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750 Words - Buster Benson
Grades
4 to 12tag(s): brainstorming (25), gamification (89), journals (22), process writing (46), writers workshop (34)
In the Classroom
To write daily is a good idea for students. It helps them clarify their thoughts and questions, and get in touch with their feelings. 750 Words would be perfect for any writing program or with gifted students who often feel very strongly about fairness and/or world issues well beyond their years. Students can get their thoughts and ideas written down without having to worry about a grade or someone chancing upon their writings in a school notebook. Here's an idea for any grade level. Have your students do free writes (stream of conscientiousness writing) starting with 5 minutes or more a day. Ask students to count their words daily when time is up, always trying to increase the word count. After a couple of weeks have them use 750 Words and complete the stream of writing on a computer or mobile device. (This shouldn't slow many of them down since most are quick at texting!). After the first day, and again after the second week, using 750 Words have a class discussion about which format they like better and why. Use a backchannel program like Meetings.io reviewed here, or Today's Meet, reviewed here, for the class discussion. Using one of these programs ensures that even your shy students have a chance to say what they think about 750 Words. Challenge your students to complete the 750 words at home. They can earn points, and you know how competition can inspire some of them! Resource students and ESL/ELL students could increase their writing skills and fluency by keeping an online, private journal daily with 750 Words. Emotional support, autistic support, or alternative ed students may find this private space to work out feelings very therapeutic.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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SoundBible - SoundBible.com
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use Sound Bible to find short sound clips for use in presentations, videos, or interactive whiteboard lessons. In primary grades, play sounds as cues for classroom management, such as bird sounds to gather "at the nest" for circle time. Use sound clips as story or journal starter ideas. Play a clip and have students create a story that incorporates that sound. Take your students on an audio tour of the rainforest as you learn about the various animals and sounds. Use this site during units about weather to share sounds from storms, wind, thunder, and more. Explore ocean sounds, animals sounds, etc. Use in world language classes to spark conversations and build vocabulary. Play background sounds during creative writing class. Challenge students to write about how the sounds make them feel. Challenge gifted or digitally-clever students to use these sounds to create an all-audio story to accompany a drawing or image. Use a tool such as Brainshark, -reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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CommonCore Sheets - Common Core Sheets
Grades
2 to 8This site includes advertising.
tag(s): charts and graphs (199), decimals (127), fractions (231), measurement (179), money (184), negative numbers (20), operations (119), order of operations (40), parts of speech (67), primary sources (91), probability (135), sentences (49), time (139), timelines (57), variables (20)
In the Classroom
Find worksheets for every subject to better prepare your students for Common Core standards and testing. Use the sheets to make a formative or even summative assessment for many different topics in math. Use as a review or even practice. Provide this link on your class website for students (and parents) to find extra practice. Printable answer keys come with the worksheets. Allow students to create their own quizzes. Easy to use, grade, and share. Use for gifted students needing some acceleration. Use for extra practice with students struggling with new concepts.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Phrase.it - phrase.it
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): bulletin boards (20), comics and cartoons (61), images (279)
In the Classroom
The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Teach parts of speech and grammar by having students write captions using colorful adjectives, adverbs, or specific sentence structures on a random photo. Make classroom signs and reminders. Caption the homework directions on your teacher web page. Ask your students to create captions for class photos for all sorts of reasons. Use this site for back to school fun. Post a photo of yourself with a caption on your class website introducing yourself to the class during the summer. Challenge each student to find/share a photo of themselves either the first week of school (or even prior to school). You will want parental permission before posting any student photos on your class website. Use photos or digital drawings from your classroom, such as pictures taken during any hands-on activity. Have students draw in a paint program, save the file, and then add a caption. Spice up research projects about historic figures or important scientists. Have literary characters "talk" as part of a project. In a government class, add captions to photos explaining politicians' major platform planks during election campaigns. Caption the steps for math problem solving. Even elementary grades can make captions of an animal talking about his habitat or a "community helper" talking about his/her role, though you may have to do it together as a class to upload the image. Make visual vocabulary/terminology sentences with an appropriate character using the term in context (a beaker explaining how it is different from a flask?). Students could also take pictures of themselves doing a lab and then caption the pictures