities intentionally planned and facilitated by adults, and promote healthy food choices every day. Take a journey through IMIL by reviewing the research, video clip, testimonials, and Choosy Kids, LLC for further information."

     

    I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate A Spoken Word video from Suli Breaks, British recording artist. Over half a million people worldwide have viewed this video. Looks like maybe half of them left comments! A protest against standardized, one-size-fits-all education systems. It's a pretty gripping video. (Warning: This video will make you THINK!) Also an advocacy of finding a career that you enjoy, following your dream instead of being a wage slave. Don't want to put any more words in his mouth, out of respect. GSFK agrees with the plug: You Have To Watch This!! Choose your own POV and discuss this with other viewers.

     

    If 3 Little Girls Did This To My House, I'd Do Everything I Could To Get Them Full Rides To Stanford. "Fewer than 3 in 10 graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are women. And barely 1 in 10 actual engineers are women. Early in a girl's life, the toys marketed to her are usually things that don't encourage her to enter those fields. GoldieBlox intends to change that by teaching them while they are young that these fields can be fun — and apparently epic, by the looks of this super-genius 2-minute video. Watch and learn." OK, yes it's an ad for educational toys, and an internet hit. However, if these or similar toys, or becoming a Maker like young Sylvia, can up the percentage of little girls who grow up to be engineers, mathematicians, scientists, or technologists - then it's surely worth it.

     

    Imaginon Fun and Games This is from ImaginOn: The Joe & Joan Martin Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Charlotte has a deserved reputation as a regional cultural center) Among other wonderful things, they put on a lot of well done plays for children's theatre! The part we really liked was the many interactive web activities for kids, all thematic units based on various plays based on classic kid lit books like "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie". There are activities in here that cover A Rat's Life (biology, history) and Medieval Life, Laura Ingalls Wilder, lots more. Teachers, you should really pore over this listing of links!

     

    Informal Geometry by MathMastery Inc. Video clips and interactive, downloadable Flash videos cover Geometry in 13 progressive units from intro to perimeters up through volume. Also covers using a compass and a protractor. Elementary kids who know their times tables could use this easily. Another fine example of what you can find at Curriki!

     

    Institute for Inquiry from the Exploratorium in San Francisco. "...developing innovation and leadership in science education."Offers workshops and a large library for inquiry-based teaching and learning.

     

    Interactive Science Simulations from PhET/U of Colorado, Boulder! There are dozens of these great interactive simulations to download, embed, or play online! You can even contribute your own! Click on any one of these and a menu pops up with more info, including the option to sort by grade levels. Science teachers, you must see this site!

     

    Introductory Physics I from Curriki. Uses flash videos for the lesson and pdf files for questions. "Welcome to the NROC Introductory Physics course. This course is divided into two semesters and is designed to acquaint you with topics in classical and modern physics. The first semester discusses topics in Newtonian mechanics including: kinematics, laws of motion, work and energy, systems of particles, momentum, circular motion, oscillations, and gravitation. The first semester concludes with topics in fluid mechanics, thermal physics, and kinetic theory. The second semester discusses the topics of electricity and magnetism, waves and optics, and atomic and nuclear physics. The course emphasizes problem solving, and there are numerous interactive examples throughout. You will also gain laboratory experience through interactive lab simulations and wet labs."

     

    Island of the Blue Dolphins "A thematic exploration of the historical fiction novel--Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell." A really thorough interactive online thematic unit, with activities about the island, the people, village, sea life. Includes a good teacher's unit with a nice page of lesson ideas. Well done, good art. Created by elementary teachers in California. Part of the HUGE SCORE History/Social Science sites. "Over 5000 websites aligned to California's History/Social Science Curriculum."

     

     

     

     

    Jmol Overview :

  • Jmol is a free, open source molecule viewer for students, educators, and researchers in chemistry and biochemistry.
  • It is cross-platform, running on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux/Unix systems, and available in several languages.
  • The JmolApplet is a web browser applet that can be integrated into web pages.
  • The Jmol application is a standalone Java application that runs on the desktop.
  • The JmolViewer is a development tool kit that can be integrated into other Java applications.
  • Includes download instructions here.
  • A handbook has been published for learning Jmol, and there are also other publications about Jmol.
  • There is also a list of tutorials designed to learn the use of Jmol, and more help, within Jmol Wiki.
  • Finally, there is a documentation section in this web site, for more technical details.



  • spinning gold star Josie's Poems It's fair to call this site "the biggest poetry website on the internet". "...knowing how very important rhyming and rhythmic poetry is for helping children develop phonological awareness, a key literacy tool, I’ve just written almost 900 poems for children of all ages." These are GOOD poems to read or to read aloud. The sort of poems that develop language skills, because they emphasize rhyming, rhythm, the way words sound in the head, mouth, and ear, and demonstrate the use of parts of speech! The haiku, cinquains, adverb poems, similes page is a shining example of how to teach poetry structure and grammar all at once! Read Apostrophe - Mr Blob and see what we're so happy about. There are ebooks, audios, and videos, too, and the chance to buy books (the rest of the site is FREE). This site is also used by ESL students in Europe. The English speaking world badly needs this sort of place on the web - so much of what is in here is no longer covered well (or at all) in many educational environments. A big THANK YOU to Josie Whitehead, the teacher who created the site and most of the poems!




    "The Journal of Emerging Investigators is an open-access journal that publishes original research in the biological and physical sciences that is written by middle and high school students. JEI provides students, under the guidance of a teacher or advisor, the opportunity to submit and gain feedback from Harvard-trained scientists on their original research and to publish their findings in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Work submitted by students may come from classroom-based projects, science fair projects, etc." (slightly edited by us)

     

    Just Say No Anti-drug site from Thinkquest. Rich source of information for teaching kids about drugs of all types. Includes games, both online and printable. Check the red circles on the left side of the page to access the menus. Thanks to Terri T. for finding this site.

     

    KA has 100 free games indexed alphabetically; and by grade (pre-K - 6), subject (the 3 Rs plus Animals and Science), age (toddler to 12), and arcade games. There are mobile games, too. Down at the bottom there's an idex of all three sites' game, activities, worksheets, curriculum, resources list, and lesson plans.

     

    K12 Academics "Since its inception in 2004, K12 Academics has established itself in the education community by creating influential and valuable information for teachers, students, parents & districts officials involved in the K-12 education system...This is the most comprehensive directory on the internet for afterschool programs. We have over 100,000+ pages of educational content that covers all demographics in the education system- parents, Students, teachers, Schools, district officials, etc. We are not just another website, but the website for education."

     

    K12Reader "Reading Instruction Resources for Teachers & Parents" Printable worksheets for Dolch words, handwriting practice. Lots of articles on everything from abstract nouns to finding a good reading program. Book reviews, games and activities to try, and reading topics. Teachers and parents will find it worthwhile to explore this site.

     

    Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators "Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators is a categorized list of sites useful for enhancing curriculum and professional growth. It is updated often to include the best sites for teaching and learning." Subject access, Teacher Helpers, lists of kids sites, more.

     

    Gold StarKhan Academy "is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) with the mission of providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere...We are complementing Salman (Khan's) ever-growing library with user-paced exercises--developed as an open source project--allowing the Khan Academy to become the free classroom for the World." 1800+ videos cover math from 1 + 1 up through differential equations; Science: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Organic Chem, Cosmology, Astronomy; History; Finance (BIG section!); Test Prep: SAT, GMAT, CAHSEE, IIT JEE. The videos are wonderful! This is amazing and FREE! (Oh, all right...."Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!")

     

    Kids' Pages for Small Ages features "free printable ESL flashcards, worksheets, coloring pages, an alphabet for teachers, parents and children, educative stories like Aesop's Fables, or fairy-tales by Christian Anderson or Brothers Grimm, online games and puzzles." Very colorful and kid friendly, with a good selection of printables. Thanks, Thea, for the email about your site!

     

    Gold StarKid's Place Test Quest Houghton-Mifflin's Eduplace Site teaches kids how to take multiple choice tests! With animated coach and practice problems. Try this as a whole class session with a digital projector.

     

    KidPort "Kidport is an Internet-based educational service designed to help K-8 students excel in school. It provides a unique, multi-step program to create empowered learners, not simply good students." Kids click on a remote that sends them to Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, Creative Arts, and Reference Library. From there they can go to grade appropriate online lessons. This is an excellent resource.

     

    KidsOLR   Kids Online Resources has lots of online lessons covering various parts of the K-12 curriculum. Their Telling Time activity is already in our Math and Telling Time section.  Way too extensive to cover it all here - go check it out.

     

    Kids-Google is a list of safe-search sites for kids. Good listing, they all seem to work fine. Never underestimate a child's ingenuity, though - watch your little ones on the internet. Thanks to Alice Cherry for the email. Going in Homeschool and in Teachers & Parents.

     

    KidsHealth in the Classroom is a new part of the popular KidsHealth site. "Get on board with KidsHealth's new online resource for educators! KidsHealth in the Classroom offers free health curriculum materials for all grades and subject areas. Each teacher's guide includes discussion questions, activities, and reproducible handouts and quizzes - all aligned to recently updated national health education standards." Excellent material.

     

    KidsKnowIt Network From Utah comes this big array of sites covering elementary mathematics, astronomy, biology, dinosaurs, geology, geography, memory builders, spelling, and games. "These free resources were developed by teachers, parents, and experts from various fields to provide free learning opportunities for children all around the world."

     

    KidsStoriesOnline "KidsStoriesOnline "Welcome To This Social Network Where You Can Post Short Stories/Poems Written By You or Your Child (for review & voting by other members). This is a great way to motivate your child to write and also read stories/poems on a regular basis. There will be prizes awarded each month for the story/poem with the most votes" Here's a new and growing site with a laudable goal. Read about it from the author: "My aim is to get teachers/parents and writers around the world talking to each other and sharing great ideas. Members can join different groups depending on what age their child or student is, and there is also a group for special needs teachers/parents.. You can even create your own group." This sounds wonderful.

     

    Union JackKids Activities from allkids. This is allkids' big listing of kid sites by categories. This page features Early Learning, free colouring pages, Nursery Rhymes, Online Stories, Boredom Busters, Outdoor Activities & Games, Childrens Hobbies & Interests, Childrens Free Fun Sites, TV and Book Characters links, Kids TV show links, Kids Movies links with critiques and schedules (UK). Someone worked long and hard tobrng this to fruition.

