Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Search this virtual museum and database of European fine arts from the 11th to 19th centuries. The site also offers a version for use on mobile devices. The site provides 16 different tours, music, a glossary and the ability to send e-postcards with images. There is also a feature for viewing two images at once.

tag(s): art history (102), artists (84), museums (52)

Kinteractive Learning offers several free and useful teacher tools for use on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Use the dartboard selector to randomly choose students from your class. Import your class from a txt file or input names manually. Easily edit your class list with absent students. Once ready, click to spin the dartboard, launch a dart and see what names appear! Open each tool in a new window for a larger viewing area. At the time of this review, the other free tools included a random name generator, scoreboard, and stopwatch. Access to all tools is available after registration with email and a password. Note that other areas of this site are subscription-based.

tag(s): classroom management (120)

Find over 50,000 sounds of music, nature sounds, spoken words/poetry and human environments. Click dots on a map to see the location and play the sound. Search by keyword or by category and save to your playlist for future use once you create a free account.

tag(s): cultures (180), multimedia (53), sounds (43)

The Brown Bookshelf features literature for young readers written by and featuring people of color. View archives going back to 2007 to find book reviews, author's chats, and some videos that accompany books featured on the site. A flagship feature of the site is the 28 Days Later portion. Each day during Black History Month features a different author. It is a month-long showcase of the best in Picture Books, Middle Grade, and Young Adult novels written and illustrated by African Americans to help parents, teachers, librarians and booksellers recommend good reads. Archives are available beginning with the 2008 campaign.
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tag(s): african american (115), black history (133), book lists (167), civil rights (209), cultures (180), literature (221), preK (270)

E is for Explore! offers many learning activities and opportunities for classroom exploration (and fun) that conforms to Common Core. Explore the blog by scrolling through the many activities or search using keyword tags on the right of the page. Choose from popular posts such as Lego fractions or ABC handprints or St. Patrick's Day skittles. All activities include simple directions, and some include links to printables for completing activities. Be aware: some of the activities include comments from other users. At the time of this review all comments were appropriate.

tag(s): addition (129), alphabet (53), angles (52), branches of government (65), charts and graphs (171), density (17), dinosaurs (43), division (98), electricity (61), erosion (15), fractions (160), geology (62), geometric shapes (134), inferencing (7), literacy (122), logic (161), minerals (13), money (113), multiplication (122), place value (34), reading comprehension (149), rocks (35), senses (20), subtraction (110), transformations (12), weather (160)

Check out this online journal with a twist. Each day the site sends an email with questions about your day to prompt you to write. Respond to the email with your entry for automatic posting. Images can also be added to entries. Personalize the site using your choice of color and fonts. View entries as a PDF for easy printing as desired. Register with an email and unique name for your diary.

tag(s): blogs (65), creative writing (124), journals (15), writing (325), writing prompts (61)

This is a wonderful site for finding quality images to use in projects. Use these images for either personal or professional projects. Registration is not necessary to download them. All images are copyright free. Search images by name (or category - photos, video, illustrations and vector) and filter by orientation (landscape or portrait) and image type (photo, clipart, video, or vector.) Be sure to use the filters at the top. Right click to download. Use good search terms to find the best pictures possible. You must know where to save images on your computer. Be sure to give credit to the person who took the picture and show their name wherever the image is used. Consider adding images to this site to increase the number of options and expand the ideas of Creative Commons. Adding images does require you to join the site (email required).

tag(s): creative commons (28), images (263), photography (130), search engines (48)

Are you looking for materials portraying strong females? If so, this site is a great resource to find books, movies, toys, and music that portray strong, confident, female characters. Choose from the "best of" lists to find top Asian Pacific or Latino mighty girls among other specific categories. Filter books by categories such as age, award winners, social issues, and language. Many picture books are also featured, making this a site even the youngest students can use. Visit the Character Collection link to learn about various famous females and books available about each character. Be aware: much of this site features items for sale. You may want to use this site solely for finding topic ideas, strong/famous women for research and sharing, and literature to locate in your local library.
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tag(s): biographies (94), book lists (167), cross cultural understanding (173), literature (221), women (151), womens suffrage (52)

Digital Learning Day is an annual February event spotlighting successful instructional practice and effective use of technology around the country. Choose the "About DLDay" option to find out more about the goals of Digital Learning Day, begin with a detailed description listing the characteristics of digital learning. View exemplary models, showcases, lesson portals, and more using links provided. Sign up as a participant for Digital Learning Day then plan your own classroom activity, provide a presentation to parents, or choose from other ideas offered on the site. Explore the Participate portion of the site to find digital tools, online resources, graphics, lesson plans and more. Sign up isn't required; however, it does allow you to receive emails with updates and learning ideas throughout the year. The digital learning content demonstrations are conducted in four areas: math, science, language arts, and civics/social studies; critical areas, such as working with ELL or special education students, will be woven into the lessons.

tag(s): digital citizenship (85), digital storytelling (154), modeling (8), preK (270)

