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Elementary School Literacy - Thinkport
Grades
1 to 6tag(s): literacy (110)
In the Classroom
Preview the video clips before recommending them to students or using in class, since the quality of video and audio varies significantly. None is designed for full screen projection, though some will project about half-screen. Share a partial video with the class or as a center to inspire children to read a book or allow them to watch videos after they have read books. (A Dark, Dark tale would be great for Halloween week). Remember to turn up speakers for group viewing or provide headphones at your center. If you are ready to try podcasting, use these dramatic readings as models for students to record some of their favorite selections as a podcast (and possibly illustrate with student artwork). Share this link with parents on your web page or in your newsletter to encourage reading at home. Most of the books will be in our school library, so students can follow along. School librarians should know about this site as well! ESL students and weaker readers always benefit from listening to different voices read the same story as they follow along.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Spelling Police: Literary Devices - Site Overseer
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): literary devices (13)
In the Classroom
This may work for teachers as a reference site or even as a quiz review for students. The best part is discovering (or rediscovering) the names for those devices that are used less often, but students often ask about. This list would also work as an addition to AP literary terms that many English teachers give their AP students. Consider having your students create an ongoing class glossary wiki of literary devices with examples from your own literature study during the year. Require them to contribute or give extra credit for their additions and any clever examples or illustrations they may add.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Way Back: Stand Up For Your Rights - WGBH for PBS
Grades
4 to 8tag(s): civil rights (198), women (138)
In the Classroom
Students will enjoy competition from the interactive games when presented on the whiteboard. This site is a great starting place for reports or in-class investigations on the featured civil rights leaders. Start a "What's Right is Rights" wiki for students to share their new knowledge and connect it to their study of the Constitution.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Free Reading - Wireless Generations and hundreds of teacher contributors
Grades
K to 1In the Classroom
Read the research section closely to make sure it aligns with your school system's reading program. Most of activities are conducive to small-group instruction. Entire site is user-friendly. Allow lots of exploration time.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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See 'N Spell - PrimaryGames.com
Grades
K to 2tag(s): vowels (6)
In the Classroom
This game would be a nice guided reading supplement to current language arts mini-lessons or as a review for previously taught skills. Make it a center in your classroom computer or cluster. Allow students who have mastered the skill to play the "My Words" game, creating their own words, with extra praise for those who compose longer or multi-syllable words.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Mama Lisa's World - Lisa Yannucci
Grades
K to 10tag(s): french (74), lyrics (15), nursery rhymes (9), rhymes (21), spanish (105)
In the Classroom
Be sure to turn up your speakers to use the audio portions. In primary grades: Use the rhymes for phonics and phonemic awareness activities as well as multicultural linguistic comparisons. Offer these songs, along with the corresponding song sheets as a listening center during guided reading. Teachers may find songs they forgot about long ago and would like to introduce them to the children with a personal anecdote or historical background as listed on the site.In World language classes: use the songs to teach basic vocabulary and culture. ask your students to find and learn a song, then perform it for the class. Or even record a podcast of Spanish or French songs!
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Lazy Readers' Book Club - Dr. Danny Brassell
Grades
2 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site to encourage reluctant readers to choose their own short books with subjects that interest them! For children who can't choose, encourage them to use the "Random Shuffle" feature. Share the link on your teacher web page for students and parents ot access from home. Start a "Lazy Readers" club in your own classroom, with students writing reviews you can post on a bulletin board or a reading wiki.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Neil Gaiman - Harper Collins
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): comics and cartoons (54), novels (31), short stories (18)
In the Classroom
Share this site with reluctant readers as a way to interest them in reading more stories and comics about kids like themselves. If you keep a list of author sites for independent reading and book reports, add this one to the list! Tag it "author."Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Jan Brett's Home Page - Jan Brett
Grades
K to 3In the Classroom
After you read one of Brett's books, have the children draw their own animals and write sentences about them. If you use a drawing program on the computer, you can put the drawings on PowerPoint slides and have students write sentences about them. Then combine the slides into a whole-class slide show (also printable as a BOOK they can sign out and take home to share as a read-aloud). If you prefer to use pencil/paper for drawing, you can also scan them into PowerPoint so you can share and print the file as many times as you like. You can even email it to parents for them to share with other family members.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Social Studies for Kids
Grades
1 to 8Note: an annoying audio ad plays when you first enter the site. Turn OFF your sound!