     

    Flag of New ZealandKids Math Games from the Science Kids Fun people. "Welcome to Kids Math Games Online! Enjoy a wide range of free math games, interactive learning activities and fun educational resources that will engage students while they learn mathematics." In order: Numbers games, Geometry games, Fun Facts, Videos, Printable Worksheets Quizzes, Videos, Pictures, Logic games, Fun Stuff, Puzzles, Money games, Addition games, Multiplication games, Counting games, Problem Solving games, board games, sudoku puzzles, math quizzes, and Memory games. (Whew!) From New Zealand, which has a lot of "good sites."

     

    Kids Running "is a site about kids running for kids of all ages. Inspire your kids to embrace fitness, physical activity and exercise...Hello and welcome to KidsRunning.Com. It won't take you more than a few moments of browsing the site, to see that we are building a Web site devoted to promoting the sport of running for kids so that they can enjoy the benefits of a fit and healthy lifestyle both at school and home. We integrate academics when we can. It seems that both learning and running are more fun for kids when they are combined."  Owned and operated by working teachers.

     

    Kids Software "is a blog about free software, commercial software and websites for kids. The blog is maintained by Marianne Wartoft, who also runs the site Educational Freeware." This site is packed with links to wonderful places such as Starfall and other fabulous destinations.

     

    Kids with ADHD must squirm to learn, study says. "New research shows that if you want ADHD kids to learn, you have to let them squirm. The foot-tapping, leg-swinging and chair-scooting movements of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are actually vital to how they remember information and work out complex cognitive tasks, according to a study". Short article describes a study done at the Children's Learning Clinic at the University of Central Florida. "The message isn't 'Let them run around the room,' but you need to be able to facilitate their movement so they can maintain the level of alertness necessary for cognitive activities." The study suggests that a majority of students with ADHD could perform better on classroom work, tests and homework if they're sitting on activity balls or exercise bikes, for instance."

     

    Kizclub "Learning Resources for Kids" This site has many, many printables in pdf format that cover the early learning/primary curriculum. These include ABCs, phonics, nursery rhymes, flashcards, animals, habitats, stories & props, extras, and more. No interactives, it's all tablework. You could make bulletin boards and all sorts of crafty things with these materials.

     

    Language Guide Want to learn alphabets and vocabulary words from other languages? "LanguageGuide.org offers free sound integrated resources for learning languages." The site features pictures of various things with written and spoken names in several languages. Words are pronounced by volunteer native speakers. Current languages are English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese. Sponsored by Language Guide, a registered non-profit organization, the site is free to use but they do ask for donations. Uses QuickTime.

     

    Launch Pad: "Where Young Authors and Illustrators Take Off! is a new literary & arts magazine devoted to publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, book reviews and artwork by children ages 6-12." This looks pretty good. A place where young artists and writers can show off their work!

     

    Laura Candler's Teaching Resources Everyone's been checking this out! This site is from an experienced classroom teacher who sells her own line of classroom help/curriculum materials, and also gives workshops. All of her blackline masters and Literary Lessons are available online. Her Reference Book  online is a treasury of mastery learning ideas and activities. Here's another bunch of good resources for busy teachers.

     

    Learn an Hour of Code from Code.org "3,662,409 have learned an HOUR of CODE Anybody can learn." This page is being promoted by everyone from "Apple to Zuckerberg". We've seen related pages in different languages, from Chile to Sri Lanka. There are fun tutorials teach anyone to code by making Holiday cards, Build your own Game, the MIT App-Inventor that teaches how to make a working app, and LightBot Any one of which will teach an hour of code, and kids won't even notice they're learning. Some are for any age, others for middle school and up (it says here). If anyone wants more (hope), there is a big section on Javascript, another on Python, even one using pencil and paper! Yes, and teacher guides as well. If you are too late to participate in Hour of Code Week, this site will be around for awhile.

     

    LEARN NC "LEARN NC gives you what you need for K–12 teaching and learning, when and where you need it...Lesson plans? Sure, we've got 'em — but also learning materials from slideshows to digital textbooks..." This site from the University of North Carolina, School of Education, has Lesson Plans (a lot of them), Learning Materials, Curriculum Standards, Best Practices, New Teacher Support, Tech Integration, and a what looks like a hundred other things. It would take more space than we can afford to tell it all, so go there and see for yourself!

     

    LearnEnglish Kids "LearnEnglish Kids is for children who are learning English. Find games, songs, stories and lots of activities - and learn English too." Games, printables, online songs, stories to read, more. There's also a good section for Teachers of English as a Second Language with lesson suggestions for using this site.

     

    Learning Games For Kids "Educational games are a great tool for building foundation math and language skills that today's elementary school curriculum requires. These online learning games and songs for kids are fun, teach important skills for preschool and elementary school kids and they're free. Want educational games that help build skills in math, language, science, social studies, and more? You've come to the right place!" Also we love their layout.

     

    Learning Strategies: Maximizing Your Academic Experience from Dartmouth. Evidently to help their new undergrads learn how to study, Timeless techniques well presented here. "The following pages provide a variety of suggestions and resources for maximizing your academic experience. View an on-line video, read about helpful strategies, or download a handout."

     

    Lesson Plan Library from the Discovery Channel is getting its own listing! "Find hundreds of original lesson plans, all written by teachers for teachers. Use the pull-down menus below to browse by subject, grade, or both."

     

    Lesson Plans and Teaching Strategies This site has links to hundreds of K-12 lesson plans as well some strategy ideas.

     

    Lessons In Electric Circuits "A free series of textbooks on the subjects of electricity and electronics." Excellent free learning, just bring a brain and the ability to think and read. Consists of six online books: DC, AC, Semiconductors, Digital, Reference, and Experiments. Volume I starts with static electricitry and ends with explanations of capacitors and inductors. It's free, it's good, and it's on the web.

     

    LessonSnips "Welcome to LessonSnips! Free teaching lessons, lesson plans, worksheets, and more... " This site's offerings cover Social Studies, Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science. The lessons offered are pdf files for easy saving and use. The lessons we looked at are reasonably short but comprehensive. Good pre-made lesson plans like these are a real time saver as well as a help to new teachers who haven't yet built up those file cabinets full of plans. (be they real cabinets or saved on media)

    Letter Recognition in a Play-Based Environment from A Blog From Across The Hall. A one-page sharing by a preschool teacher, about how she gently introduces letters and watches the children use them in creative play. This works if a teacher is willing to constantly monitor their learning and let them interact. This teacher observes that no three year old child has ever asked her for a worksheet, and drilling will not work with such small people.

     

    Lining Up Strategies to help you get younger kids to behave waiting in a line. If you don't think this is a challenge, you haven't taught Kindergarten! Trust PE teachers to come up with these good ideas. From PE Central.

     

    Little Discoverers: Big fun with science, math, and more! Sesame Street's STEM for early learners. This is a combination of games and videos for all six of the covered concepts: Experiments, Sink or Float, Measurement, States of Matter, Force and Motion, and Engineering. The concept buttons are arranged 3X2 on the sides of the video player. Each concept has 6 - 8 games and videos along the bottom of the screen, for kids to check out. Nicely arranged and does a good job of covering the very basic introductions to these concepts and ideas.

     

     

    Downloads iconLogism "An educational tool for designing and simulating digital logic circuits, featuring a simple-to-learn interface, hierarchical circuits, wire bundles, and a large component library. As a Java application, it can run on many platforms. " "Excellent tool for learning, simple and effective." "Logism is an excellent tool for exploring how digital circuits work and makes for a tremendously useful teaching aid." This excellent GNU General Public License (GPL) free download comes courtesy of sourceforge.net. Small download - 6.6 Mb.

     

    Loving2Learn "Run off 100's of Books, Watch 100's of Educational Videos, and Play 100's of FUN Games!" Here's a big and well organized site with tons of things to do! Organized by subject and by age/grade, you can find all sorts of good things here. Check it out!


    Made with Code Google is launching Made w/ Code, a program to encourage girls to learn to program and possibly pursue careers in computer science. Made w/ Code is "a social initiative to create a coding culture for girls based on creativity and making. Made with Code will strive to inspire millions of girls to experience the power of code. The goal is to demonstrate how coding can help them to pursue, and reach, their dreams." Less than 1% of high school girls express interest in majoring in computer science. "Coding gives you the power to create and invent things that could help millions of people with your ideas; sadly we’ve seen that bias and stereotypes are keeping most teenage girls from expressing interest in learning to code. We're launching Made with Code to inspire millions of girls to experience the power of coding and to see it as a way to have fun and achieve their dreams," said Megan Smith, vice president, Google. GSFK thinks this is a good idea.

     

    Code.org (Remember the Hour of Code?) also offers a K-8 Intro to Computer Science Course (15 - 25 hours) online. It looks well worth trying in classrooms.

     

    MIT App Inventor jumps right into tutorials on how to make Android Apps! Yes there is also a Teacher Section with lesson plan ideas. Learn to write good apps and maybe get rich!

     

    What's the Best Language for a Beginning Programmer? an op-ed piece from Popular Mechanics Online, gives ideas on what language a secondary school beginner should start with. Java, Scratch (kids love Scratch), Alice, MVB, C++, Python, and App Inventor are covered and various opinions expressed about each.

     


     

     

    The Master List of Unschooling Resources from Weed 'em and Reap. "When you start your homeschooling/unschooling journey, or even if you’re just considering it, you need a master list of resources to help get you started! I’ve been working hard compiling this list for all of you!" THis is a list of six books, 18 unschooling websites, The Unschooling Blog Carnival [is one-stop shop to read from many different unschooling blogs. It’s a great way to see real life examples of others who have embraced the unschooling method of learning!], five Pinterest pages, 11 online learning sites for kids, eight DVDs of shows like Bill Nye and Blue Planet, some outside activities, some crafts and projects, and more. Worth looking at, for sure. Going in Homeschool and in Teachers and Parents.

     

    Masters in Psychology "Search 95+ Online Masters Degree in Psychology Programs. Masters in Psychology is the only online guide dedicated to providing unbiased information for students about getting your masters in psychology degree. In addition to providing the only complete listing of campus schools in the US that offer a Masters in Psychology degree, we also answer common students questions in our FAQ section." We could see how this might be a useful resource for some viewers, and we thank Ms. Michelle Parsons for the email about her site.

     

    Math Doesn't Suck and Kiss My Math. These are two books by Danica McKellar, of The Wonder Years, who grew up and earned a Bachelor's in Mathematics. Middle School girls (ages 11 to 14) like these books - some even love them. "How to survive middle school math without losing your mind or breaking a nail." Her girl-to-girl style resonates with many girls. The math is sound and the problem solving techniques work. Using them this very evening with 11 and 12 year olds who are struggling with Least Common Multiples and Greatest Common Factors was rewarding. As any teacher knows, seeing students light up when they "get it" can make your day! This is a non-compensated endorsement.

