Super Teacher Worksheets

I am not a fan of worksheets by any means. However, I found the Super Teacher Worksheets site to be pretty useful. This week we are working on verbs. So I am going to take a worksheet I found online and adapt it. Sometimes I miss using the colorful sentence strips so... We will put the sentences from the worksheet on sentences strips and the students will have the determine which word is the verb in the sentence.

Cute note: We have been learning about nouns. We just finished discussing common and proper nouns. At a concert on Friday my name was printed on a piece of paper to reserve a spot for our class in the cafeteria. One of my students looked at it and then looked up and me and said, "your name is a proper noun too?" I just smiled and said "you are correct".

Northpole.com

Talk about perfect timing! Our students are learning about writing letters, why not have them write a letter to Santa on Northpole.com?

Speakaboos

Listen to fables, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, folk tales, lullabies, and more online with Speakaboos.
These stories can be downloaded and used on an iPod. You can also have your students record their own!

Send Free Brainpop E-Cards

Skip the stamps! Instead, personalize and send free BrainPOP e-cards. Choose from a variety winter- and holiday-themed designs, and send an unlimited amount of cards.

Letter Writing

Here are a few online resources help with letter writing.

Letter Generator
The Letter Generator tool from ReadWriteThink.org is designed to help students learn to identify all the essential parts of a business or friendly letter, and then generate letters by typing information into letter templates. This can be used whole class or as center.


Starfall.com
Zac Writes a letter to his grandparents for Grandparents Day. This interactive letter wrting takes you through each step as Zac writes. When Zac is done, he reads the letter to you and you can print out a copy of the letter. I have my students make print the letter and then they Whiteout Zac's name and replace it with their own name.

A Letter to a Friendly Monster
Write a friendly letter with the date, salutation, body, closing, and signature to a monster. This site has a pdf file that has a graphic organizer of a kids body to help students remember the parts of a friendly letter.

Don't forget to use Rubistar to create a grading rubric.

Online Stories and More

Many links to great Language Arts sites:

http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Tower/1217/reading.html

The Hungry Thing Goes Digital

The Hungry Thing is an monster/animal that will only eat food if it is referred to with a rhyming word. For example, if he wants noodles, he will ask for foodles. If he wants cake, he will ask for rake.

Each year I read the book, The Hungry Thing to my class. Then we use a poster of the Hungry Thing, with his mouth cut out, to slide pictures of food into his mouth. The Hungry Thing will only eat the food if the students provide a words that rhymes with the food item pictured.

Those days are over! Now the Hungry Thing activity is available online!

Add Dimension to Your Lessons

For only $9.95 you can turn ordinary pictures into three dimensional images. Through the use of 3-D Maker, by Sandy Knoll Software, story books can literally leap off of the pages, or you can add dynamic to your presentations.
Images are transformed in a click of a button, and are saved as a jpeg file. This allows for simple integration into your preferred method of presentation software.

3D Maker can be downloaded from, http://tinyurl.com/5mfpum. However, to access all of the features you must purchase the software by clicking on the payment options icons. Your purchase confirmation email will include a serial number that will allow you to fully utilize the software.
3D glasses can be purchase for relatively cheap. I was able to order 10 pairs of 3D glasses for $1.99 through ebay. There are also ways to make your own 3D glasses using a CD jewel case, a red Sharpie marker, and a blue Sharpie marker. (This really does work! I found out today because my ebay order did not arrive in time.)

So, spend the $9.95 and your students and/or audience will thank you for it.

Math and Science Newsbreaks

Here is a link to some quick video clips on various math and science topics for grades K through 2nd. The clips are "breaking news" style videos.
http://ksnn.larc.nasa.gov/k2newsbreaks.cfm

There are also numerous newsbreaks for grades 3rd through 5th in math and science. http://ksnn.larc.nasa.gov/35newsbreaks.cfm

Thanksgiving Resource

This Talk Like a Pilgrim site gives audio examples of some key Pilgrim phrases.

xtranormal

If you can type you can make animated movies on xtranormal.com. This is probably the easiest movie that I have ever made. You type in the dialogue for each character, pick a music track, add actions, and viola, you have a movie!

Here are a few examples for you to check out:
Mr. Ludwig's movie
Mrs. Crawford's

Spelling City!

The site is great! SpellingCity.com is an FREE online spelling program that make practicing spelling words fun!

As a student you can enter your own spelling words and test your spelling skills.

As a teacher, you can create an account so that you can save your classroom word lists. Once you create lists, students can access your specific list from home. No more "I don't know what my spelling words are" excuses.

