TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Aug 4, 2013
Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive
STEMbite - Andrew Vanden Heuvel
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): atmosphere (22), energy (133), probability (99), STEM (310), video (267), waves (14)
In the Classroom
Use STEMbite videos as an anticipatory set or "activator" to introduce a unit or lesson on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Discuss the videos in STEMbite and informally assess the prior knowledge as you start a lesson or unit of study. STEMbite is a great find for gifted students (logic, unusual topics, in-depth investigation, and more). Be sure to include this site on your class web page or blog for students to access both in and outside of class. Have your students create their own first-person videos on a math or science topic. Create an online or printed comic similar to a STEMbite video on a science or math concept, First have students create a rough draft of their comic using Printable Comic Strip Templates, reviewed here. Next, use an online tool such as ToonyTool, reviewed here. To share a single video from this site without all the YouTube clutter, use a tool such as Clipchamp, reviewed here, or Watchkin, reviewed here.Tinkercad - Circuits - Autodesk
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): circuits (19), computational thinking (41), creativity (87), electricity (60), engineering (137), makerspace (40)
In the Classroom
This site is a great addition to any classroom lesson or unit on electricity or circuits. Try the activities as a class on your interactive whiteboard or projector, explaining what the symbols mean. Have students complete activities on their own using classroom computers. Take screenshots of the digital schematic students have created. Have students create an online presentation on electricity and circuits using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge. Some tool suggestions are (click on the tool name to access the review):Visme, and Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education.Tools for Educators - Mark Cox
Grades
K to 6This site includes advertising.
tag(s): back to school (55), handwriting (15), images (263), printables (36), puzzles (149), resources (83), worksheets (71)
In the Classroom
Easily integrate this site into your content to customize the tools available. Create word searches and crossword puzzles with your vocabulary words for any subject. Make your own board games to review or to spice up your stations or centers. Encourage students to join in the game-making to show what they know or to review and challenge their friends. Integrate your own content and questions to customize the games. The domino and dice tools allow you to customize them with your own words with images. Create engaging games to review sight words, vocabulary words, spelling words and more! The dice and dominoes provide great hands-on, minds-on activities to review world languages and other words in the classroom. Create your own BINGO games to review math concepts or any subject material. The maze maker is an amazing tool to engage students. Create squares with questions or content information. Students can answer math questions or other questions in content squares. The maze maker provides great activities for review or centers. Students tired of tracing disconnected material for handwriting practice? Use the tracing paper to enter your own content to make the activity meaningful. Students can also type their own work to print to practice typing and handwriting. All of the text is customizable in the certificate tool with tons of options. Create awards to recognize student accomplishments throughout the year.World Digital Library - Unesco
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): 1600s (20), 1700s (36), 1800s (75), 1900s (72), 20th century (62), africa (170), asia (136), australia (29), china (83), cross cultural understanding (178), europe (84), images (263), north america (15), south america (77)
In the Classroom
Use this site as a resource for viewing and learning about the many cultural treasures around the world. Display the site on your interactive whiteboard or projector to view images and documents from American and World History. Have students choose an item of interest to research further and then share using a tool like Slides, reviewed here. World language teachers can underscore culture lessons using these resources or have students explore and share their findings.Famous Inboxes - Mark Brownlow
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): creative writing (126), digital storytelling (155), gamification (86), social networking (61)
In the Classroom
Share Famous Inboxes with your students on your interactive whiteboard or projector using a character or author studied in class. Assign students to each of the inbox titles and have them write the actual email sent. Don't see anyone to use in class? Create your own or have students use the site as a model to create their own. Most likely, working in groups will get the creative juices flowing. This would be a great model to use for introducing a history or science unit or for looking at the relationships between characters in literature. Have students write the emails as an end of unit review. Subscribe to the RSS feed of this site to receive updated contents. Use the option to create an inbox as a differentiated challenge for your gifted students. For example: Summarize World War II by showing Winston Churchill's inbox, then write two of the key emails. As a "hook" for new books in the media center, have students create inboxes for one of the characters and post them with the book jackets. Instead of a "report" on a scientist, have students create their inbox documenting their research and accomplishments.Doorway Online Learning Activities - Philip Whittaker and Thomas Lee
Grades
K to 3tag(s): addition (127), alphabet (52), counting (61), keyboarding (28), Online Learning (36), phonics (52), preK (289), sounds (43), spelling (98), subtraction (108), time (91)
In the Classroom
If you have computer stations, you may want to set up different areas of this program to allow students practice time after instruction. Use the program with the entire class by putting an area of the program up on your projector or interactive whiteboard and having small groups of students decide what the answer should be. Post the link to this program on your website for students to practice at home.Project Noah - Networked Organisms
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): amphibians (17), animals (293), birds (46), insects (68), plants (148), qr codes (19), spiders (10)