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This simple website offers information about the history of Father's Day, quotes about fathers, puzzles, cards, music, a countdown, and more. The music requires QuickTime. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

tag(s): fathers day (12)

As a result of a teacher survey in 2007, NEA has compiled this list of 100 Best Books for Children from an online survey The list is unfortunately not labeled, as the 1999 listing from NEA was, with age/grade ranges. You will find many classics as well as some newer entries onto the shelves.

tag(s): book lists (167), reading lists (77)

This site offers five "ready to go" lesson plans for Father's Day. Lessons include art, history, writing, and more. Standards are provided. There is also some general history of Father's Day provided.

tag(s): fathers day (12)

To celebrate America's history of the freedom to read, the American Library Association sets aside one week every year to celebrate that freedom by bringing the most important banned books to the attention of everyone. Traditionally held the last week of September; go to the website and vote for your favorite banned book and have your older students do the same! Find out what books have been most frequently challenged. Find out about the history of book burning, print out posters for your classroom, and find out how support of this week adds to the intellectual freedom of all readers: students, teachers, librarians, and other adults.

tag(s): book lists (167), reading lists (77)

Find interactive reading activities for emergent/beginning readers at Starfall. It combines instruction in letter-sound relationships, word recognition skills, and reading comprehension strategies. Seasonal activities can also be found on the main page. The four "levels" of reading at Starfall include "ABCs," "Learn to Read," "It's Fun to Read," and "I'm Reading." There is also a premium option, this review is only for the free interactives. The app (available on iOs, Google Play and Kindle Fire) offers more free intereactives than the web version.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): DAT device agnostic tool (147), phonics (51), reading comprehension (149)

Ever wonder what the next best book to read is? Here's a helpful list of 100 Top Books complied by the Madison Public Library. The most recent books added are listed in red. In additon to this list, be sure to check out the two menus on the left - More Reading & Viewing and Even More Lists (which has a link for The New York Times Best Seller Lists). Never again feel like you don't know what to read next!

tag(s): reading lists (77)

From Atwater's "Mr. Popper's Penguins" to White's "Charlotte's Web," this list provides some great reading ideas for the 4th and 5th grade set.

tag(s): reading lists (77)

This site is an excellent way to help ENL and ELL students improve reading and comprehension skills using short passages of different kinds of reading. The site includes signs, multiple choice, true-false for details, questions on getting the "gist" of a reading, matching questions, and gap (fill-in) questions. This site is excellent for reading comprehension in the regular classroom too! Students select a "set" which contains a short sampling of each kind of question. Once they answer, they get immediate feedback.

tag(s): reading comprehension (149), test prep (69)

This collection of online videos and activities features British pronunciation, but the story clips are short and easy to understand. Many of the characters are also on American television (64 Zoo Lane, Teletubbies, Jakers, and others). Students will enjoy watching videos and playing games with characters from the tv show.

tag(s): interactive stories (22), rhymes (22)

"Dedicated to making your kids readers for life" is the sub-heading to James Patterson's new site ReadKiddoRead. This well-known author has put together a loaded site full of inspiration, book suggestions, author interviews, and more to inspire educators and parents to promote reading. The titles are divided by age (0-8, 6+, 8+, or 10+). Search by category (within age levels) such as Fantasy & Other Worlds, Real World Fiction, Action/Adventure/Mystery, and others. Teachers who have reluctant readers at all ages will discover ample ways to help them find exciting books. The books at this site also include brief descriptions.

tag(s): book lists (167)

This is a great site to mine for quick lesson plans, ideas on thematic units, or simply daily writing prompts. There are detailed lesson plans available for math, arts and crafts, nutrition, health, music, math, reading, physical education, technology, writing, science, and social studies. Visit the Seasonal Items link to find even MORE resources related to Read Across America, 100 Days ideas, Daily seasonal writing prompts, and much more! Many of the links will take you to other sites, but the onsite printable worksheets and calendars make it worth a visit. Note: the site is laden with advertising, something TeachersFirst users may not appreciate!

tag(s): fractions (160), nutrition (140), parts of speech (39), phonics (51), speech (69), themes (16), writing (325)

This great site offers a helpful set of resources for parents, teachers, and librarians. There are lists of newly published books, links to ordering and other book-related resources, and a list of "not to be missed" titles and authors for various grade levels. The resources are updated regularly, so there's always something fresh to offer to students or other teachers.

