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Poems to Make, Watch, (and Hear) - BBC
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site on the interactive whiteboard or projector as an introductory activity to poetry. Play one or more of the clips on the interactive whiteboard as a way to hook student interest. Have a class discussion or journal reflections afterwards for students to respond to the topic.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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It's Fun To Read - Poetry - Starfall Education
Grades
K to 2In the Classroom
Share the poetry on your projector or interactive whiteboard. If individual computers are available, even better! Just be sure to remember the headsets! Maybe consider creating a "Poetry Station" using this site on a computer cluster.Review corresponding high frequency words with students prior to reading the poems. Have students search for those words throughout the poem. Incorporate some of the words onto the classroom word wall or point out existing words on the wall as a connection activity to the literature. Students can complete the extension print out activity as a center assignment and proceed to publish it with illustrations.
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Testmoz - testmoz.com
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Skills required: Be sure to remember the password for your tests, as well as the unique URL. It would be wise to copy/paste them into a document you keep somewhere for reference. Users are unable to access the tests without the URL. Be sure to not share this ahead of time. Items in Testmoz are not made public.Use where automatically graded tests are required, such as for formative assessments to check student understanding. Use as a "ticket out the door" to see what students know at the end of class. Be sure that this is the medium you want to use for testing. Be flexible with students who find it difficult to take online testing. Entering all the material ahead of time can be time consuming, so this may not be the best format for long tests. Use this quiz application to create study quizzes for review for students to complete as homework (or during class time). Have students rotate to create daily check quizzes for their peers (earning a grade for test-creation). Learning support students and others who need a little extra review might like to make quizzes to challenge each other or themselves. Have students who are preparing to give oral presentations in any subject prepare a short Testmoz for their peers to take at the end.
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Gateway to the Classics - Baldwin Online Children's Project
Grades
2 to 12In the Classroom
If you are looking for favorite classic stories to use in your classroom, try here. Make a list of those you would like for students to read online with the URLs here. Include this site on your flyer that goes home promoting summer reading. Or list the link on your class website or wiki. ENL/ESL students will appreciate having a ready source for extra reading. Rather than the "same old" book reports, have students create multimedia presentations! How about comparing two pivotal literature characters using on interactive Venn Diagram, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Music/Fine Arts Vocab - Myvocabulary.com
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
What a perfect addition to music or art class! Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Have students work in cooperative learning groups, divide up the vocabulary words, and have each group find the definitions for their assigned vocabulary words. Have the groups share their words and definitions in an online book, using a tool such as Bookemon (reviewed here). Encourage them to add terms of their own, as well. Have the groups share the online books on your interactive whiteboard or projector. If you don't have the time to complete online books, have students share the definitions using a class wiki. Be sure to also check out the interactive word puzzles!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Kate's Book Blog: Authors Who Skype with Book Clubs - Kate Messner
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Plan a series of author visits or one special virtual visit to motivate your club or class to read! Have students prepare questions in advance and maybe even dress as a favorite character if you plan to use video. Make the best of your short visit by refining questions in advance and having everything ready to run with no wasted time. Have students step up to the microphone quietly and smoothly to ask their questions.Since authors book up easily and may not respond quickly to email, you should plan well in advance to arrange such a visit.
Some technical tips: Share the Skype screen on a projector or whiteboard so more students can see it. Be sure to turn up your speakers and connect a microphone (even a cheap one) to the computer handling the Skype call. Pretest your visit by having a virtual visit from a friend outside of the school, loading Skype and using the same equipment you plan to use for the real visit. You may need to request that the school unblock Skype for your use during a specific time frame, since many schools do not allow such a "pull" on the network without special permission. Once you have a successful test, make a diagram of what you did so you will remember and can share with other teachers. Once you master the set-up, you can do it over and over! Need to learn more about Skype? Read TeachersFirst's review here. Learn other ideas for using Skype in your classroom
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WordArt - WordArt.com
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
You must be able to copy and paste text or provide a url to a page of text as well as determine parameters of more advanced word clouds. Alternately, these word clouds can be kept very simple. After creating the word cloud, be sure to save the image (or use a screen capture) to share with others. Another idea, use the url of the cloud or embed into a place to share such as blog, wiki, or site.This is a terrific visual tool to share on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Help students develop creative fluency by creating their own WordArt and ideas from scratch. Paste in a passage or URL for a political speech to visualize the politician's "message." Analyze advertising propaganda by visualizing the language used in TV or print ads. Create WordArt of historical texts of inauguration speeches as time capsules of the issues of the day. Use this site as a way to help students see and memorize text, especially visual learners. Use it also when writing poetry or reading passages of great literature to "see" themes and motifs of repeated words and images. Have students paste in their own writing to spot repeated (and monotonous) language when teaching lessons on word choice. Students will be surprised to see what words appear to be dominant. ESL and ELL students will eagerly use this site since word order will no longer be a problem for them. Have students work in groups to create word posters of vocabulary words with related meanings, such as different ways to say "walk" or "said" and decorate your classroom with these visual reminders of the richness of language. Collect thoughts about the class subject at the beginning of the year and then again at the end of the year to determine changes in thoughts about the subject matter.
