Monday, November 18, 2013
Monday, September 2, 2013
Saturday, August 31, 2013
A collection of websites good for the classroom!
Web Resources
Welcome to the web resources page. You will find web 2.0 resources that you can use in the classroom for student engagement and learning. Below is a taste of the types of resources you will find here. It will be updated often, so please make sure you come back and check it out. I will be opening a suggestions area soon, and I hope to see some great websites which you find useful for learning and teaching.
| Website Link | Description |
 | (NEW) Funbrain Funbrain, created for kids ages preschool through grade 8, offers more than 100 fun, interactive games that develop skills in math, reading, and literacy. Plus, kids can read a variety of popular books and comics on the site, including Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amelia Writes Again, and Brewster Rocket. Funbrain’s games help students acquire new skills in reading, math, and problem solving. |
 | (NEW) Play Kids Games Play Kids Games provides free online kids games that are both fun and educational. Aimed at ages pre-K through middle school, it offers kids a safe environment to discover their abilities and learn new skills with interactive and fun computer games. Our games build skills in math, logic, memory, vocabulary, alphabet, spelling, geography, computer skills, colour identification, shape identification and other various problem solving. Teachers can also create their own games. |
 | (NEW) Learning Games for Kids These educational games for kids make learning fun with math facts, language arts, and more. Children enjoy learning with educational games. Kids can learn with math addition facts, multiplication flash cards, language puzzles, and more to make their learning experience rewarding and fun. Want educational games that make learning fun for preschoolers up to middle school kids? This is your place. |
 | (NEW) Funschool (Kaboose) Funschool offers online resources and games from kindergarten through to grade 6. It includes a parents and teachers section, polls and craft ideas. This site has quite a few resources right across the curriculum. Check it out! |
 | (NEW) Fisher Price Online Games This site is for children in preschool and kindergarten. Play and learn with your child online! The Fisher Price online learning games are a fun way to spend quality time with your child. You may want to preview a few of them first to see which online learning activities are most appropriate for your infant, toddler, or preschooler … and which games are so much fun your child will want to play them again and again! |
 | (NEW) Cookie At cookie, child experts and educators design interactive online games for children. Cookie learning games for kids help in building skills needed for success in school. While playing fun educational games, children learn to read with phonics, build skills in math, language, social studies, science and much more. Educational videos encourage children to keep learning, even after school hours. This site is quite popular. |
 | Discovery Kids This website includes a lot of great resources for the primary / elementary classroom. It includes games (with 8 different game categories depending on what you are trying to achieve); puzzles (with 8 different categories of puzzles); a tell me area (to find out intersting facts – using videos from different sources including Mythbusters); an activities area (with 6 different types of activities); and a quizzes area (with 4 different types of quizzes). |
 | NASA Education This is the go-to place for anything to do with NASA and space. There are teacher and student sections. The teacher sections includes information and resources for different grade levels, from Kindergarten right through to adult learning. This is where you find games, activities and information. The student section includes a lot of great resources for different grade levels as well. This is where learners can find games, interviews and other cool stuff. |
 | Spelling City This is one of my favourite spelling websites. It enables you to customise spelling lists for your students. you can set up a free account or pay for a premium account. I use the free account because it suites me perfectly. I have used it to create different spelling lists for my students each week. They then log on with my unique username, select their group list and either test themselves, learn definitions, or play games like hangmouse. For grades K-6. |
 | Kids Discover This website is packed full of a lot of great resources and information for teachers, parents, and children. It has more than 140 supplemental nonfiction titles for students in Grades 3-7, free resources for teachers, and interesting science and social science facts for young learners. |
 | Young Kids: Cyber Kids Cybersmart Challenge activities are a fantastic way for schools to encourage internet safety and positive online behaviour in the classroom. With Safer Internet Day approaching on the 5th February, this resource is great for those starting the new school year. Young Kids has games and activities for younger children up to about grade 1. |
 | Kids: Cybersmart Cybersmart Challenge activities are a fantastic way for schools to encourage internet safety and positive online behaviour in the classroom. With Safer Internet Day approaching on the 5th February, this resource is great for those starting the new school year. The kids area features information, comics and activities about internet safety and cyberbullying. |
 | Schools: Cybersmart Cybersmart Challenge activities are a fantastic way for schools to encourage internet safety and positive online behaviour in the classroom. With Safer Internet Day approaching on the 5th February, this resource is great for those starting the new school year. The schools area includes resources and lesson plans for teachers across all year levels of school. It also includes information about professional development (a requirement for all teachers in Australia). |
 | Storybird Storybirds is a great resource for creating, reading and sharing visual stories. It is free to sign up and you or your students can be creating delightful stories in minutes. It can be used for many purposes, with the most obvious ones being for literacy activities (such as creating a narrative) or for parents to create books for their children. I have made a few myself. I will share them with you soon. |
 | National Library of Virtual Manipulatives The NLVM is a great resource for teachers and students. There are free and paid manipulatives (online games) that encourage learners to think and learn about mathematics. Topics covered include geometry, number and operations, algebra, measurement, and data analysis & probability. |
 | Decimal Squares This website is fantastic for students. It features 8 different online games related to decimal fractions. Some are for younger years and beginners to the concept of decimals, while others require more advanced knowledge. All of these games are great for classroom use and require students to think and problem solve. |
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Using Croak it and QR Codes
Here are some really cool ideas combining apps to produce something!