Classroom 2.0.com

Classroom20.com is a social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative or transformative technologies in education.

Win a BrianPOP T-Shirt!

BrainPop gets so many requests from educators for BrainPOP t-shirts, they decided to hold a contest!

Two Easy Steps
1.Submit an original lesson plan that highlights the integration of BrainPOP or BrainPOP Jr.
2. If your lesson is selected to be published between now and January 31, 2009 you will win a BrainPOP t-shirt!

Browse plans here & submit your own!

Kids and Cookies

Kids and Cookies is an online game that helps teach fractions. The objective of the game is to divide a selected number of cookies among the number of friends that you choose. The friends can't eat the cookies unless you divide the cookies equally between them. Fair, delicious, fun and perfect for learning.

Crickweb

Crickweb has literacy interactive resources for primary schools.
There are many interactive games. Alien Hangman was a fun game. I also liked the alphabetical order, and sequencing activity.

Brain Pop Educators

Here you can access tips, tools, and resources for free from BrainPop on their educators blog!

http://www.brainpop.com/educators/blog/

Do You Believe In Me?

This 12 year-old student from Dallas, Texas gives the keynote address at a opening event for a school district. He asks the audience "Do you believe in me?" It is a powerful message coming from a student who knows that teacher beliefs impact student achievement.

http://www.dallasisd.org/keynote.htm

Problem Solving Strategies?

While we do encourage a variety of problem solving strategies in our classrooms, we hope it does not go exactly like this.

Teach Strong

An Online Professional Learning Community for Educators

bookr

Use bookr to create books with turning pages. There is a direct link to flickr for adding your images.

Mrs. Tenkey's Home Page

This is Mrs. Tenkely's home page, the writer of iLearn Technology blog. She has some great resources that are organized by grade level. I especially liked Lookybook, where you can preview picture books from cover to cover.

Statetris

This a site has great way to reinforce geography. Statetris a game that is similar to the popular game 'Tetris'. However, instead of positioning the typical Tetris blocks, you position states/countries at their proper location.

I found out about this site from iLearn technology blog. This blog is updated frequently by a k-5 technology specialist and teacher. There are many great resources posted here.

ict Games

ict Numeracy Games are created by educator James Barrett. These flash games are excellent for elementary students. On this site there are games related to a multitude of math themes. Some of the themes are; number facts, counting, time, shape and measures, greater than and less than, multiplication and many, many more. Each math or numeracy theme has several games to play for practice. Each is interactive and has instructions for integrating the game into the classroom.

The ict Numeracy Games are perfect for use with an interactive whiteboard or projector and whole class instruction. In addition, several of the games are also great for students working on individual computers.

SchoolTube

If you like TeacherTube, you might also become fond SchoolTube.

Learning to Change, Changing to Learn

This video discusses the notion that schools should no longer be "industrial-type" settings where we produce students who are able to complete those routine tasks required of a factory worker. The 21st century is in need of students who are able to infuse complex tasks with creative solutions.

Kids' Vid

Kid's Vid is an online resource that gives teachers and students the tools necessary to implement video production in the classroom. Their mission is to offer teachers and students assistance in enhancing learning through the power of digital media. This website has some useful tools that you will want to check out.

Technology In The Classroom - Listen To Your Students!

Have you ever asked your students how they like to learn?

Many times we are so overwhelmed with mandates and quotas that we forget to listen to our clients, our students.

This video titled, Wisdom of the Young, has real students discussing their preferred method of learning. This video is housed on You Tube, so you may not be able to view it if you are on certain school campuses. Please take some time to view the 55 second clip. Although it is short, it sends a powerful message.

If you are interested in using videos to enhance learning, here is a list of the 100 best YouTube videos for teachers. There are some videos that are appropriate for student viewing, and some that are catered for teachers. The section on technology can help you learn to use technology both in the classroom and on your own time more effectively.

Building Academic Vocabulary

Teaching specific academic related vocabulary can increase comprehension by 35%, according to Robert Marzano. This school year, Arizona House Bill 2064 indicates that all SEI (Sheltered English Immersion) classrooms must dedicate an hour of instruction to vocabulary development each day. Robert Marzano and Debra Pikering's book, Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher's Manual, is a good resource for how to implement vocabulary instruction. There are also some great online resources that can aid in your planning of this instructional segment. One in particular that I like is Building Academic Vocabulary.

Introduction

Hello to the world of educators! This is my first post on Educational Snippets! This blog will be dedicated to everything and anything related education. I am an educator and am excited to contribute to the mobile world of information via this blog.