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Braille Bug - American Foundation for the Blind
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
This would also be a great stop in a study of disabilities and adaptive strategies.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Idaho Department of Education
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Mark your state's Department of Education in your Favorites for quick reference.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Story Corps - NPR
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Use this site to reconnect your students with those of other generations and geographic locations. Turn up your speakers and listen to some examples in your classroom. You can even use the story collection site as a model to start your own oral history project for your class or the entire school. You may not want to actually place your recording on the NPR site but instead house them locally in your school or community web site. As major events occur in your community, such as an anniversary or the opening of a new school, engage your students in documenting the event. The general interview guides offer useful interview techniques for school newspapers or news broadcasts, as well.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Picasso - Maryland Electronic Fieldtrips - Thinkport
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Start out at the "for educators" link for some great ideas to create an interdisciplinary lesson using Picasso in art, social studies, language arts, or math class. Use this site for research projects. In art class, use your interactive whiteboard or projector to show students an up close look at several of Picasso's paintings. Analyze and notate the paintings' composition using the whiteboard tools!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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News for You Online - New Readers Press
Grades
4 to 10To read/listen to the articles, you must put in an email address. Tip: rather than using your personal or work email, create a free Gmail account to use for memberships. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service.
In the Classroom
Have students make a vocabulary list of new words they see/hear from the stories each week. Include a story from NFY every week to present a slightly different take on the television news or paper news headlines. Have your students create their own "headline" news and video the projects! Share the videos using a tool such as TeacherTube reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Lesson Plans from Keith Haring - Keith Haring
Grades
1 to 3Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Picture Books - Dandi Palmer
Grades
K to 4In the Classroom
Children will enjoy reading online as a class on a projector or interactive whiteboard or reading at a center on your classroom computer. Share the site with parents via your web page. Art teachers can feature these illustrations as an inspiration for a picture book project.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Bestsellers - Shmoop Editors
Grades
4 to 12"Bestsellers" is free to use. Additionally, there is an option to create a free account which allows the advantage of using the tools like the online dictionary, "Stickies," and sharing on social networks. Creating an account requires an email address. You may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service.
In the Classroom
Are you looking for a way to motivate your reluctant readers to pick up a book, or do you have some book hungry students who sneak to read their own book while you are teaching a lesson? The "Bestsellers" site provides a wealth of internet-based material for navigating the twists and turns of the plots and characters in books like Harry Potter and the Twilight series. The online learning guides have a table of contents that gives a quick view of what is included in each tab, which enables you to quickly find what you want without opening each section. This site provides more information than the standard textbook teacher's edition, and provides brilliant connections between some of the literary classics. There are photos, videos, and links galore. You might want to include a link to this site on your class web page, or if you prefer to control the amount of information that you want students to have before actually reading the book, then bookmark it in your favorites and dole out the information at your discretion.If looking for a different instructional method, share one of the slide shows on a projector or interactive whiteboard as you introduce a unit or allow students to use portions of the slide shows as part of their own presentations on a specific author or book on the bestsellers list.
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Dolch Sight Words
Grades
1 to 3In the Classroom
Share the Dolch Words story on an interactive white board of projector, and allow students to take turns reading the lines. Be sure help your weaker readers and ESL students by sharing the vocabulary words prior to reading, either on a handout or by projecting on an interactive whiteboard and highlighting them in the text as you come to them. Practicing saying the words out loud can help students spot them quicker in the future. You can also use the printables of flashcards in a learning center or station, allowing students to practice with them individually or in groups.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Polite English - English Portal.com
Grades
2 to 8In the Classroom
Use this site for ESL and ELL students, or even basic grammar review in a regular language arts class. Help students learn "survival language," such as greetings or saying thank you. Save this site as a favorite on your classroom computer(s) so ESL/ELL students can add new expressions to their present knowledge. Send this site home (or list it on your website) so your international families can benefit from it.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Define It Fast - WordNet 3.0 Princeton University
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Definitely investigate the free Search Engine download that's available to make this tool even more useful. This may become your favorite dictionary-- bar none. You may want to save this site in your favorites on your class computer(s), but see the cautionary note above about the FULL database of words available.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Wolf Quest - Minnesota Zoo
Grades
4 to 12In the Classroom
Introduce this free resource on interactive whiteboard or projector. The lesson plans and interactive activity are both perfect tools to drum up enthusiasm in biology class. The Game Info provides excellent descriptors and instructions for using this program. Be sure to check back for updated episodes. Include this website on your teacher web site (and the activities) as one of a set of activities on animals and their habitats to be done in class or outside. Then challenge your students to work together in documenting local animals and habitats in a class wiki or group science fair project.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Ready Set Read for Families - Ready, Set, Read!
Grades
K to 1In the Classroom
This site offers tips for parents from the Department of Education. Teachers can also use the reading lists to help in book selection for reading centers. Make sure to refer the site to parents via teacher webpage if they ever ask for resources on reading.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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