to explain the concepts. Share the class captions on your class web page or wiki. Leave directions to your class (for when a substitute is there). Use at back to school night to grab parent attention to important announcements. Have students make talking photos of themselves as a visual tour of their new classroom for parents attending back to school night. World language classes can create images explaining and using new vocabulary. Use the site's random photo offerings for clever caption contests in your new language. Have gifted students create PhaseIt pictures to explain new knowledge they gain in going beyond the basics. For example, as the class studies plate tectonics, they could make a collection of volcano images "explaining" their own history or describing the Ring of Fire. Gifted students of all ages can make simple Phrase It images to share their own thought provoking questions about curriculum content, such as "Which figure of speech would Shakespeare be willing to give up?" Be sure to include these thought provokers on a class wiki or blog for others to respond! (No need to single out the "thinker" by mentioning who created it if it would cause ridicule.)Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Quandary - Learning Games Network
Grades
3 to 9tag(s): creativity (119), critical thinking (116), ethics (20), game based learning (139)
In the Classroom
Try this activity on your interactive whiteboard (or projector). Create a quick poll (with no membership required) using Updwn, reviewed here, to view students' choices of actions to take throughout the game. Challenge cooperative learning groups to create videos and share them on a site such as TeacherTube reviewed here to explain the decision-making process for different scenarios.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Loose Leaves - looseleaves.me
Grades
2 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): blogs (83)
In the Classroom
Use this site for students to post or collect material for simple projects such as stories, poems, and art projects. Collect a master list of urls to student pages on your classroom website, wiki, or blog for easy access. If students are creating pages, be sure to check with your district's policy on publishing student work. The beauty of Loose Leaves is that there aren't any identifiers such as email address, name, or other information about the user. Publications are completely anonymous, if desired. Create pages for quick link sharing or for upcoming events such as field trips, class party information, school events, science fair, etc. Students can create simple pages to share links to include in presentations so classmates can participate on laptops. If you are beginning a major creative project such as a literary magazine or research project, Loose Leaves is a wonderful place for writers to collect questions and ideas to be developed later. Share this one with your gifted students as a place to collect written ideas or to collaborate on any kind of writing, such as a poem or script. Just be sure your disorganized ones save both the sharing urls: the one to view it and the one to edit it. If they do not mark these and save them to favorites, they will be gone forever! (You COULD start the page for them and give them the url to edit it... but you would not be helping them learn organization skills!)Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Whyville - Mundeon
Grades
4 to 10tag(s): aircraft (25), animals (319), dance (27), diseases (71), logic (247), money (184), motion (70), puzzles (205), recycling (59), social skills (23), vectors (23)
In the Classroom
In the classroom, join as a teacher and manage each students account. Reinforce safe online behavior as your students explore opportunities for learning.The chat feature is a perfect opportunity practice safe interactions. Demonstrate this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Use as a reward in your classroom or as a way to extend and enrich concepts learned in math and science. Offer Whyville as a safe enrichment tool for students to use at home. Encourage all students to join in the educational activities. Design a simplified version of this site for younger children with your class. Use one of the many animation tools available at the TeachersFirst Edge.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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History for Kids - history-for-kids.com
Grades
K to 6This site includes advertising.
tag(s): boston (13), california (26), dinosaurs (50), england (54), gold rush (19), greece (27), myths and legends (26), olympics (51), romans (35), vikings (10)
In the Classroom
Make history (and mythology) come alive in your classroom with a little rhythm and rhyme! Use the poems to supplement your instruction while even adding tambourines, clapping, tapping, or toe tapping reaching all learners. Share the actual poem on your projector or Interactive whiteboard. If you want students to have a hard copy of the poem (to use as a study guide), print it out. Otherwise, save paper and share the link on your class website. If you can't find the history or mythology topic you are studying, it is time for your students to make their own rhymes. Have students create poems for photos and images using UtellStory, reviewed here. This tool allows narrating and adding text to a picture.To find Creative Commons images for student poems (with credit, of course), try PhotoPin, reviewed here. Have a poetry day featuring what you have studied in history. Be sure to add your students' projects to your class website or blog. Gifted students will enjoy the challenge while struggling learners will enjoy the reinforcement of the main ideas.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Energy Kids - US Energy Information Administration
Grades
K to 8tag(s): conservation (122), energy (210), natural resources (57)
In the Classroom