tag(s): holidays (167), maps (207), presidents (122), renaissance (33), timelines (51)
In the Classroom
Use the current events segment as weekly discussion starter or assignment in your social studies class. Share this link on your teacher web page for students to access outside of class. To really build a stronger sense of current events, start a class year-long current events "log" on a wiki and have a differnet student write a "week in review" each week throughout the year, based on the current events provided here or others he/she may know about. Reading teachers may also want to use the articles on this site to teach informational text reading skills on an interactive whiteboard. Reading levels are challenging for grades 1-3. Teachers will need to provide help by reading aloud or partnering readers.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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A+ Research & Writing Step-by-Step - Kathryn L. Schwartz
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
This site helps you help your students and them students to work at their own pace through the pieces that are difficult for them. Use the entire site as a guide for you research process or select different pieces of this site as models when you teach research papers so students can practice right then and there "how to do it." Be sure to include the link on your teacher web page so parents can support students as they approach deadline-panic (and you know some will procrastinate, no matter what you do).Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods - Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler
Grades
8 to 12tag(s): design (79), graphic organizers (50), mind map (27), periodic table (44)
In the Classroom
Viewing this with the entire class will be more effective with the interactive whiteboard or projector. Teachers in any subject will find this site invaluable in teaching how to make strong visuals for oral or written presentations. What powerful evidence for multiple intelligences! Your visual/spatial students will LOVE this one, and others will learn to build that intelligence. Try these same strategies in YOUR PowerPoint presentations to communicate ideas visually, without being "powerpointless" at back to school night!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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American Centuries - Memorial Hall Museum Online
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): colonial america (95), england (50), slavery (76)
In the Classroom
Browse the collection for images and descriptions of specific artifacts. Explore themes like Shay's Rebellion, the lives of African-Americans in early rural New England, or the Civil War era in New England. Interactive activities allow you to look at Early American tools, examine artifacts using a 360 degree view or see what clothing was worn (down to the underwear!) by people of the time. If you plan to share objects as part of a lesson "collect" them in a personal collection so you can pull them up easily. Challenge secondary students to use the activity labeled "Create a chronology" to group artifacts from the collections to illustrate a concept, such as slavery, clothing, or background of an author, artist, or historical event. With younger students, use one or more of the activities on an interactive whiteboard or projector or design a simple scavenger hunt within YOUR collection of objects for students to find out about colonial life and times. If you turn them loose on the entire site, you will never get them back.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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World News - WN Network
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): news (229)
In the Classroom
Share this site with your school's foreign language teachers. Have students do comparisons between English and foreign language versions of the news. If you teach writing, you can find controversial topics as writing prompts for persuasive writing among the articles, as well, and have students find facts to support their positions. Make this site available from your teacher web page for current events assignments. Reading teachers will want to use the articles on an interactive whiteboard to teach main idea and summarizing: highlight key words to use in a main idea or summary sentence you write together below the article.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Endangered Animals in Africa - Africa Conservation Fund
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): africa (139), animals (284), conservation (86), environment (238)
In the Classroom
Once you become familiar with specific naturalist bloggers on this site, you may want to revisit their posts throughout your unit on animals, biodiversity, or the environment. These real world connections would be good lesson starters. Teachers may also use this site when studying world cultures and geography of Africa. Elementary teachers will want to share selected portions of this site on an interactive whiteboard or projector as they teach about animal habitats and adaptations. Since some of the incidents that threaten the animals may be involve violence or be frightening to students, teachers should preview before sharing with younger students. The reading levels are adult, so this is not a good site to suggest for elementary students to use independently.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Hyper History Online - The World History Project
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): biographies (95), politics (113)
In the Classroom
Use this site for context regarding what was going on all over the world at any given time, especially as you launch class discussion of a new topic or time period. Help students see relationships between what they know and what else was occurring at the same time. Use it to pose questions about how events and people may be related, as well. This site will work very well on a projector or interactive whiteboard.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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World Climate - Robert Hoare
Grades
5 to 12tag(s): climate (81), earth (184), earth day (60), environment (238), temperature (35), weather (164)
In the Classroom
Use the data along with world maps (or Google Earth) for students to draw conclusions about geographic features and weather or to collect weather data over a time period to compare seasonal differences between northern and southern hemispheres. As part of an Earth Day or climate comparison activity, have students create a color-coded climate data "globe" in small groups, showing major cities and their weather data by color. You can use basketballs and sticky colored contact paper to cut out continents and climate zones, or have students make the map on an interactive whiteboard using a globe projection and highlghter tools in different colors. Older students can use the raw data as part of study of climate and cultural differences, environmental issues, or related topics.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Toy Theater - Toy Theater
Grades
K to 5tag(s): alphabet (51), animation (62), counting (60), numbers (119), spelling (95)
In the Classroom
Use these activities as a center, with partners, or on an interactive whiteboard. Turn up the speakers for sound on the music portions.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Mem Fox: Teaching, Learning, Living - Mem Fox
Grades
K to 7In the Classroom
Create shortcut to Mem reading aloud on your classroom computer for a center activity for primary grades, and place a copy of Mem's book there for students to follow along. Print out Mem's suggestions for reading aloud to give to parents at conferences or share this site on your teacher home page for parent and students to access from home. For older students, this site is an excellent resource for planning cross-grade reading activities for Read Across America or other special times, including having middle school students write picture books for young students, then share them at an in-person visit or on a podcast recording using Buzzsprout, reviewed here. Use PowerPoint Online, Microsoft PowerPoint Online, reviewed here since slides are an easy way to "create" and share large format picture books electronically.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Kids Book Club Book - Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp
Grades
2 to 12In the Classroom
Find food ideas and activities to promote reading on this site! Mention this site to your school librarian for use with school book clubs. FCS teachers may want to coordinate some of the recipes with books featured in language arts class. Parents would appreciate the link on your teacher web page or newsletter so they can encourage reading at home. Your school parent organization can find great ideas, as well. Make this link part of your family literacy treasury.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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