This website, produced by the Martha's Vineyard Museum, tells the story of Laura Jernegan and the journal she kept on her voyage on a whaling ship. In October 1868, Laura Jernegan, a 6 year old girl from Edgartown, Massachusetts set out on a three year whaling voyage. Laura, her father, mother, brother and the ship's crew set off to the whaling grounds of the Pacific Ocean. The site also tells the adventurous history of whaling. Choose from many different topics for exploration such as information about whales, a timeline of whaling, interactive map, and explore the ship. Dive deeper to view artifacts, meet the crew, and view a picture gallery. Lesson plans (and complete units) are provided for grades 1-3, 4-5, and even high school.

tag(s): 1800s (75), whales (11)

TV411 En Espanol offers lessons covering several math, social studies, and science topics, all in Spanish. All lessons are offered in video and slide format beginning with an introduction to the activity. Some videos have questions for students to answer and receive feedback. Choose a topic to view videos offered along with a short description. Each video includes links to related web lessons (slide format) and some offer related print downloads.

tag(s): bacteria (22), heat (14), nutrition (140), photosynthesis (21), spanish (109), water (102)

Preschool students will delight in the company of the Sesame Street characters at this long-time favorite site. Extend the fun from the television series, Sesame Street to fit into an individualized, interactive learning time. Dance, sing, clap, and play along with Big Bird, Grover, Elmo, and all of the characters to help develop and sharpen phonemic awareness and phonics skills. A variety of formats allow for many learning styles. Interaction with family members is encouraged and necessary in many of the activities given. There are games, videos, printables, ecards, and a family treasure hunt. A section for parent and teacher information gives ways to help students learn. A television show schedule is included. Experience hours of fun while learning.
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tag(s): alphabet (53), numbers (120)

Textivate is a simple web tool to automatically generate a range of online activities based on any text you enter (up to 500 words). Type or paste a chunk of text into the text box on the Textivate front page and click on the "Textivate Now" button to see the available exercises that can be generated from that text. Choose from various activities based on the amount of text used such as drag and drop, sorting, or fill in the gaps. View an example on evaporation located here. Register on the site for further options such as uploading text, embedding your textivate onto a website, or share via hyperlink.

tag(s): grammar review (31), process writing (37), sequencing (17), summarizing (23), word study (59)

Draggo is a convenient way to save, share, and organize your bookmarks from anywhere. With Draggo, you use the web to store your favorite links, preventing loss from computer problems. Join for free. Inside your account, add pages to store, share, and organize links. Add the browser button or drag links into Draggo to put in your inbox; organize when you have time. You can have up to 10 tabs to save your important links. Choose to keep private or make public via your own personalized Draggo URL. Editing is not possible without a user name and password. The introduction video to this site is the only part of the site that appears to require Flash.

tag(s): bookmarks (43), classroom management (120), curation (32)

With over 5 million dollars granted, Voya Unsung Heroes has supported teachers through grants provided by its Unsung Heroes Program. Each year grants are provided to K-12 educators utilizing new teaching techniques and methods that improve learning. Applications are judged on three criteria: innovative method, creativity, and ability to positively influence students. 100 Finalists are chosen yearly to receive $2,000 grants with at least one award going to each of the 50 states. Three top awards of $25,000, $10,000 and $5,000 are given to the top three recipients. Follow links provided on the site to apply for the grant. The deadline is generally the end of April each year.

tag(s): grants (15)

Project Britain is your guide to British life, culture, and customs, designed for even young readers to understand. Follow icons to learn more about the Royal Family, weather, folklore and traditions, and everything else British. Each topic has a short introduction followed by a series of questions with links to answers and further information. View answers to questions posed by the site's young readers and by teenagers. One interesting portion of the site compares British countries to states and other countries.
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tag(s): cross cultural understanding (173), cultures (180), england (50), folktales (34), great britain (16), ireland (11), scotland (8), transportation (30)

iFakeText is a tool to create fake screenshots of a series of iPhone text messages. Write a name, then choose an operator and write text in the provided box. Click the link "Create your Screenshot" to view the picture. Have the operator READ the text message (great for non-readers). Take a screenshot or share via different social networking platforms or via a link.
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tag(s): creative writing (124), text to speech (20), writing prompts (61)

Discover a huge collection of interactive illustrations to help explain complex concepts in science, technology, art, math, and a range of other topics. Use these activities to create interactive visualizations. There are thousands of Mathematica Demonstrations. A demonstration is a Mathematica notebook that takes advantage of Mathematica's manipulate command. Use the manipulate command to create sliders or buttons or check boxes to change the values of parameters in the displays in the demonstration. The result is you control the animation. View demonstrations on topics ranging from odd and even numbers to odd and even functions, fractions to fractals, and from linear functions to linear algebra and linear programming. In addition to mathematical topics, there are demonstrations illustrating the time in different cities around the world, global demographic information, the solar system, and art and music concepts. You need to download the Wolfram CDF player to use and interact with the demonstrations.
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tag(s): addition (129), animals (294), architecture (75), computers (109), division (98), fractions (160), geometric shapes (134), gravity (43), logic (161), maps (220), money (113), multiples (15), multiplication (122), plants (146), psychology (65), statistics (121), subtraction (110), weather (160)

Go to Google Street View instantly with this handy site. Begin by typing in an address. As you type the screen changes automatically to the best street view image of what has been entered so far. Many may find the constant changing of images as you type distracting; others may find the variety of seeing new areas exciting. Click "About" in the lower left hand corner for an explanation of color boxes and controls. Download and share the view easily.
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tag(s): map skills (63), maps (220)