Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

This website, created by cartoonists, offers countless experiments (written in the form of cartoons). There are over ten experiment categories including Food Experiments, Mathematical Experiments, Biological Experiments, Electrical Experiments, Experiments in the Office, Sound Experiments, Hobbies Experiments, Science Experiments, Clothes Experiments, Experiments with Light, Experiments with Objects, Experiments with Materials, & Miscellaneous Experiments . Some specific examples include "How to make a Moebius band and how to double the length of a Moebius band," "How to make your tongue into a battery," "How to test an electric fence," and many others. This is not an interactive website, but does offer some very creative ideas for experiments.

tag(s): electricity (61), experiments (55), light (56), sound (72)

The Enormous "Kinder" Garden is a lengthy theme unit for kindergarten classrooms that utilizes rich literature and tremendous cross-curricular activities. The unit touches upon several learning styles and national standards. It is a detailed and user-friendly theme that will have children completely immersed. The literature includes The Enormous Watermelon, The Enormous Potato, Jack and the Beanstalk , and others. Try adding the site ChooseMyPlate (reviewed here) and healthy eating habits to weave the district Health curriculum into the unit.

tag(s): myplate (18)

Hubbard's Cupboard provides early learning through reading activities, math connections, and art projects. The activities are user-friendly and are geared toward primary students.

tag(s): easter (10), eggs (5), holidays (187), literacy (122)

Baseball America Online provides coverage of high school, college, and minor league ball as well as "the bigs." This site includes A LOT of information, podcasts, and more.

tag(s): baseball (32), statistics (121)

Major League Baseball has its own home page, an entry point for information on teams, player, statistics, and history. Keep up to date with current baseball news, video clips, and more.

tag(s): baseball (32), statistics (121)

Come to this website for one-stop learning about baseball. Some of the many activities and links at this website include "Stathead," "Teams," "Players," "Seasons," and more.

tag(s): baseball (32), sports (82), statistics (121)

This content-rich website, from the Baseball Almanac, offers definitions of some of the more common - and also more obscure - offensive, defensive, and pitching statistics. There are links to learn more about abbreviations, a baseball stats calculator, history of baseball, players of baseball, quotes about the game, and several others. This site does include some small advertisements.

tag(s): baseball (32), statistics (121)

Want to get in touch with your inner child? Get Scratch! Warning: The use of this application is quite fun and engaging! Scratch is a downloadable program that creates interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art. This application can be used for bringing simple ideas and projects to life. It has great use as a paint program without using the animations. Download/install files are available for Mac or PC. Menu tabs include an Idea tab where you will find a Getting Started Tutorial, Activity Guides, Coding Cards, and Starter Projects. FAQs and support pages are also available for help in using the application.

Material created can only be viewed within the program. Drawings are not saved as a JPG or pic file. However, a "snapshot" of the screen can be created by using these keys in Mac: apple, shift, and 4 and click/drag to surround the portion to save. In PC use: control/print screen. These snapshots can be uploaded or used as a picture in other applications.

tag(s): animation (65), coding (85), computational thinking (40), critical thinking (127), design (79), drawing (61), problem solving (233), STEM (297)

This is an on-line game in which students advance runners and score runs by completing math problems of varying difficulties. Students can select easy or difficult problems, either non-algebraic or algebraic, and operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or a combination).

tag(s): addition (129), baseball (32), division (98), multiplication (122), subtraction (110)

Use this interactive to test your reaction time and see if you can hit the ball out of the park. The activity will show you your reaction time to each "pitch."

tag(s): baseball (32)

Brain Games offers a collection of over thirty interactive logic games, puzzles, music games, and more. Some specific topics include code breaking, coins, arithmetic, music notes, word scramble, and many others. There is even a card game version similar to "24." All of the activities require Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

tag(s): logic (161), puzzles (149), sudoku (10)

As the name suggests, this website offers numerous math videos. The videos answer specific questions (sent in by students). General topics include numbers and their properties, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, percents, geometry, measurement, data, word problems, and advanced topics. The website currently features 20-30 videos. New ones are frequently added. Students and teachers are able to send in specific math questions, but the response time is currently "on delay." The videos are mainly audio with simple illustrations.

tag(s): decimals (85), fractions (160), measurement (122), numbers (120), percent (59)

If you are looking for a new way to teach and practice fractions, take a look at this website that was collected by a math specialist (former 5th grade teacher). The website includes nearly twenty interactive math activities, which all relate to fractions. Some of the general topics include fraction strips, circle fractions, area fractions, like fractions, fraction bars, fractions and decimals, fractions and percentages, comparing fractions, and several others.

tag(s): decimals (85), fractions (160), percent (59)

This large collection of math activities was organized by a math specialist (former 5th grade teacher). The activities are organized into categories based upon the topic beginning with numbers and moving up in levels to statistics and probability. In addition to selecting games by math concept, use the grade level links to choose games appropriate for first through sixth grade. Many, but not all, activities include correlations to Common Core Math Standards. Make sure you scroll down to the bottom of the home page to find a series of video explanations of math topics. Teachers, also check out the link for teachers that includes number lines, hundreds charts, pattern block activities, and much more.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): addition (129), counting (60), division (98), measurement (122), multiplication (122), patterns (61), probability (99), statistics (121), subtraction (110), symmetry (27), tangrams (8)

This website includes four interactive web activities that were organized by a math specialist (and former 5th grade teacher). The specific topics include spinners, dice, and dice tallying.

tag(s): probability (99)

This phenomenal collection of interactive statistics activities was organized by a math specialist (a former 5th grade teacher). There are about seven activities provided. Specific topics of interest include a few graph maker activities, pie charts, mean and median, and spinners.

tag(s): charts and graphs (171), mean (19), median (16), statistics (121)

This collection of nearly twenty interactive measurement activities was organized by a math specialist (former 5th grade teacher). Specific topics include telling time and clock math, balances, standard measurement, metric system, liquid measurement, proportions, coins, and others. Many of the activities can be individualized by choosing specific topics, difficulty levels, and various other options.

tag(s): measurement (122), money (113), time (91)

This fabulous collection of interactive multiplication activities was organized by a math specialist (former 5th grade teacher). Some of the specific topics include flash cards, multiples of 10, multiplication tiles, factorization, and numerous others.

tag(s): factors (29), multiples (15), multiplication (122)

This fantastic collection of links was organized by a math specialist (a former 5th grade teacher). The site provides over forty interactive math activities that all relate to geometry. Some of the specific topics include pattern blocks, square tiles, pentominoes, geoboards, symmetry, tangrams, triangles, angle measures, polyhedra, cartesian grids, tessellations, point of view, and numerous other topics. What a wonderful resource to use with elementary or middle school math students.

tag(s): angles (52), symmetry (27), tangrams (8)

The collection of over fifty interactive math activities was organized by a math specialist (former 5th grade teacher). Some topics are for primary grades (such as the count aloud and sequence activities). Other topics are more complex (such as factorization and equations). Specific topics include base 10, counting, sequence, ordinals, odd and even numbers, place value, addition, equations, subtraction, integers, number line, Venn diagrams, algebra, factorization, cuisennaire rods, and others. What a fabulous resource for any elementary math class.

tag(s): counting (60), equations (119), factors (29), integers (21), numbers (120), place value (34), preK (271)