Share the resources found here on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Use this site as part of your wiki on energy, renewable resources, and conservation. Add to a center to improve reading skills as well as new literacies in technology. Find excellent information to include for your Prezi, Powerpoint, or Live Binders on energy. Enhance your ESL/ELL students understanding of your energy unit using the visuals and reinforcement of basic concepts.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Brain Genie - CK12 Foundation
Grades
1 to 12tag(s): angles (87), area (71), cells (101), decimals (127), ecology (133), equations (154), evolution (103), fractions (231), game based learning (139), genetics (89), logic (247), molecules (46), money (184), operations (119), patterns (87), percent (80), perimeter (29), photosynthesis (33), place value (55), probability (135), problem solving (294), ratios (63), respiration (17), sequencing (29), STEM (205), volume (53)
In the Classroom
Find great ideas for using this tool in the classroom with this video. Be sure to include this link with your resources for students to find alternate explanations to topics for better understanding. Assign various topics as a review in addition to lecture and other classroom activities. Assign a specific topic (not already learned in class) for cooperative groups to view. Have students create a word cloud of the important terms they learn from this site/activity using a tool such as WordItOut, reviewed here. Take this a step further and ask students to create an interactive infographic explaining the words using Infogram, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Noun Project - The Noun Project
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): digital storytelling (151), graphic design (39), images (279), infographics (51), stories and storytelling (34)
In the Classroom
The symbols are useful for autistic support, emotional support, ESL/ELL, and even in world languages. Use these vector diagrams for creating infographics and pictograms in any content area. Use a site such as Easel.ly, reviewed here or Venngage reviewed here. Challenge students to tell a rebus-style story using simple symbols only. This is a fun and imaginative way for students to think creatively. Use these symbols to create classroom signs. Teach students digital citizenship along with creativity by learning to give credit for resources used as they explain. Try using icons like these in the navigation area of a wiki or class website instead of words to increase the accessibility to others. Be sure to include this site as a list of resources for students to use on your wiki or class website. Students can access images to tell their story or to relate/teach content to others. Encourage students to create their own symbols for use in telling a story (great if students have access to programs that can create vector images). Special ed teachers may want to use these symbols on communication boards. Note: since file downloads are slow, you may want to download a collection for your specific lesson or project outside of class time and offer the files to students locally in a shared folder or on a class wiki. Teachers of non-readers will find these symbols useful in making classroom rules or signs.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Dream Quest One Poetry and Writing Contest - DREAMQUESTONE.COM.
Grades
4 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): creative writing (170), poetry (222)
In the Classroom
Help students overcome writer's block by exploring this site. Motivate your students with the many writing contests given (for a fee) or do them locally for free. The resources provide a direction for students and teachers to explore in the world of writing and poetry. Explore the many ways to encourage writing using the Internet resources. Use the free ebooks as printed material for your poetry study during poetry month or a unit on poetry. Examine the writing ebook given. Encourage groups to make their own ebook of writing tips. Challenge students to use a site such as Ourboox, reviewed here. Ourboox creates beautiful page-flipping digital books in minutes, and you can embed video, music, animation, games, maps and more.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Sound Around You - University of Salford
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): cross cultural understanding (127), listening (85), maps (292), senses (32), sound (106), sounds (68)
In the Classroom
Those who teach geography and world cultures will like this! Use this resource to get your students thinking about the sounds around them. Include it when studying sound or the human ear in science class. Connect with other subjects by envisioning smells that would be there or craft a story inspired by the sounds heard at a specific location. Play sounds for your younger students and ask what they hear. Create sound stories together -- or as a creative project --by playing a series of sounds to tell the tale! Use your imagination to add this resource to other location projects used throughout the year. World language teachers could assign students to create a sound and word story about a cultural location. Use these sounds as background and add the dialog!Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Cyberchase - PBS KIDS
Grades
3 to 7tag(s): data (157), engineering (134), fractions (231), money (184), problem solving (294), sports (97), weather (205)
In the Classroom
Introduce math concepts in a unique way, using Cyberchase adventures on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Use this site at your centers/stations to practice, use, and apply math and science skills. Put a link on your class website for students to use for review, reinforcement, and enrichment.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Multiplication - Krimsten Publishing
Grades
1 to 6This site includes advertising.