So what can you do???
- Students introduce themselves the first days of school. Post the QR codes around the room and students try and match the introduction with the students in the class. Great getting to know you activity.
- Share news with parents.
- Make various recordings/qr codes for places or important people around your school. Take kids on a tour of the building the first day and use the QR Codes to give information about each location or special person at the school.
- Use this with book intros to get students excited about different books in your class library.
- Use to explain the answer to math problems.
- Use to review homework.
- Use to preview content for social studies or science units.
- MOST IMPORTANTLY... HAVE STUDENTS CREATE THEIR OWN for THEIR LEARNING! I stress this because it is so important to get students actively involved in their own learning.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
More project ideas.......using THINGLINK
I can keep posting all day long! People have created the most amazing THINGLINKS with collections of websites that will get your students off and running.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Critical Thinking!
Look for more really interesting math games for your smartboard at www.transum.org
I have also posted them in the MATH section of this blog!
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Animoto IDEAS!
Monster Attack!
A monster is on the loose and attacking your town or city!
Let students get creative by using Animoto to make their
very own monster-related news stories. Have students use
a paint application, or encourage them to do a public domain
and/or Creative Commons search. Then, ask them to invent their
own monster stories framed in the context of a hard news multimedia
package.
Ask students to narrate their projects as they play, reading from a script
that they've prepared. Is there an alien invasion? Is Sasquatch rooting
through dumpsters? Did somebody bring carnivorous dinosaurs back to life?
This is a great activity for pairs of students to complete together.
My Favorite Thing
Have students use Animoto to talk about their absolute most favorite thing.
This activity works as a Web 2.0 "show and tell" while giving students the
chance to talk about something passionately. Give students several minutes
to verbally set up their projects, making the case for why their 30 seconds was
well spent on the subject matter, and why they chose the content that they did
for the multimedia presentation.
There's something for everyone in this slideshow......
Here is a slideshow with some useful tips. Pick and choose what looks interesting and worth trying in your classroom. Remember- just look for one or two quick ideas!
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Here's an idea for the age old question: "What did you do this summer?"
Bill Atkinson PhotoCard App
It's free and way more interesting than just having the kids journal about what they did over the summer!
1. Download the Bill Atkinson PhotoCard Lite app to the iPad from the App Store
2. Select an image of a place you visited over the summer.
3. Find relevant information to include about the place you have chosen.
(Save a picture from the iPad web browser by pressing and holding the image on the iPad screen, then select Save Image. The picture will be stored in the Photos section of the iPad
4. Use these images in PhotoCard Lite, add text and an audio recording to your share some important information about your selected event
Monday, July 15, 2013
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Monday, July 1, 2013
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
Cool website with TONS of math games!
WHAT IS COOKIE?
At cookie, child experts and educators design interactive online games for kids. Our learning games for kids help in building skills needed for success in school. While playing our fun educational games, kids learn to read with phonics, build skills in math, language, social studies, science and much more. Our educational videos encourage children to keep learning, even after school hours.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
More tools (to make life easier)!
TOOLS FOR TEACHERS
- Planboard - Lesson planning made easy.
- Schoology – Manage lessons, engage students, share content and more.
- BetterLesson - Share what works. Free K-12 lesson plans, materials and resources.