Record a message and embed it into your favorite site or provide a link to share, for free. Send to a friend by entering your email and the email of the recipient. Share on many social media sites witht he press of a button. Recording the message is easy and embedding into a site such as a wiki or blog has never been simpler! No login or registration is needed. Although, if you choose to send a message via email, you must choose a password to use at the site. Vocaroos are stored on their server. Created messages can also be downloaded to individual computers. Visit their FAQ's for frequent questions and responses.

tag(s): communication (129), speech (69)

As part of their extensive site for vocabulary, roots, and more, MyVocabulary.com has added a themed area for Thanksgiving. Find interactive vocabulary activities using Thanksgiving vocabulary words. You will also find printable crosswords, fill in the blanks and more, all using the same theme words. This and other "themes" available on the site will make vocabulary development fun. MyVocabulary seems to work best with Microsoft's Edge Browser.

tag(s): thanksgiving (24), vocabulary (238)

The title says it all: "Inspired Picture Writing!" Use this free drag and drop literacy tool to create great sentences inspired by beautiful pictures. Alternatively, add inspirational or humorous captions to pictures. "Lesson Plans" provides learning opportunities and examples for creating captions, compound sentences, or paragraphs. Video tutorials can be found under the FAQs tab. "Explore the Gallery" to see already-created PicLits as well as comments and ratings. After selecting a picture (or using the one they provide) and dragging a word onto the screen, choose different forms of the word by using the drop-down menu next to the word. Move your words anywhere on the screen for creative writing. You can also click "freestyle" instead to type in your own words instead of choosing from their list. Word lists change, depending on the image selected. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable.

Registering for a PicLits account requires the use of an email address. PicLits can be used without an account but you are unable to save or blog about their creation without an account. A class account can be created instead of individual student accounts. However, it does not show which work is attributable to which student. You may want to require that students initial their contributions in order to get credit. All work on the site can be seen without a login. All projects are public. NOTE: Our editors regret that PicLits occasionally allows advertising on their home page to include images that are not classroom-friendly. Teachers should preview to determine whether or not your students can ignore the ads.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): creative writing (124), digital storytelling (154), images (263), sentences (22)

Popcorn! offers a bowlful of information on that universally-loved food. Not only does it list the history behind the food, but it provides games, trivia, arts and crafts, printables, reading and math lessons, science and health lessons and a booklist dedicated to the topic of...POPCORN! Who knew there were so many children's books based on this simple treat?

tag(s): nutrition (140)

You will want to bookmark and follow this blog. Always adding ideas, this site offers a how to make a book for any age student. Not only ideas, read the extensive blog material to learn about author presentations. The creators say this site is part scrapbook and notebook, so click on the categories frequently to see the new content. Teachers who desire professional development and fresh ideas will want to include this site in their repertoire.

tag(s): blogs (65), reading lists (77), reading strategies (96), writing (325)

RefSeek is a different search tool for beginning researchers as well as those already knowledgeable about the process. Although this search engine appears "plain vanilla," it is a great option for research purposes. As they explain it, they "search the entire Web for freely available academic information, providing relevant results while filtering out most commercial content." This is different from Google's standard search. RefSeek looks through web pages, books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers for your chosen topic. With special search features, students can also limit searches to specific web pages, search two topics (either-or option) at once, and even include search words usually dismissed by academic searches (like "the" and "if"). After starting a search, click on Directory to limit searches to certain types of publications and resources, including quotations, almanacs and teacher resources.

tag(s): news (229), newspapers (93), search engines (48)

This subsection of the Songs for Teaching site has excellent chants and other childhood favorite songs which get children moving, speaking, and rhyming. Words to the fingerplays and songs are copyable, and many contain Quicktime sound excerpt files as well (enough to get you going with the song, though not the complete song). A few even have pictures of someone going through the motions of the song or rhyme. A link to Songs for Early Childhood allows you to see even more action songs. There are even songs to go with class content, such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Your kinesthetic learners will retain the concepts in these songs. ESL, ELL, and speech/language students will respond to the music; it aids with articulation, accent development, and memory. This site requires Quicktime. Get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

tag(s): plays (32), preK (271), rhymes (22), songs (46)

Whether or not your school uses the Lexile system to measure reading levels, you will want to become familiar with it as one way to measure the reading level of a book. Lexile level information, along with the student's own participation in the choice, can make book selection a positive experience for any reader. Many publishers are now offering Lexiles to measure the reading levels of their materials. Many schools use Lexile measuring to determine the precise reading level of their students. Explore "About Lexiles" menu for more information on 'how' the measuring is done. On the homepage, click on the Tools menu to find a Lexile Analyzer that allows you to cut and paste text into an entry box to determine its Lexile readability level. (You will need to register for the free use of the Analyzer.) Choose English (or another language) book database to find the Lexile level of your classroom books. The Lexile Calculator lets you figure out the rate of comprehension based upon Lexile scores. Lexile leveling is also available for Spanish text. Explore the variety of tools to help analyze and match books for your students.

Registration is free. An email address is required, as is some other information. Some materials on this site require Adobe Acrobat. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

Another helpful resource in understanding Lexile levels is this pdf comparison chart from Harcourt (opens in Acrobat Reader).

tag(s): readability (5)