     

    Math Games and Activities at Home with the Crazy Math Mom Seriously. Help your kids learn basic math and reinforce what the are learning at school. "Book mark this page because you will use these strategies/math games again and again." Ideas for teaching the four basic operations listed by grades 1 - 5. "Here is what you will find at this site:

  • Carefully designed games and activities that build on each other to fill in missed learning gaps.
  • All games and activities are aligned with National Math Standards, as well as general Global Math Standards.
  • Fun math games for all ages of children with free material.
  • Simple ways for parents build understanding of:
  • Addition, Subtraction, Multplication, and Division.
  • All WHILE PLAYING GAMES....who knew?"
  •  

     

    Math Warehouse logoMath Warehouse for secondary students, is kind of like a jungle of mathematical awesomeness! The further you go in (figuratively speaking) the more amazing interactive examples, exotic online problem-solving calculators, online games, lessons, and demos you find! Covers everything from angles to vectors, including algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and the formulae for all of it! Also covers scientific notation and the FOIL method of multiplying binomials. Grab points of a polygon and watch angles and lengths change! See a calculator show what your polygon looks like. When a calculator solves a problem it shows the work. It's like opening treasure chest!

     

    Math Worksheet Center "What is Math Worksheet Center? A huge K-12 math worksheets resource! 8,000+ math worksheets. Complete math explanations! Not a plain old worksheet site! We give instructions on all core K-12 math skill areas. Math Worksheets Center is home to over 8,000 K-12 math worksheets, lessons, homework, and quizzes. We also offer over 130 free math teaching and learning articles." These are on their Mathtips page. This looks like an excellent site. You will have to subscribe for a nominal fee to get the most of what they offer.

     

    Math Worksheets Land "We now have over 4,000 PDF files that total over 12,000 printable pages. 100% free as always! Funny thing, I'm no where near done." At least a page on each of 40 math topics - everything from Kindergarten Math to Logarithms, Linear Equations, Polynomials, Scientific Notation... Also indexed by grade level. Aligned to the Common Core standards. FREE pdf files to download/print! Thanks for the emails from "Julia, Retired Middle School Math Teacher, Mom of 3, Grandma of 4, and Tired"

     

    Meet Me at the Corner, "Virtual Field Trips for Kids, is a dynamic, interactive site, which encourages individual expression and participation through video submissions from children worldwide, featuring their special corner of the world. Through these video pod casts we hope to create a community of children, who learn the art of self-expression and storytelling through video." Great idea and wonderful site!

     

    Mike & Monica's Music Room: Songs That Teach Music OK, so we here at GSFK do not usually plug somebody's iTunes music, but this is kinda different! This is from two talented elementary music teachers in New Canaan, CT. We'll let the artists explain: "The songs are from our children's show Mike and Monica's Music Room which will be released as a web series this fall. The songs, which are in a variety of styles, teach musical concepts such as harmony, rhythm, and expression in music." In other words, a good teaching resource! Thanks, Monica Fitzgerald, for the email!

     

    Spinning gold starMiss O and Friends "By girls...for girls."  Advice, discussions, interviews, activities, music and more for tween and young teen girls. There's a lot in this site, the more you explore, the more you find! Useful for projects.

     

    Mixing in Math An after school math activity site for parents, teachers, and caregivers. "Mixing in Math activities are:

  • Quick ways to mix math in to what after-school programs
  • already do: sports, snack time, arts and crafts, playground games;
  • Easy to prep;
  • Easy to lead. You don't need math background or special training;
  • Designed to be used with any school math curriculum and can complement homework in a variety of ways.
  • Free!
  •  

    " is a fresh approach to content for kids with the perfect blend of fun and learning that helps the left & the right brained child learn through experiences. Mocomi.com endeavours to create the best and most comprehensive platform for kids in India." That would go for kids worldwide, too! Excellent site throughout. Take a deep breath..They have arts & crafts, coloring, drawing animals, printables (cards, puzzles, bookmarks, et c.), many online games, tons of Indian folk tales from all over the subcontinent (indexed by region/culture/tradition), lots of old-time English nursery rhymes and tales, educational pages (lots) with multimedia presentations (wow) and printables, covering maths, English, science, history, geography, general knowledge, and a lot more.

     

    Mollusks: General Lesson Plan Extremely well thought out and awesomely well organized expandable K-12 lesson plan for teaching about mollusks. You may do all or parts of it. There's a checklist for doing it right. Anything you wish to teach about the mollusks, be they clams, snails, or squids, it's in here. Spelled "molluscs" in most English-speaking countries.

     

    Money as You Grow – Kids and Money. "20 things kids need to know to lead financially smart lives. 20 essential, age-appropriate financial lessons—with corresponding activities—that kids need to know as they grow." The lessons are distributed across five age groups: ages 3-5, 6-10, 11-13, 14-18, and 18+. Lesson 1 is "You need money to buy things." Lesson 20 is "When investing, consider risks and annual expenses." Each lesson comes with several learning activities. Looks good.

     

     

    Monterey Bay Aquarium teaching resources listings. Why are these listed here? Because M.B.A. devotes a huge section of their site to education. To wit...

    Intro and info for Monterey Bay's Teacher's Place. Teachers might want to click here first.

    Monterey Bay Aquarium's Kid's Corner and Teacher's Place Wow! Six live web cams, activities, games, lesson plans, printable teacher guides, learning activities, teaching units, songs with audio files, pdf files, video libraries. 168 pages of activities in the free, downloadable Sea Searcher's Handbook (PDF) alone!

    Monterey Bay's Teacher Resource page lists 29 activities, over 30 short videos, and an online field guide.

    Monterey Bay's Ocean Explorers has five thematic units.

    Monterey Bay Aquarium's live web cams (six of them)

     

    Montessori-Inspired Arctic and Antarctic Unit from Living Montessori Now. Lists many activities, downloadables, ideas, and resources for learning about the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and the continent of Antarctica. Aimed at younger kids and homeschoolers but could be adapted for use in classrooms or with older kids. We really liked the link to learning the continents that the Antarctica unit is a part of. Too many kids and adults do not know their continents, and schools seem helpless to change that. Some of the items are free to download or copy, for others there is a fee. Plenty of links to other Montessori-inspired and homeschool sites, too.

     

    Coyote silhouetted in front of orange full moonMoon Phases Collection from Curriki. Here is a collection ready-to-use lesson plans and associated activities, links, and downloads for elementary and middle school. All are aimed at (you guessed it) teaching the monthly cycle of moon phases; how, where, when, and why. All teachers have to do is download as necessary, adapt if necessary, and teach it. Contributed to Curriki by Jessica Flint.

     


    Music training speeds up brain development in children (from The Conversation, via IFLS) Ongoing research by UCLA staff shows promising results - music training accelerates brain development. It also enhances reading and language skills. "This can particularly benefit at-risk children in low socioeconomic status neighborhoods who experience more difficulties with language development." There are many other points made in this two-page article. It is usually hard for scientists (and engineers) to translate their formal articles into the vernacular without losing information in the process. That's why these "translated" articles are so important to the people who can use the information everyday.

     

    MrDonn.org  "Free lesson plans & Activities for K-12 teachers & students." Includes ready-made lesson plans for Ancient History, Myths and Folktales, Language Arts, PowerPoints on the same subjects, lesson plans for modern history, American Civil War, the Depression, Civil Rights, Great Barrier Reef, Holidays, and free clip art! BIG Ancient History for Kids section including Ancient China and Native American history! We are happy to see Mr. Donn's up and running at their own web address.

     

    Mrs. Alfson's Classes is a fine site for two reasons: a good example of what a teacher's site should look like; and a good source of high school science links that cover chem, AP chem, and physical science. There are some great links in here.

     

    Mrs. Hongell's Resource Page Mrs. Hongell is the Computer Teacher at Pocantico Hills Central School in New York. This typically high-quality Pocantico page is full of useful ideas. We especially liked the sections on Microsoft tutorial and podcasting. Good job!

     

    Mrs. Mitchell's Virtual School  is a list of links to good and varied educational and activity sites arranged by subject and grade. A nice collection of links to "good sites."

     

    Cool! Mrs. Wilkie's Websites "Click on one of the links to the left to access the web sites that you wish to use." Do it! This is a HUGE, HUMONGOUS collection of education sites, indexed by subject. A big vertical list sits on the left side of an otherwise nondescript page. Do not be fooled! This is one of the best! It's also a good introduction to wikis.

     

    Music & brains poster

     

     

    MyMusicTheory.com "I offer free online music theory lessons, which follow the ABRSM syllabus. I also have a blog which covers other general music related subjects like the history of music, or instruments of the orchestra, aimed at the beginner/intermediate level. Please come and take a look!" So we did, and are happy to report this is a fine, serious music ed site. It'll be a fine addition to our Music and Teachers & Parents sections. Thank you, Victoria Williams, for emailing us re: your excellent site!

    "What you can do at MyMusicTheory.com...

  • (1) Learn about Music Theory...
  • free online music theory lessons and exercises, following the ABRSM syllabus for grades one, two, three, four, five and six.
  • printable pdf versions of all lessons and exercises, (for a small fee)
  • marking service by email
  • music theory worksheets and tests in pdf format, ready for printing (for a small fee)
  • Composition Masterclass for Grade Five students
  • (2) Resources for Music Teachers...
  • printable pdf versions of all lessons and exercises, (for a small fee)
  • music theory worksheets and tests in pdf format, ready for printing (for a small fee)
  • free supplementary teaching materials
  • a handy ABRSM syllabus reference guide by grade/topic
  • (3) For Everybody...
  • forum for chat and questions about music theory (separate registration required - free)
  • blog (news, reviews, exam tips, articles on music and instruments and more)
  • free registration - for updates, news and special offers
  • paid membership for instant access to all downloadable music theory materials
  •  

    Navigation Education Materials Ten middle school science lesson plans ready to go! These teach navigation, mapping, topo maps, GPS, and space navigation! Excellent introduction to a technical subject. From the renowned Institute of Navigation. Because we need to educate kids in important technical subjects.

     

    National Children's Literacy Website "Because Children Need to Read - More than any other single skill, the ability to read - and read well - allows a child to succeed in school, learn about the world, function in society, and someday have decent job options. Enhancing children's literacy is at the heart of the Soho Center's NATIONAL CHILDREN'S LITERACY INFORMATION project - a national children's literacy initiative. The Soho Center is committed to promoting children's literacy in child care settings and home settings. Whether you are a family child care provider, a teacher in a child care center or Head Start program, or a parent of a pre-school or school-age child - there's a lot you can do." This site has quite a lot of good advice, tips, and resources for any child care teacher or home schooling parent. We are very grateful to Jeanna Beker, Director, The Soho Center for emailing us about The Soho Center and its excellent literacy site!