- LearnBoost – Free gradebook for teachers.
- ShowMe - Learn and teach anything. An online learning community.
- LessonPlan.it – Transform the way you plan your school year. Start planning online.
- ClassDojo - Improve student engagement and behavior.
- symbalooEDU – Organize and share the best of the web with your students (PLE).
- The Coursebook - Discover, track and share great learning experiences.
- Rafter - Find course materials your students will actually use.
- Coursekit – Simple, elegant and free course management tools.
- Glogster – 21st century multimedia tool for educators, teachers and students.
- Remind101 – Text messaging for teachers.
- Teachers Pay Teachers – Teachers buy, sell and share original teaching resources.
- iversity - The collaboration network for academia.
- Time to Know – Digital teaching platform.
- Haiku – Learning management system. A simple way to bring the web to your classroom.
- Celly – A platform of tools that enhances school communication.
Monday, June 10, 2013
So what can this iPad actually do?
Click below to check out the countless # of things that your students can create with the iPad.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
Gynzy: Interactive Whiteboard w/ the teacher at the center!
It has so many great activities to use with any interactive whiteboard. It is so user-friendly, and kid-friendly. I looked at a lot of the tools, and they have some really neat ones to choose from. I love the birthday cake - you choose your cake style, add name and age, add decorations, and then it will play happy birthday and you can click a button to blow out the candles. So cute! There are a variety of timers and games - hangman, bingo, match. You can personalize the games with your own words or use computer selected ones. You can add youtube videos and web images. There are a ton of math activities - more of these than anything else. I love the sorting activities - you can choose different objects from a theme and select the number and the kids can sort them. There are different types of lined notebook writing paper. There is an option that allows you to use your webcam and you have an "elmo" or document camera.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
Best Bible Apps for Kids
Some are free and others are not but CHECK THESE OUT!
The ABC’s of God (iPad)
I can’t say enough good things about this app. Absolutely perfect for preschoolers, The ABC’s of God integrates letter recognition, handwriting, capital and lower case matching and word searches with Bible verses and attributes of God. Each letter of the alphabet is a descriptive word for God and an accompanying verse, such as Gracious, Zealous, and Truthful.
The handwriting practice is spectacular, as it first has the child trace, then draw on his own. Both capital and lower case are covered. Then the child goes to a search and find where he must find the letter. Next it’s on to God’s word to find the letter. At the end of the lesson, it reminds you of the attribute for that letter. My 4 year old boy loves this game, but his older sisters (7 and 8) are often caught enjoying it, too! Especially the word searches.
Adventure Bible Memory HD (iPad only)
I love that the kids can play games to memorize Bible verses. You can choose the difficulty and verse. Players earn in-app prizes that make memory fun. Kids can add verses to their favorites list and even learn a new verse everyday. You can also scramble the order of the books in the Bible. Great practice!
There is a LITE version available that has 2 books of the Bible, which is basically a very limited preview.
Noah’s Ark- by Aguppy
You’ll love this fantastic app designed by a friend of mine. The proceeds from the app purchase are for missions. She plans to translate the app into other languages, so that the message can be spread. The app is fun and innovative with lots of ways to interact with the story.
Bible Word Find (both iPad and iPod)
I love this simple word search game. There are three levels of play, making it great for many ages. All of my kids love to play it. It’s very straight forward. No adds. No gimmicks! Word searches are great for vocabulary building and spelling enrichment.
Jesus calling for Kids (iPod)
Leah (8) absolutely loves this app. She sets the alert and reads her devotion everyday. I love that she is always excited about it. This app has a LITE version, which is a 7 day trial for free. After that, it’s $9.99. Expensive because you are getting an entire book. 365 days worth of devotions. We think it’s worth it.
A Good Word- (iPod and iPad)
This app is a super fun way to memorize scripture for FREE. Play hang-man, complete word searches and more. The girls love it.
365 Bible Promises for Little Hearts LITE (iPad and ipod)
I love this cute little app. The LITE version only includes 30 promises and it appears that the developer hasn’t finished the full version. Nonetheless, it’s free and cute. And what’s better than God’s promises?
Each page is interactive and will read aloud the promises to your child.
Bible Coloring Book (iPad and iPod)
Coloring apps are great for everyone. Toddlers love them and 8 year olds love them. Add a little Noah to the mix and everybody’s happy. Plus, it’s FREE!
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