Social Studies
Ben’s Guide to the US Government
http://bensguide.gpo.gov/
A site for everyone! Links at the bottom of the home page help quickly navigate to the pages appropriate to the student, teacher, or parent. The link for teacher and parent’s page of Ben’s Guide provides resources for the home and classroom it provides links to other government websites, curriculum and government publications that are for sale. The students section of the site is divided by grade level and then by topics with information anMap Machine
http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/
This website will be extremely helpful for geography lessons. As a teacher it can be used to embellish lessons of countries or places that are unfamiliar to the students by giving them the ability to see the places they are studying. Students could also use this individually to explore the world.Mexico for Kids
http://www.elbalero.gob.mx/index_kids.html
The site is run by the Mexican Government and it provides an in depth look at the Mexican government, history, culture and important news that concerns the country. One of the biggest draws to this website is that it comes in four different languages (Italian, Spanish, English and French). Having this website available for ESL students will help keep them on track and feel involved with the unit. This website could easily be used for students with varying language aptitudes.Language Arts & Reading
Reference/Translation
WordRefrence.com
http://wordreference.com/
This is a free online translation dictionary. It translates Spanish, English, French and Italian. This would be helpful for students, teachers, and parents who are trying to communicate effectively with each other. I see this working well for English language learners as a helpful way to increase communication, understanding and participation. It also offers an audio pronunciation of the words, so it would be useful for students with visual impairments.
All Subject Website- StudentsScholastic- Student Activities
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/learn.jsp
A very fun and interactive site for students to explore on their own or to be used as supplement during teaching. This site has a major focus of language arts, but also provides links, activities, articles and quizzes for the other subject areas (Math, Science, Social Studies). The site is also divided by grade level for easy access and appropriate material for the student’s grade level.Resources for Parents
Scholastic- Parents
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/parentsHome.jsp
A friendly and helpful site for many questions parents have concerning their children. There is a section about school and learning, books and reading, activities, and finally family life. The major focus of the site is how to encourage and prepare for school but the family life section tackles questions about discipline, moody children, safety and cell phones (just to name a few).
Rainy Day Activities
EEK’s Rainy Day Activity Page
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/caer/ce/eek/cool/rainyday.htm
When the weather is bad, or students are restless and need something productive to do; this is a must website! There are a bunch of different activities that students can do at home or at school to keep their brains working in a productive and effective manner.Rainy Day Crafts for Children
http://home.att.net/~DLeddy/kids.html
Most of the activities should be done at home because of the materials needed, but during longer breaks from school, rainy days, or any other time the words, “I’m bored” come out of student’s mouths these activities will work wonders. The links on the bottom of the page give easier (less materials) projects for students to do on the spur of the moment. One link I liked taught the students to tie knots. This would work well in a classroom setting because it would be easy to have a basket of yarn, string, rope etc in the room and when students were done with their work or had some free time they could practice their knots.
Rader’s NumberNut.com
http://www.numbernut.com/
I really like this website. It covers everything from the most basic of skills (counting and number recognition) up to the more difficult and complicated (operations, division and multiplication). This site is interactive and even provides magnification of the activities and quizzes.Math Playground
http://www.mathplayground.com/
The title of the website explains it all. Here students can play a wide variety of math games. There are also logic puzzles and word problems for students to play with. A question and answer section has videos that explain math concepts, if students are having trouble with specific concept they can watch the video and then play games on their own time and enjoy learning the concept in a new and different way.
Technology
Resources for Teachers
Scholastic-Teaching Resources
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/teach.jsp
Great website for everything teaching, there are featured books, resources and activity ideas for each grade level and subject area. A large potion of the site is dedicated to language arts and getting students excited and interested in the subject.ProTeacher Directory
http://www.proteacher.com/090000.shtml
The website specializes in social studies that provides teachers with ideas for interactive activities to use in classroom setting. The website breaks down the broad topic of social studies into 8 subcategories: culture, current events, family and community, geography, history, citizenship, economics and religion and ethics.
Rader’s Biology 4 Kids
http://www.biology4kids.com/
Interactive site for students exploration and useful as supplement for teaching all areas of science. There are graphs, diagrams, definitions, quizzes, and other interactive portions of the website. There are links on the site for other areas of science (astronomy, chemistry, physics, earth science, etc) .Yahoo! Kids Science
http://kids.yahoo.com/science
This website is useful for students who have a natural curiosity about science. It has great graphics to hook the students’ interest. The information is easy to get to and is easily explained with diagrams, pictures and text. Videos that are on the website give students another opportunity to process the information. The multiple means of displaying information helps reach a more diverse student population.
March 25, 2008
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