     

    National Geographic Kids This is Nat Geo Kids site map page. It lists all their goodies for kids: Animals, Games, Stories, Activities, People & Places, Photos, and even Videos! A ton of resources!

     

    National Girls Collaborative Project "The National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) maximizes access to shared resources within projects and with public and private sector organizations and institutions interested in expanding girls’ participation in science, technology, engineering, and math. One of the valuable NGCP resources is the free, online Program Directory. The Program Directory lists programs and resources that encourage girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The purpose of the directory is to help organizations and individuals network, share resources, and collaborate on STEM-related projects for girls. The directory contains:

  • Program descriptions with Web site links and contact information;
  • Program resources available;
  • Program needs;
  • Potential collaboration opportunities.
  •  

    National Science Education Standards covers standards for: science teaching, professional development, assessment, content, science ed K-12 by level, programs, and systems. A lot of material, well organized in one place.

     

    US FlagNational Student Mock Election "Welcome to the nation’s largest civic education project. Student voice is an essential part of a vital and vibrant society. That’s why the My Voice™ National Student Mock Election aspires to create more paths for young people to express their views and participate in the democratic process. Join this historic initiative because It’s Your Democracy." Teachers can enroll their class(es), view demos, and get ready to vote!

     

    Net Smartz Kids teaching children what to watch out for online with fun, interactive games and activities. Fun safe internet links for kids to Learn about Wizzywigs, Webville outlaws, and internet safety rules.

     

    New Teachers Group from Curriki. "New teachers have many challenges and are sometimes left without anyone to guide their questions. As part of this group, you will have the opportunity to read about and respond to other new teacher's questions/solutions/frustrations as well as submit your own ideas. We are all here to help. Sign up and let's hear from you!" Yes, the fabulous Curriki site has groups! This one's for new teachers. There are others for other interest groups of educators.

     

    ninegreatnovels in wikispaces.com "Welcome to a place to find teaching ideas and lesson plans for novels!...Our nine novels include the following:"

  • The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
  • Persuasion by Jane Austen
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  • Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
  • The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
  • The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
  • Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
  • The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
  • Buried Onions by Gary Soto
  • There are several (maybe six or more) lesson plans for each novel. Some cover the whole work, others only cover certain chapters. Each novel has links to its Wikipedia entry and a link to this site's novel page (where the lessons are).

     

    No Screen-time Until (free printable) from Your Modern Family "It can be easy for us to just let our kids lounge around and hop online or turn on the TV when they are bored, but my husband and I really try to keep a limit on those things. That is where our home rules come into play. The main idea behind this is to give our kids something “else” to get “lost in”… Sometimes kids just need a little motivation to get started (once our kids head outside to play, they forget about watching a movie or playing on the tablet). If I let them just sit & default to screen-time, it will consume as much time as I allow. Why not just encourage them to get out or do something ELSE first and see where THAT takes them?" They suggest this for summer or no-school days.

     

    no-screentime-until.jpg screentime.jpg

     

    North American Montessori Teachers' Association The official site for Montessori teachers. If you are interested in Montessori, this is a good place to look into it.

     

    On-Line Math Worksheet Generator "With The Math Worksheet Site you can create an endless supply of printable math worksheets. The intuitive interface gives you the ability to easily customize each worksheet to target your student's specific needs. Every worksheet is created when you request it, so they are different every time." Free worksheets or you can subscribe for an annual fee and get lots more worksheets. Offered as a service by us with no endorsement implied.

     

    If you download the Open Dyslexic font, you'll be able to see the text below in all its dyslexia-friendly glory.

    Downloads Open Dyslexic "is a new open sourced font created to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. The typeface includes regular, bold, italic and bold-italic styles. It is being updated continually and improved based on input from dyslexic users. There are no restrictions on using OpenDyslexic outside of attribution. Your brain can sometimes do funny things to letters. OpenDyslexic tries to help prevent some of these things from happening.

    openWeb: A free iPhone/iPad web browser that uses OpenDyslexic to override the default fonts on the webpages you read. " openWeb - Dyslexia friendly web browser." The site also has links to other apps and helps for installation. (For Windows: download it, open the folder, click on the Font. Windows should then install it for you.) Thank you, thank you Abelardo Gonzalez, for all the work you've done! Going in anyplace someone who needs it might find it!

     

    Oregon Trail for Apple 2 series - screenshot Oregon Trail for Elementary Schools Arguably the best Oregon Trail site. Plenty of information and links. Comprehensive overview of life on the Trail. William has a broken arm. You have died of desentery.

     

    Oregon Trail - End of the Oregon Trail Anything you would ever want to know about the Oregon Trail, and much more. This huge site could and should be the source of many K-12 lesson plans. You should have bought more baking soda saleratus. You do not have an extra wagon wheel, so you must trade for one.

     

    Downloads  Owl & Mouse Educational Software Great phonics software that reminds us of the old MECC Apple games of the 1980s. Free software for you to download and install, or play online. Their plug: "Help your child learn with games, software and educational activities from Owl & Mouse Educational Software. Early reading software—phonics software, alphabet games, and Dolch sight words in a fairy tale story. All of it FREE! Free online USA maps, world maps, map of Europe, map puzzles of the US, Europe, Africa, Asia, and many more. You can build your own castle and coat of arms—free downloads."

     

    PE Central "Welcome to the premier site for health and physical education teachers, parents, and students. Our goal is to provide the latest information about developmentally appropriate physical education programs for children and youth." Jobs, a store, over 1,700 lesson ideas, established PE programs, videos, lots more. A treasure for busy PE teachers! Thanks go to PE teacher Amanda Schlepp for the info about this site.

     

    Parent's Guide to Children’s Mental Health Services in South Dakota Four videos, from two to five minutes long, cover this in depth. Most of this applies no matter where you live. Includes a video for Native American/First Nations parents. Useful resource.

     

    Panwapa - Where Kids Shape the World. "Panwapa is an imaginary floating island with characters, stories, and global explorations for kids ages 5-9. Panwapa characters introduce kids to concepts of learning about and accepting other cultures. Educators who use Panwapa can create a group on Curriki to extend and comment on the curricular questions which go along with the Panwapa videos, playalong games, and lessons." This site is great! Talking animated characters engage kids and help them choose from a variety of wonderful things to do. You have to check it out, it is great! From the Sesame Street people.

     

    Paragraph Writing in First Grade from The Brown Bag Teacher blog. This starts with tips for teaching paragraph structure that 2nd semester first graders can understand. This includes color coding the parts of a paragraph (what an idea!). Also includes strategies and examples of successful paragraphs. There are lots of links to other first grade curricula like First Grade Data and Graphing.

     

    Physical Education Lesson Ideas from PE Central. Here's 1,700 or so PE lesson plans already sorted and organized by areas of interest. Go for it!

     

    Pearl Harbor Lesson Plans US Navy official site. "Since the attacks on September 11, 2001, we all have been drawn to examine similar events in our past. The lesson plans provided for you will help you and your students to understand what happened on December 7, 1941. Beginning with the first American treaty with Japan in 1854 though the attacks in 1941, students will use primary sources to synthesize information and draw conclusions about the role of the U.S. Navy in foreign policy and to understand how people in 1941 reacted to the tragic bombing of Pearl Harbor. These lesson plans are geared towards upper middle and high school students. You may download and reproduce everything available. We encourage you to use these lesson plans as pre-museum visit materials."

     

    Pete's PowerPoint Station ("FREE Presentations in PowerPoint format & Free Interactive Activities for Kids") looks like a little homemade site for kids but it's HUGE inside! This site is set up with a model railroad theme. Pete's Presentations (Themes and Topics is the page title) lists 838 (yes, eight hundred thirty-eight) education topics, from ABC's to Zoo! Each Topic has links to that subject area, sometimes dozens of links. Not only PowerPoints (lots of them) but games and links to "good sites." Greta's Games has mostly academic games organized by subject. Often a dozen or more links per subject. Hannah's Homework Help Station has PowerPoints about doing research, and links to various research sites. You could spend a week looking in here! Anything you need for K-8, and some for higher schooling as well.

     

    Flag of IndiaPitara Kids Network Zillions of things for kids to do! This wonderful monster of a site is very similar to the old Yahooligans! Play logic and word games, take quizzes, do crafts, use the reference section, read folktales, poems, and stories, investigate science, do fun mathematics! There is a special section for the very young, too. Some sections are in Hindi, for Hindi-speaking NRI kids who want to remain bilingual. There's something in here for everybody - students, parents, teachers, homeschoolers.

     

    Plagiarism - The Ultimate Plagiarism Resource "While the Web may have made plagiarism as easy as a few simple clicks, it's also made detecting plagiarism just as easy. If a student can find the essay in seconds, so can you—if you know where to look. This comprehensive resource will tell you everything you need to know about plagiarism, from the basic facts to free detection tools to preventing it in both the physical and online classroom." Thanks to Nathan Grimm, Program Manager at SR Education Group in Kirkland, WA for his email re: their fine site.

     

    Plagiarism Checker "Cut & paste your students paper or homework assignment into the box and click the "check" button. This free plagiarism detector will find plagiarized text in homework and other essays/reports."

     

    Preschool Halloween Songs and Music from Everything Preschool. "Our Preschool Halloween Songs and Music contains the most complete Early Childhood Education Halloween Songs and Music Ideas on the internet." Has lyrics for twelve Halloween songs. This site also has Halloween crafts, games, preschool science (counting and crafts), five printable coloring pages, lots of well organized recipes for gross Halloween stuff, and bulletin board activities. Everything Preschool also has lesson plans and themes for teacher's use. "Our site contains Over 30,000 Preschool Education Activities Seperated into over 100 Themes, 26 Alphabet Areas, & Lesson Plans."

     

    Prewriting about "The Hunger Games" "Prewriting strategies help generate new ideas or help us better understand the ideas we already have. This lesson will introduce students to methods of prewriting to help them brainstorm for a paper about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, yet this lesson could also work with any other text." Thanks to Joshua Ray, who posted this lesson plan on Curriki!

     

    Printable Fact Triangles from HelpingWithMath. "Fact Triangles are similar in some ways to flashcards although they are a better way of showing and practicing fact families. Fact Families are sets of three numbers that can be divided or multiplied together and they help develop the understanding of the relationship between multiplication and division." Kids often wrestle with the concept of fact families. This printable sheet can help.

     

    Project FLOW (Fisheries Learning on the Web) This is a series of three units about the Great Lakes of North America, from the University of Michigan: Food Web (Unit 1), Water (Unit 2), and Fish (Unit 3). The URL goes to Unit 1. Each unit has five lesson plans, and we mean BIG lesson plans. Everything teachers need to do each lesson is prepackaged and downloadable, even worksheets and graphics. We're talking Activity, Subject, Duration, Key Terms, Objectives, Material needed, Preparations, Procedure, etc. This was a huge effort and a lot of pdf files for the people who put this together.