tag(s): multiplication (209), operations (119)
In the Classroom
Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector when introducing new facts. Use this site at centers or as a homework activity. Find all necessary tools for your class including flashcards, quizzes, practice sheets, and bingo cards. Motivate your reluctant learner as well as add challenge to gifted learners. Give this site to parents as a resource to practice multiplication at home.Comments
Good web site with lots of interacting games.Kevin, SC, Grades: 0 - 5
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Fetch - PBS Kids
Grades
2 to 8tag(s): animal homes (63), birds (52), dinosaurs (50), diseases (71), literacy (104), machines (26), simple machines (35), vocabulary (314)
In the Classroom
Invite Ruff Ruffman into your classroom to add spice to your science, language arts, and math curriculum. Although contestants are ages 10-14, younger students would benefit by watching the activities. Some may be too challenging for younger students to complete on their own. Students will identify with the contestants as they learn and laugh along with Ruff. Add a Ruff adventure or interview as an anticipatory guide for a unit. Share a clip or experiment on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Use as a way to enrich during your unit on mammals, motion, or problem solving. Have older elementary students (or middle school) become familiar with the show's format, and create an "episode" based on your unit of study. Challenge cooperative learning groups to create videos to share using a site such as TeacherTube reviewed here. Create a writing experience from episodes given. Use an episode as a spark to begin a further area of inquiry. Add to your computers as a center time activity, or even as a special earned award. Share on your website as an enrichment source, or a great place for educational learning.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Martha Speaks - PBS Kids
Grades
K to 3tag(s): literacy (104), preK (284), rhymes (30), sight words (36), vocabulary (314), vocabulary development (120)
In the Classroom
Intrigue your students to follow the dog, Martha, into new vocabulary learning. Share a book (or video of the show) with your students before introducing this site. Students from Kindergarten through second grade will benefit from the variety of learning activities. Add this site to your centers for an engaging way to learn vocabulary. Add this link to your class website for review or enrichment.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Dance, Factors, Dance - Stephen Von Worley
Grades
4 to 10tag(s): factoring (31), factors (40), number sense (95), prime numbers (31)
In the Classroom
This is an excellent visualization tool for demonstrating factors and prime numbers. View as a class on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) and explore the different patterns displayed. Have students watch for patterns as numbers grow, or question what happens when numbers are odd or even. Have students explore the site on their own; then use as a journal prompt for students to discuss their exploration of numbers. Ask students how they visualize numbers in their own heads. You may be surprised to learn that some students have visual images of number concepts! Teachers of gifted or visually talented students may want to ask them to create their own "visualizations" of numbers using an animation tool from the Edge.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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I Fake Text - iFakeText.com
Grades
2 to 12This site includes advertising.
tag(s): creative writing (170), text to speech (18), writing prompts (91)
In the Classroom
Have two characters from a book or two famous people text each other. Create short poetry using this tool. Provide some opening text and ask students to write their guesses of the other person's answers. Have students practice a dialogue or questions and answers. Create a fake text of a conversation and have students use inference skills to state what happened before and after the conversation. You could even use it as a writing prompt. Teach important texting etiquette using this tool. Use a fake text on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) to display word definitions in a fun way. Use this site with your ESL/ELL students (or those learning to read) and have the site READ the text to the students. The ability to use the "text to speech" makes this an easy tool for any age student to try! Tear down the boundaries of delayed reading. Create fake texts of homework or project reminders and post them on your class wiki or web page.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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ReadWorks - ReadWorks.org
Grades
K to 12Teachers can create classes to assign reading and track assessments (which are automatically graded). After signing up with email, click on Admin from the top menu and create a class. Students join the class by using a code and their Google account. No Google account? No problem. Create a roster and provide the class code to students. Easily create assignments for the whole class, or individuals as a way to differentiate.
tag(s): characterization (17), context clues (7), figurative language (17), guided reading (46), independent reading (123), main idea (8), parts of speech (67), plot (11), point of view (10), reading comprehension (129), reading strategies (55), sequencing (29), themes (12), vocabulary (314)
In the Classroom
Show students how to sign up and log into ReadWorks using a projector or interactive whiteboard. Complete a sample assignment together. Use ReadWorks in blended learning or flipped classrooms leaving class time for asking questions and clarifying. Post the link on your website and consider assigning the Article-A-Day for at home reading. Rotate the subjects weekly and discuss the topic the next day in class. Consider using a back channel tool such as GoSoapBox, reviewed here, for the discussion, so even your quiet and shy students feel comfortable participating, and you can get analytics after the discussion. Teachers of all subjects, but especially science and social studies, can find topics for students to read for their subject. Then challenge students to research the topic further. Redefine learning by having students submit their findings to a special class magazine using Underline, reviewed here, created for the topic. Differentiation can be accomplished easily by assigning to individual students, or you can create multiple classes, which would actually be small groups, who read at the same level or have the same topic interest.Once the students are familiar with the site use Symbaloo Learning Paths, reviewed here, to assign reading to groups at the same reading level. Older students, once they know their reading level, can their select reading and create their own Symbaloo Learning Paths. Check these to make sure students include all types of reading, and that they are challenging themselves. After several selections, ask older students to choose the topic they were most interested in, find resources to learn more about the topic, then transform their learning by presenting their findings using a multimedia tool such as (click on the tool name to access the review): Canva Infographic Creator, Lucidpress, Powtoon, and Biteable.
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