     

    Project Gutenberg "Free eBooks from Project Gutenberg, the first producer of free ebooks. Project Gutenberg offers over 40,000 free ebooks: choose among free epub books, free kindle books, download them or read them online. We carry high quality ebooks: All our ebooks were previously published by bona fide publishers. We digitized and diligently proofread them with the help of thousands of volunteers. Project Gutenberg offers 40,000 free ebooks to download." The original is still the greatest! We like to just browse by Author or Title. Now they have self-publishing to the cloud! "From Project Gutenberg, the first producer of free eBooks, now comes the free Authors Community Cloud Library, a social network Self-Publishing Portal. This Portal allows authors to share their works with readers as well as allows readers to provide comments, reviews and feedback to the authors. Every eBook has its own Details Page, Star Ratings, and Reader Comment area." Simply stunning. It's free, go get it!

     

     

    Questions for Science Exploration

    From a handout from the Exploratorium Institute for Inquiry, written by teacher Marilyn Austin. These questions are intended for teachers to pose as they interact with students engaged in inquiry processes.

  • 1. What does this make you think of?
  • 2. In what ways are these different?
  • 3. In what ways are these the same?
  • 4. What materials did you use?
  • 5. What would happen if you ...
  • 6. What might you try instead?
  • 7. Tell me about your ...?
  • 8. What does it look like?
  • 9. What does it remind you of?
  • 10. What does it feel like?
  • 11. What can you do next time?
  • 12. What can you tell me about it?
  • 13. Tell me what happened.
  • 14. What could you do instead?
  • 15. Which one do you have more of?
  • 16. Is one object longer/shorter than another?
  • 17. What do you call the things you are using?
  • 18. What can you tell me about the things you have?
  • 19. Tell me what it looks like.
  • 20. How are you going to do that?
  • 21. What do you feel, see, hear, taste, smell?
  • 22. How did you do that?
  • 23. What will you do next after you finish that?
  • 24. Is there anything else you could do/use?
  • 25. How do you know?
  • 26. What are some different things you could try?
  • 27. What is it made of?
  • 28. Show me what you could do with it?
  •  

    Quick Key Turns Your iPhone Into a Scanner "Quick Key is a new and free iOS app that turns your iPhone into a bubble sheet scanner... After your students have completed the bubble sheet you simply scan the sheets with your iPhone and the grading is done for you. From the app you can send grades to the classes that you have created on the Quick Key website. If you enter students’ email addresses in your class rosters on Quick Key, you can have grades emailed to students."

     

    Quizlet "The world learns on Quizlet. We make simple tools that let you study anything, for free." You can study anything, alone or in groups! Teachers and students can look for existing quizzes that meet their needs, or they can make their own quizzes and add them to Quizlet's library. This section explains it all. Take a quiz, review subjects, spell the vocabulary words, play various games to test knowledge! Works on computers AND on mobile, iOS and Android both! "#7 app in the free Education category of the app store." There's a teachers section, too. You can create accounts (free) and keep quizzes there!

     

    Quizzes.cc - Online Quizzes, Tests, Trivia, Worksheets, and Free Games "... provides math quizzes for teachers and students. You can create a quiz and select the range of numbers you'd like to use. Students can grade the quiz online and generate new problems for more practice." Quizzes for all four elementary operations, plus times table quizzes and a nice metric conversion chart. There are also children's literature, science, and geography quizzes. Secondary students can practice metric conversions, some middle school science, and world geography. Thanks to John @ Quizzes.cc for the email!

    RESCu "The RESCu.Rice.edu site contains numerous inquiry based lesson plans for K-5 teachers. The learning experiences are based on the 5E guided inquiry model and provide background and detailed instructions for teachers or parents. Subject areas include Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Earth/Space Sciences.

    Here’s a summary of some of the content:

  • Activities: Experiment/Lab, Graphic Organizer/Worksheet, Problem Set
  • Assets: Animation/Simulation, Photograph, Reference, Table/Graph/Chart, Video/Presentation/Slides
  • Book: Readings/Excerpts
  • Curriculum: Answer Key, Assessment/Test, Lesson Plan, Tutorial, Unit"
  • RESCu was mentioned on Curriki.

     

     

    ozflag.gifPinterest-button.png Reaching Teachers is the Pinterest part of an excellent Australian teachers' site of the same name. With a collection of 50 teacher-centric boards* and 1300 pins (Feb 2015), this is a board to watch. Millions of teachers mean fractal growth of information! (*OK, so there are a few recipe sites in there. What's not to like?)

     

     

    Reading Rockets "is a national multimedia literacy initiative offering information and resources on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help. We bring the best research-based strategies to anyone helping a young child become a strong, confident reader. The project includes

  • PBS television programs (also available online and on DVD);
  • online services (ReadingRockets.org and ColorinColorado.org);
  • professional development opportunities;
  • and a robust social community on Twitter, Facebook,
  • Pinterest, and Tumblr." (edited by us)

    There are big sections on:

  • teaching reading (lots of tips & ideas),
  • helping strugglers (ditto),
  • an A-Z list of topics ("a rich library of classroom strategies" 44 topics!),
  • children's books and authors (including booklists and how to choose books),
  • fun things to order, and more.
  • Resources For Parents "is providing free online parenting tips on kids education and activity resources information for Kindergarten to high school parents who dedicated to improve the education of today's new generation. We feature all USA K-12 state's standard testing information, samples and worksheets for kids, free printable worksheets, education news, parenting tips, online kids coupons and thousands of other great resources for parents."

     

    Room 108  "Room 108 is a primary education site for kids. There are lots of free online games but all with an educational focus. There are over 400 pages of kids' educational games, interactive writing, animated stories, songs, kids puzzles, art, math, science, social studies, distance learning and much more. A great resource for primary kids games and teacher teaching resources!" Impressive.

     

    SCORE History/Social Science "Over 5000 websites aligned to California's History/Social Science Curriculum." Explore Resources and Lessons by Standard, Grade Level Topic, or Keyword. Explore Children's Literature lesson plans/thematic units by Grades K-5 and 6-8. Help for Teachers includes - help! Also useful links such as the California Learning Resource Network ("A Guide to Standards-Aligned Electronic Learning Resources and Assessments for Teachers, Administrators, and Parents"), a whole section on Technology and Social Science - with its own lesson plans and ideas, lots more!

     

    St. Patrick's Day Craft Party! Step by step with photos Making crafts for the holiday followed by a treasure hunt around the house and yard to find clue cards. Easy to adapt to a classroom.

     

    Safe Food Handling Here's "... a complete resource on Safe Food Handling. This resource contains statistics and links to the best sources on the subject, and is monitored regularly for obsolete links." An institutional chef was kind enough to check this page over, and she said it's good legit info, the same rules she uses. There are more facts, tips, and stats here than we could enumerate in less than a page! A wonderful resource, emailed to GSFK by Alexis Claro for Katom.com. Thanks!

     

    Sampler of Mathematics for gr9-10/ 14-16yr From Curriki! "The curriculum resources contained in this folder represent a selection of high-quality materials from the Curriki repository for grades 9-10/ages 14-16 in Mathematics." There are some interactive online actitivities in here in zip file form for you to unzip; also some .pdf lesson plans and online lesson plans.

     

    DownloadsScavenger Hunts for Kids "Free, printable treasure hunts, scavenger hunts, and fun games for children." These are in Word format (.doc), not pdf. The ones we looked at were nice printable sheets with instructions. These are all downloads, nothing interactive or online.

     

    Scaffolding Literacy A Practical Demonstration A good PowerPoint on scaffolding. This oldie from the Armidale School in NSW, Australia, and the University of Canberra gets into this concept and has some good information. It downloads easily and is worth your time.

     

    Flag of New ZealandScience Kids Fun - Science and Technology for Kids! This immense site has dozens of videos, hundreds of facts, 30 sections of science topics, elementary school experiments, lesson ideas, lesson plans, games, quizzes, projects, and a huge picture library! From New Zealand, which has a lot of "good sites."

     

    DownloadsScratch cat logoScratch is a free programming language primarily for 8 to 16 year olds. It has an online community where kids can program and share interactive media such as stories, games, and animation with others from all over the world. As children create with Scratch, they learn to think creatively, work collaboratively, and reason systematically. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge. Find out more by clicking on the cat!

     

    ScratchEd logoScratchEd What is ScratchEd? ScratchEd is an online community where Scratch educators share stories, exchange resources, ask questions, and find people. Since its launch, more than 7500 educators from all around the world have joined the community, sharing hundreds of resources and engaging in thousands of discussions. Join the ScratchEd community for free at scratch-ed.org.

     

    Downloads Sebran's ABC - Free Software For Kids "It's never too early for your child to become familiar with letters and numbers. Sebran's ABC's colorful pictures, pleasant music, and gentle games teach letters, numbers, simple math, and rudiments of reading." Free to you under GNU license. Reviews are posted on the site. We've "field tested" Sebran with 5 - 10 year olds. The games are good, they work. Kids like them, too. Thank you to Marianne Wartoft of Uppsala, Sweden, who wrote this fine software! You can fine various good places to download Sebran, just Google Sebran.

     

    The Seed Site for Teachers and The Seed Site for Kids are parts of a larger site called (wait for it) The Seed Site. "A website devoted entirely to seeds!", a vast site from the UK with tons of information about seeds and thousands of photos. The teacher section has lots of overhead-friendly pix of flower parts, seed parts, dispersal, germination, kinds of plants, profiles of 200 plants, and info about using copyrighted images. The kid section has kid-friendly sections about starting out, planting, germination, seed saving, and a plant database. We thank the people at The Seed Site for their email!

     

    Sesame Street Still helping little ones, since the 1960s. Their site has oodles of activities about letters, numbers, coloring, music, eating healthy, and much more. Let kids click and explore! Some activities require Java or Flash. Others may be slow on Firefox.

     

    Shedd Educational Adventures (SEA) from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Lesson Plans, Interactives, and the Explorer's Guide! Interactives are the online learning games, indexed by grade level. We tried Build a Fish and it was fun!

     

    Sid Lapidus '59 Collection on Liberty and the American Revolution from the Princeton University Digital Library. (High school AP and college-level, mostly.) Over 150 original documents from the Revolutionary and Early Republic eras, that you can read online! Thomas Paine is in here among many others. Great for secondary history teachers, research, and for the truly scholarly, the joy of reading from the primary source!

     

    Signing Savvy THE place to go for ASL! "Signing Savvy is a sign language dictionary containing several thousand high resolution videos of American Sign Language (ASL) signs, fingerspelled words, and other common signs used within the United States and Canada." Watching a video of the signing is way better than looking at a picture with confusing curving arrows. This site will help you learn ASL! Includes search for words and phrases; or browse by letter. Look up fingerspelling, numbers, colors, animals, geography, baby signs, more! Free but limited access for guests. Full membership gives unlimited access to all site resources for $50 a year. Normally Good Sites would not run pay sites, but if you need to learn to sign this is worth it. Thanks Corey and Teri.

     

    Six myths about vaccination – and why they’re wrong Australian article demolishes six urban rumours about vaccination. This article's six talking points are worth remembering, if you ever need them counter the hysteria.

     

    Sites for Teachers "Hundreds of educational web sites rated by popularity." This is a useful site for educators.

     

     

    Smart Girls logoSmart Girls at the Party "My name is Kara and I work for the webseries 'Smart Girls at the Party' with Amy Poehler. We have an amazing new series that showcases awesome girls from all around the globe and we think it would be a perfect fit for your website." It is! It's called Girls of the World, and you really ought to go there and watch some of these videos!

    But wait, there's more! "The Smart Girls Channel is a place for funny, thoughtful and deceivingly educational programming. The channel celebrates girls, friendships and spontaneous dance parties! Look for new episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with Amy Poehler." This webseries consists of:

  • Smart Girls,
  • Girls of the World,
  • Meow Meow Music (don't ask - it's FUNNY and cool),
  • Ask Amy (advice),
  • and Boy's Minute (goofy, for boys).
  • Plenty of videos in each section. Wish we had heard of this sooner, it is great. Thank you, Kara, for sending that email. Keep the emails coming, folks! There's plenty of good sites out there and we're mere mortals.

     

    Social Skills for Elementary Students Laura Candler's advice on teaching social skills to elementary kids basically walks you through the steps of teaching these skills. Well worth trying.

     

    Social Skills for Middle School Students Yes, the site you have dreamed about really exists! With four main sections and several sub-sections, this site offers lesson plans, activities, role playing, whatever it takes to instill social skills through practice! We did up a set of questions to go with American Table Manners and had middle-schoolers engaged!  A useful site.

     

    Socratic Method: Teaching by Asking Instead of by Telling One educator's experience using the Socratic Method with his 3rd grade class. Interesting and a good read.

     

    SoftSchools.com  Another excellent big site full of online games and printable worksheets for all grades and all subjects, with plenty of lesson plans! If you register you can create your own quizzes, word searches, matching games, and worksheets. This seems to be the coming thing with these sorts of sites. "SoftSchools.com provides free math worksheets, free math games, grammar quizzes and free phonics worksheets and games. Worksheets and games are organized by grades and topics. These printable math and phonics worksheets are auto generated."

     

    Spinning gold starSongs for Teaching  "The Definitive Source for Educational Music" Based on what we've seen of this site it is THE SOURCE for classroom music!  " Creative teachers can use music to teach content across the curriculum -- to students of all ages. A host of educational experts brings you tested ideas for using the magic of music in your lesson plans. This site contains thousands of pages for you to peruse -- many with lyrics, sound clips, and teaching suggestions. The top educational pros offer practical suggestions based on the latest in brain-based learning. Innovative teachers share their classroom pointers and extension activities using children's music. Songs from a wide variety of popular artists are presented by academic subject. See the categories below to find educational music and children's songs that complement your lesson plans."

     

    Spelling it Right - Learn How to Spell Confidently. (URL fixed) "Free printable worksheets, help and advice from an experienced English teacher and examiner. This site is for: parents who are concerned about their children's spelling and are keen to help them improve; adults who find spelling difficult and want to learn to spell correctly; teachers who need some online printable spelling worksheets to supplement their own materials; and includes: advice about how to deal with problems and become a better speller; a collection of free printable worksheets, each comprising a complete lesson designed to test and teach spelling skills; games, puzzles and quizzes to help encourage an interest in spelling." OK, so Americans will have to drop a "u" once in a while; this is an excellent site that does what it says. Great syllable and consonant blend practice(!) and some good advice on teaching spelling. We want to thank Roger Smith for his site!

     

    Spiders! This is a nice spider unit for lower elementary kids, with lesson plans ready to go.

     

    starfall.com logoStarFall A neat, phonics-intensive site for pre-k through second grade. Stories, movies, and games! Progressive levels let kids read or be read to. Every time we go to this site with K-2 kids, we find something new and great! This site WILL keep those busy little brains going for a whole computer lab session! Thanks, Tia.


    New Site

    Spark STEM  Innovation
    ABOUT THE eCYBERMISSION COMPETITION:
    To enter, students will form teams of three or four
    to create a STEM solution that explores a community
    issue that they are passionate about improving.
    Check out the teacher resource sheet—and a fact
    sheet to share with your students—for all the details.
    Register your team by 1/6/2021


    DownloadZombie plague STEMware: Zombie Plague from the Partnership for Biotechnolgy and Genomics Education, University of California - Davis. " In STEMware: Zombie Plague, students explore a 3D world where they are responsible for identifying the pathogenic microorganism causing a deadly outbreak and implementing a cure... the science content embedded in the software deals with diagnosis, treatment strategies, and career connections that are applicable to any disease caused by viruses, bacteria or fungi. Interactions with characters in-game, introduce students to the variety of career pathways in modern biology along with diagnostic technologies used in the real world. Embedded assessments allow teachers to track student interactions." Kind of a mix between a James Patterson game and Edheads. Download the game here, or use the Curriki link above. It's a 305mb .zip file, so we suggest you save the file on a flash drive for installs on more machines.

     

     

    Stepducks "Sometimes you just need to talk to someone!" This is a site full of resources for step-families. It has practical advice, links to other support sites, activities and references for: Stepfamily Support, Family and Parenting, Marriage Support, Divorce Support, Single Parents, etc. Meet the Stepducks has some typical stepkid characters, what they are like, how they act. "You'll Swear You Know These Kids!!" Good luck, stepfamilies. You are not alone, we are not alone.

     

    Stop Bullying Now!"Welcome to the Stop Bullying Now! Campaign. You can learn all about bullying and what you can do to stop it. Take a look around and you’ll find games and cartoon Webisodes that help you Take a Stand. Lend a Hand. Stop Bullying Now!" Great material with sections for kids and adults

     

    Student Resources and Teacher Resources from the Library of North Bennington Graded School in Vermont. Two great webpages at one place! Plenty of worthwhile sites to check out.

     

    COOL!Students' Homepage and Student Resources Online from School District 91 - Nechako Lakes, British Columbia, Canada. This is without a doubt the largest and greatest collection of educational links on the web. It is amazing what's on here! Like a fractal it goes on and out and out, but you will never get lost. We LOVE this site layout! There are things here for every elementary school subject: ABCs, technology, lit circles, anything we looked for, it's here, both well-known good sites and new discoveries! Go there and see what we mean! We want to praise Mrs. Jill French, who created this wonder and keeps it organized (and thanks for your kind permission to list it here

     

    Study Guides and Strategies (Tons of them!) We wish we could copy some quotes about these guys so we needn't try to describe this site - there is just SO MUCH going on! How to study, how to listen, how to meet challenges, managing time, how to learn (!), how to think, memorize, manage projects, how to write well, vocabulary, how to take a test, math science, etc! This site has it all! You really must look at it!

     

    Sumdog "Free Games to Make Math Fun" Suddenly very popular in local schools, our kids want to play it all the time! Log in or play as guest, "Everything on Sumdog is free except for progress reports.". Areas for kids and for their teachers. Kids start out training and progress through different levels via games. Games cover +, -, *, \. Teachers can can 1 - create a free account, then 2- Set up your school, 3- Create & print student logins, 4 - Students log in and play, 5 - Take part in local contests, 6 - Create a student activity. Pricing: "A class subscription covering 30 students costs $60 per year." They also have school discounts and district subscriptions.

     

    Sun Safety Alliance is dedicated to reducing the incidence of skin cancer in America. The site has tons of information, tips, and activities for different ages of kids preschool - 18. It says "in America" but skin cancer is universal, so this site is for the world. "You may not be interested in skin cancer, but skin cancer is interested in you."

     


     

    Australian flagSunSmart Who in the world has more trouble with skin cancer and more experience dealing with it than Australians? "Australia has the highest incidence of melanoma in the world for both males and females. Two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the age of 70." This site from Victoria covers skin cancer, Vitamin D, UV and sun protection, and more. "Slip, slop, slap, seek, slide!" Find out what that means. Watch the videos! Check the Sunscreen Calculator. Find out more from the pages below:

    http://www.sunsmart.com.au/skin-cancer - with video - listen to his story

    http://www.sunsmart.com.au/uv-sun-protection - with video - watch and listen!

    http://www.sunsmart.com.au/suncreen-calculator/tool.asp

    http://www.sunsmart.com.au/vitamin-d Balance your need for Vitamin D from the sun with your need to avoid cancer (from the sun).

    Australians are quite serious about the sun and cancer. There are other excellent and well-done Australian sites about sun safety. Here are some of them:

    http://www.cancer.org.au/preventing-cancer/sun-protection/ - national organization

    http://www.sunsafety.qld.gov.au/ from Queensland

    http://www.bom.gov.au/uv/ Federal Dept. of Meterology, includes UV forecasts for each area of the continent, a UV index chart, and the 5 S's. Also includes more things than you can imagine about the weather.

    http://www.cancersa.org.au/cut-my-risk/sun-protection-for-secondary-schools from South Australia

    http://www.cancercouncil.com.au/reduce-risks/sun-protection/ from New South Wales

    http://sunprotection.com.au/ This company offers essential, tailor-made sun protection clothing.

    We all owe the Australians a vote of thanks for these.


     

    SuperKids Educational Software Reviews is what is says. Good for checking on software.

     

    Symmetry and Tessellations Activity Links put together by Jill Britton is 30 pages of very useful and interesting activities and lesson plans on these subjects. Amazing art in here, too! 30 pages!

     

    Syvia's Show logoSylvia's Super Awesome Maker Show! "Sylvia's DIY webshow on everything cool and worth Making." At GSFK we are fond of Do It Yourself and we'll always post a good DIY for kids site, like this one. Young Miss Sylvia hosts an online show that, among other things, has (as of November 2012) 19 great DIY crafty videos. Good instructions, good kid humor, and the whole family helps out. Sweet and awesome at the same time.

     

     

     

    Talented and Gifted (new url) - The Best Resources for Parents & Educators. Provided by the Madison, Wisconsin school district. List of links for parents and teachers of TAG students. Many school systems in America are neglecting their best and brightest students, so these links may be of some help.

     

    Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies from The Fallacy Files. This page shows the relationships between logical fallacy types in a taxonomy chart! Fallacies are arranged under formal and informal, the groups and subgroups are here. Great learning aid for forensics students and people who are interested in logic.

     

    Teach, Learn, Repeat "Create Free Quizzes & Exams Online. Nothing to download. Create a quiz right from your browser...Anything you create can be freely shared, or can be reserved for personal learning, or corporate asssessment and certification. TLR Members create their own content, but have the ability to leverage shared content by peers or groups." This concept has definite possibilities. It's another fine site brought to our attention via email. Thanks to Mr. Dan McAvinchey.

     

    Teach Math with Legos! Also known as "An Incredibly Effective Way To Develop Your Child’s Math Skills With LEGO Blocks", as shown in DYT. "School teacher Alycia Zimmerman regularly uses Lego to help develop basic math skills among her pupils.
    Lego blocks, she finds, offer a great opportunity to explain fundamental math concepts and calculations in a way which is immediately understandable for young minds."

    "So for those who can’t find the right words or who find they haven’t got the patience to help with their kid’s math homework, here are a few examples which Alycia uses. Each and everyone of them is incredibly simple, but seriously effective."

    Examples shown in the article include: Parts vs. whole; Fractions; Square numbers; and Exploring mean, median, mode, and range.

     

    Teach Ocean ScienceTeach Ocean Science Amazing, stupendous, colossal. This site features teacher resources (lesson plans) in three sections. (1) Ocean science curriculum "Teach an entire ocean science course or incorporate ocean concepts into your science classroom using this database of scientist and teacher-approved lesson plans." (2) Using the ocean to teach STEM has five interdisciplinary STEM activities ready to go as pdf files. (3) Modules - ten modules and a glossary covering various animal, vegetable, and mineral aspects of the sea. "Brush up on your ocean science content knowledge or find lesson plans to teach about the coastal ocean using these graphic interactive modules compiled by teams of scientists, teachers, and students."

     

    Teach the Children Well "is a collection of links to sites carefully selected by a teacher for students as well as their parents and teachers. The site was designed for elementary grades but many of the sites will also be of interest to older students. Elaine M. Doolittle, M.Ed." There are big lists of sites on all sorts of topics. A necessary site for your bookmarks. Interesting site layout, too.

     

    Teacher Helpers:K-12 Lessons and Activities from the Mineral Information Institute. Free lesson plans! There are five Thematic Packets: "Each packet contains a variety of K-12 teacher guides, student pages, background material, maps, coloring pages, word searches and additional activities related to that topic." ; 36 Individual Lessons: "...lessons that can be done in a day and 10 "Dig a Little Deeper" activities is available for free download here."; 19 Classroom Demonstration Activities: "A list of 19 step-by-step illustrated activities (free to download) provide hands-on learning for students are available on this page."; Mining 101: "A series of lessons features key concepts of modern mining for students to learn that almost everything we need to maintain our lifestyle is dependent upon rocks and minerals is available for free download." which is available as a ready-to-use PowerPoint or a .pdf file. There's lots more but this description is getting too long.

     

    TeachThought is a site for teachers and teaching. It tries to bring the best in new ideas and innovations, as well as practical classroom advice. Examples of article titles: 10 Dos & Don’ts For Teaching Vocabulary In Any Content Area, 3 Ways To Not Screw Up The Curriculum Mapping Process, 9 Lesser-Known Common Core Resources For Teachers, and 41 Apps One 4th Grade Teacher Depends On.

     

    Teachers Pay Teachers "An open marketplace for educators where teachers buy, sell and share original teaching resources. TpT's mission is to empower teachers by bringing together those who create curricula with those who are seeking fresh new approaches in the classroom. Teachers work hard and deserve extra compensation for all those hours spent lesson planning. Newer teachers and those looking for ideas can save time and leap ahead in competency by learning from veterans. We strongly believe that the ensuing exchange lifts all boats and leads to the better sharing of best practices." This is HUGE! We urge you to stroll around the site until you feel at home. Teachers worldwide post here. Some of it's free, some of it's fee, and it's all good! Start a blog, share your stuff, make money.

     

    Teacher’s resignation letter: ‘My profession … no longer exists’ The poignant (and pointed) letter of a veteran high school teacher, as posted in The Washington Post "Answer Sheet" blog. This is well thought out and makes some valid points. That being said, there are some who will disagree. Not what we usually post but it hits close to home.

     

    Teaching Channel Over 33,000 videos of effective teaching from nearly 50,000 teachers, all aligned to Common Core Standards! Free, but they would like you to register. "Teaching Channel is a video showcase -- on the Internet and TV -- of innovative and effective teaching practices in America's schools. We are a non-profit Organization." K-12, all subjects (including the arts), classroom management - behavior, culture, engagement, assessment, and more! Videos generally range from 1 to 6 minutes.

     

    Teaching Children About Money has suggestions for teaching this subject, as well as a list of online resources and lesson plans.

     

    Divergent cover #2Teaching Divergent: YA Lit Ideas and Research Projects A high school English unit by K. Ashley Dickson-Ellison, who "is a high school English teacher interested in exploring the integration of trending young adult literature into the English classroom experience." This blog page is from an experienced high school English teacher who taught a Divergent unit to 9th grade English students (14 y.o.). This page is a breakdown of how she did it, with examples. Great discussion here. To find out about obtaining the materials for this unit, contact her using the button at the top right corner of her site, or here. "Above all else, I judge teen lit by how much excitement it generates in my students."

     

    Teaching Evolution: Understanding Evolution for Teachers. "Explore the ultimate evolution resource for K-16 teachers, including lesson plans, conceptual framework, and more." Remember to explain the Scientific Method and to make sure your kids are familiar with it, before you start.

     

    Union Jack Teaching Ideas for Primary Teachers Wow! "Teaching Ideas for Primary Teachers" is a big site that has lots of written out activities, lesson plans, worksheets, pdf files, etc, for the elementary curriculum. It's broken down by subject. There is great "stuff" in here. We were all impresssed by their easy prime numbers activity. Better yet, you can rate activities and leave comments - very nice for busy teachers!

     

    Teaching Older Children and Youth About Trees from the Arbor Day Foundation. Online Games & Activities in the left column, Downloads & plans for Parents & Educators in the right column. Not the same as their Youth Education site, all their online games for older kids are in one place - here.

     

    Teaching With Documents: Lesson Plans from the National Archives (U.S.). "This section contains reproducible copies of primary documents from the holdings of the National Archives of the United States, teaching activities correlated to the National History Standards and National Standards for Civics and Government, and cross-curricular connections. Teaching with primary documents encourages a varied learning environment for teachers and students alike. Lectures, demonstrations, analysis of documents, independent research, and group work become a gateway for research with historical records in ways that sharpen students' skills and enthusiasm for history, social studies, and the humanities." There are plenty of .pdf reproducible worksheets, too. Lessons are in eight sections, spanning a period from 1754 to the present day. There are also State & Regional Education Resources for many (not all) states.

     

    Teaching Writing from the National Writing Project Hundreds of resources for writing teachers, grouped into over 30 different areas, from A - W (Audience through Writing Prompts)! A clearinghouse and starting point for teachers who are looking for resources.

     

    Union JackTeaching Your Child Here is a site that's useful to parents and daycare providers looking for advice about helping a child to learn. " 'Teaching Your Child' provides advice and support for parents and carers on how to develop their child's learning. A range of activity ideas are suggested to enhance your child's reading, writing and number skills. The site also provides information on behaviour management strategies, the importance of social skills and healthy lifestyle choices... One of the most valuable things parents and carers can provide for a child is a supportive and stimulating environment. Whether you have a few minutes a day or a full weekend, there are a range of activities for you to do together with your child. All activities are designed to be beneficial and fun, whilst providing parents and carers with suggestions on how to ensure their child progresses well during their early years of education. " Covers a whole range of early learning. Some good ideas in here!

     

    teAchnology Ok, here's a site boasting 30,000+ free lesson plans (indexed various ways), 8,000 or so free printable worksheets, 275,000 reviewed sites indexed by professional interest, holidays by month, etc., etc. Wow. You need to take the time to look this place over. If you can use a hundredth of this free stuff, you'll be ahead. Thanks, "Opsmart Matti".

     

    Technology and Social Science from SCORE History/Social Science is a whole section on technology integrated into Social Science - with its own lesson plans and ideas for teachers!

     

    That Quiz Click this link now!! Scalable, customizable quizzes in all levels of K-12 mathematics. Geography, languages, cell structure, elements, periodic tables, anatomy, conversions. Their righteous pitch: "What is ThatQuiz?

  • A free service for teachers who want to replace paper tests with online testing.
  • An online grade book providing fast analysis of class and individual student progress.
  • An exchange for teachers to share the resources they create.
  • A skills site for students, especially useful for math practice and testing.
  • Registration is free and teachers who register receive complete record-keeping of student grades. They have access to more precise test-generation tools, can create single tests with questions from different categories, can create matching and multiple choice questions, and can access a public test library. There is no reason for students to register, since the additional features are only useful for teachers."

     

    The new face of underage drinking: teenage girls. Grim statistic: the majority of teenage drinkers are girls. Short but fact-filled article bluntly explains this.

     

    This 15-Year-Old Kid May Have Just Saved Your Life is the name of an article on Crooks & Liars * about Jack Andraka, who has invented a new test for pancreatic cancer that is "168 times faster, over 26,000 times less expensive and over 400 times more sensitive. And what I found is that my sensor in a blind study it actually had a 100% correct diagnosis, in diagnosing pancreatic cancer and could diagnose the cancer before it actually became invasive." We hope this example inspires many other young people to believe in themselves, and to do some creative tinkering for the benefit of all of us. Comes with a video. (*The name of the e-zine does not reflect on the veracity of the article.)
    Addendum:
    "Jack Andraka has created a pancreatic cancer test that is 168 times faster and considerably cheaper than the gold standard in the field. He has applied for a patent for his test and is now carrying out further research at Johns Hopkins University in the US city of Baltimore.
    And he did it by using Google.
    The Maryland native, who won $75,000 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his creation, cites search engines and free online science papers as the tools that allowed him to create the test." (credit: insideofiran.org) One observes that we are just barely beginning to grasp the potential of the Internet. The kids will be the fastest to exploit it.

     

    You Don't Know Jack A video by Morgan Spurlock. This is a 3:34 Vimeo video about Jack Andraka, who we posted about earlier this year. "Jack Andraka, a high school sophomore, has developed a revolutionary new test for pancreatic cancer." The video covers his struggles to find lab space, 199 rejection letters, a non-supportive family. The scientific establishment did't want to hear new ideas from an 8th grade. With the help of a good teacher, Jack persisted, and finally got lab space. The rest is, and will continue be, history. Give the kids a chance!


    TimeMaps The TimeMap of World History. Interactive! "Explore world history with this FREE, award winning World History Atlas. The TimeMap of World History is an all inclusive look at world history. It combines maps, timelines and chronological narratives that work together to enhance historical understanding. New content added daily." History of the world from 4500BC to 2005AD, coverers all continents. You can click on icons for detailed information about any region, any culture. Special section for teachers! Free, detailed history lesson plans as well as well as neat Topic TimeMaps (units) for sale. A lot of effort went into this site!

     

    Touchstone Energy Kids Zone "a cool place where you can learn about electricity, energy savings and electrical safety. Energy is part of our daily lives. Every time you watch television or turn on a light you are using electricity. Here at the Touchstone Energy Kids Zone we have some fun games and activities that will help you learn about energy and energy efficiency. We have lots of information you can share with your family and friends." Pretty good site, with easy explanation of electricity transmission, how to save electricity, games and activities for kids, and a Teacher Zone.

     

    Turtle Diary is very similar to Cookie in site layout, content and mission - it has games, read-alouds, ESL activities, mathematics, science, art, puzzles, printables, arts and crafts. Designed for pre-K through 2nd grade, ages 5 - 7. Great site!

     

    Twisty Noodle "Twisty Noodle has thousands of coloring pages and worksheets for kids. You can customize your coloring page or worksheet by changing the font and text. Change the font to block, D'Nealian, or cursive for great writing practice. " VERY useful site for teachers and homeschoolers.

     

    Undoing School from Fractal Enlightenment Using several videos and supporting text, this powerful essay puts forth the idea that schools are failing kids by trying to prepare them for the workforce instead of helping them to learn what want to learn, in a one-size-fits-all educational environment. It makes interesting reading, and the videos are quite good.

     

    Mauritius.gif UpToTen All the way from the island of Mauritius way out in the Indian Ocean comes this wonderful site for kids! Isn't the internet great? "UpToTen has been building prize-winning early-learning games and activities since 1999. Your child will love the reassuring, friendly world that our unique games inhabit. S/he will have enormous fun whilst building independence on the computer. UpToTen.com is completely independent. We do all the illustrations, animations, design, music and dialogues ourselves, and lovingly bring them together to make positively reinforcing games in a warm and welcoming play-area. UpToTen free, UpToTen Premium, UpToTen @ School …
    With over A THOUSAND educational games and activities for children aged up to ten years old! A safe place to play and learn where your child will feel right at home, right away."

     

     

    "This is a pretty long list but you will find Useful Websites" A humonguous list of sites that perform various actions to help teachers! Worth bookmarking!

     

     

    Using Live Insects in Elementary Classrooms for Early Lessons in Life. This site has 20 very complete lesson plans for grades K-3. Themes relate to real life, for example, safety. We found this site to be well thought out, and we used to teach "Bugology."

     

    vaccinate your baby Educational site for parents that explains why you need to vaccinate your babies, as well as older kids and adults. Explains why the anti-vaccination hysteria is a hoax. Links to scientific articles, when to vaccinate, history of vaccination, the Risks of Missing or Delaying Vaccines, and more.

     

    Vaccines Work, Here Are the Facts This is an infographic page, it's in comic strip form, it's readable and well-written. It covers all the facts about how vaccines work, the "arms race" between vaccines and viruses, and why there was a panic about autism (This was a hoax, a deliberate lie.) This strip gives the facts about the different lies that are spread by conspiracy theory anti-vaccination people. As you read down the page, you discover facts about anti-vaxers as well. The concept of "herd immunity" is well explained. The result of foolish people not vaccinating their children is a decrease in herd immunity, and therefore more "old-time" diseases are coming back! "Like diseases, fear and misinformation spread easily to those who aren't vaccinated against them." So read this page and "get vaccinated"!

     

    Vicki Blackwell This is a fine teacher internet and computer resources site from an educator and tech resource teacher in Louisiana. "The purpose of this website is to provide a resource for the teachers of Tangipahoa Parish School System and teachers all around the world, as they continue to incorporate the use of technology into the curriculum. You will find my favorite links in the "Blackwell's Best" section. "The Classroom" has links to staff development materials and technology integration activities as well as tutorials for some of my favorite software. The "Tech Tips" page includes hints to help you become a more efficient technology-using educator..." This is the kind of peer advisor site teachers need to help them with technology.

     

     

    Virtual Nerd from Pearson "Real math help. Over 1,500 video lessons covering Middle Grades Math through Algebra 2." Over 2,600, now. Also, Geometry has been added. All are organized by topic.

  • 407 tutorials in Middle School Math
  • 700 tutorials in Pre-Algebra
  • 714 tutorials in Algebra 1
  • 540 tutorials in Algebra 2
  • 270 tutorials in Geometry
  • 1384 in Common Core State Standards - Grade 1 through High School Statistics
  • 351 tutorials in SAT Math
  • 403 tutorials in ACT Math
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    Visual Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online  Why go to Google or Wikipedia for all your info? "The Visual Dictionary Online is an interactive dictionary with an innovative approach.  From the image to the word and its definition, the Visual Dictionary Online is an all-in-one reference. Search the themes to quickly locate words, or find the meaning of a word by viewing the image it represents. Explore the Visual Dictionary Online and enrich your mind. Perfect for home, school or work. Discover a visual world of information!"

     

    Vocabulary worksheet puzzle makers Free from LessonCorner. This site allows you to make your own crossword puzzles, word scramblers, and word search, or have the site make them for you in any of 20 subject areas! The site-made puzzles do not repeat, either. Nice! The menu is easy to use and you can move back and forth in the process. LessonCorner asked us to look at their free material, and we found it to be useful for teachers and homeschoolers.

     

    Waterford Games & Activities "Download hundreds of free games, activities, and quizzes from our website! Subject areas include animals, plants, weather, astronomy, geology, and miscellany... Simply copy materials to your desktop and print out as needed. It's that easy!"

     

    Webster's Online Dictionary  with Multilingual Thesaurus Translation "Earth's largest dictionary with 90 modern and 10 ancestral languages."

     

    Web English Teacher Project based learning K-12. Language arts only. Very many, perhaps hundreds, of lesson plans and related ideas for the entire language arts spectrum.

     

    Web Worksheet Wizard A site that lets you print out worksheets indexed by subject, or even make your own!

     

    Whatcom Community College Online Math Center Twenty-one links to free math courses, more links to resources, too. Algebra, calculus, fractals, more. Mostly this is for parents, teachers, and secondary students.

     

    Why Homeschool A blog we found. "Mission statement: On this blog we explore why homeschooling can be a better option for children and families than a traditional classroom setting. We'll also explore homeschooling issues in general, educational thoughts, family issues, and some other random stuff." There's some good reading and discussion points here, also we liked the style.

     

    thumbnail of posterWhy Your Child Can't Skip Their 20 Minutes of Reading Tonight Four downloadable graphics in .pdf form, you can buy them as posters. "A little infographic I designed for a teacher to send home with his/her primary students. Intended to be reproduced by teachers on non-professional equipment." Done up by a graphic artist/designer on Behance to showcase her talents and to help her teacher mom :) You can download a printable letter-sized .pdf version in English or Spanish, a student version (Why You Can't Skip...), and an up to 8th grade version.

     

     

     

    Wings for Kids "Here is a great website that provides free social & emotional development activities, lessons, and plans to help model, shape and reinforce social skills. Just scroll down the page, and you'll find the activities divided into categories. These would work well with your older students. Check them out…should be a good resource for you!"

     

    Wonderopolis - Where the Wonders Never Cease Over 700 answers to kids' questions about anything and everything from bacon and butterflies to LEDs and snakes to stretch limos to warthogs, wild horses and wolves! Not in any order, but they have a Search function. Each question has a video answer and a text discussion - adults may have to read it. This would be good on a Promethean or other projector.

     

    WriteSite An interactive language arts and journalism project for middle schools, developed by ThinkTVNetwork, Dayton, Ohio.

     

    Union JackWriting from Barnes Primary School in the UK, a ‘knowledge centre for the teaching of writing’. This page offers an outline of their writing program as taught to staff at other schools. "We use a model that offers a high level of scaffolding of the writing experience. " Four .doc files show how. Imitation and deconstruction (.doc title = Teaching writing – An overview of a teaching methodology) explains techniques such as "Hotseating", "Conscience Alley", and "Freeze framing" as preparatory activities for the Three-part Shared Writing M. It's all in the .doc. "As part of our approach we provide children with words to use in their writing. We refer to these sheets of words to use as word mats, and children have these available at the point of composition. Giving pupils words or phrases to start sentences with really helps them to get started. Different sentence starters are provided according to the style of writing that is being taught." Most common words in English – word mat , Sentence starters for Key Stage 1 , and Sentence starters for Key Stage 2 are the same .doc files that Barnes uses. Save them and use them as a starter for your program!

     

    Union JackWriting Resources from Fourfields Community Primary School, Cambridge, UK. There's a lot of good things on this resource page, for parents and teachers both. Writing Resources are halfway down in the left hand column. Some are .pdf, most are Word .doc files. There are teaching aids, sentence starters, parts of speech and punctuation help, and more. All are designed to teach and improve writing skills!

     

    The Year’s Best Art and Creativity Books for Kids from Tinkerlab. "Creative Experiments for Young Innovators... Tinkerlab supports parents and teachers who want to raise confident and creative thinkers, through child-directed and process-oriented projects. We’re so glad you’re here!" Click here to learn more. Oodles of projects in outdoors, art, science, sensory, upcycling, tinkertots, baby, toddler, and school-age. So when this site has a list of 12 top art and creativity books, it is worth reading. Teachers and parents, go read over this list, you'll be glad.

     

    Youth Topics: Bullying Another good and resource-filled anti-bullying and prevention site.

     

    Zooniverse "We make citizen science websites so that everyone can be part of real research online." Currently there are 25 active projects where volunteers can help online! "If you're new to the Zooniverse, we suggest picking a project and diving in - the same account will get you into all of our projects, and you can keep track of what you've contributed by watching 'My Zooniverse'." One of their projects is Calbug where volunteers transcribe field notes of insect researchers. Calbug is part of Notes from Nature, which in turn is part of Zooniverse. If transcribing field notes or soldier's diaries is not your thing, you can study the sea floor, look for stars, and many other things. Pick a project, do a short tutorial, and dive in!

     

    We're always eager to see more "sites!"

    Smiling puppy face Happy puppy face

    "Certain" Golden Retrievers were at that 4 to 6-month-old "brat stage" when they posed for these photos.

     

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