Category: Websites

The Little Animals Activity Centre

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What it is: The Little Animals Activity Centre has several activities for kindergarten through second grade including read along stories, math practice, and music games. The read along stories are wonderful for following auditory directions.

How to integrate The Little Animals Activity Centre into your curriculum: Use The Little Animals Activity Centre to reinforce classroom learning. It offers read along interactive stories that invite students to follow auditory directions. The math section is great addition, and subtraction practice. Students can have fun with words and practice end sounds, first sounds, and rhymes. These are great little games and activities for practice. This site is also wonderful for teaching students how to use and manipulate the computer mouse.

Tips: Click on the teachers page for activity overviews, lesson plans, and printable worksheets.

 

 

Netsmartz Kids

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What it is: Technology is quickly changing the teaching and learning environment. The Internet in particular opens up our classrooms and students to the rest of the world. Netsmartz Kids teaches students about internet safety through fun songs, characters and interactive games. The site does not link to any outside sites. It is safe and easy to use.

How to integrate Netsmartz Kids into your curriculum: Before using the Internet in your classroom, introduce your students to the rules of the web through these fun songs and games. Netsmartz Educators offers wonderful activity cards and ideas for using Netsmartz in your classroom.

Tips: Allow your students to explore Netsmartz often, these skills cannot be reinforced enough! Tell parents about the Netsmartz Parents page where they can learn more about keeping their family safe online.

 

 

e-learning for Kids

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What it is: e-learning for Kids offers schools free and unlimited use of their courseware and access up-to-date content on children and learning. e-Learning for Kids provides a fun place to help your students build and strengthen skills in math, science, reading, computers and keyboarding. The programs are designed for kindergarten through sixth graders.

How to integrate e-learning for Kids into your curriculum: You can easily incorporate the e-learning for Kids courses into your current curriculums. Match up the e-learning for Kids courses with your current curriculum. Students can work on specific skills and access the self-paced programs independently. Students will be engaged and work at a level where they can perform successfully.

Tips: e-learning for Kids offers a free CD version of the courses. This is the perfect solution for computers that are not connected to the Internet or have an unreliable connection.

Dance Mat Typing

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What it is: Dance Mat Typing is a British site that teaches kids typing with fun characters and voices. The site features correct ergonomics and correct hand and finger placement. Students work through 12 stages to become top typist.

Integrating Dance Mat Typing into your curriculum: Use Dance Mat Typing to boost your students typing skills. This will make all of their computer time more productive! Encourage students to practice their typing skills with this site at home as well as at school. Set aside time once a month for a typing olympics where students can showcase their typing skills.

Tips: Create a bookmark for Dance Mat Typing so students can quickly and easily access the site. Allow them to practice their typing as an “I’m done, now what” activity.

 

 

Gamegoo

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What it is: Gamegoo features fun educational games that help students develop reading and language skills. When students play Gamegoo games, they are practicing the skills they are learning in class. Gamegoo is great for Kindergarten through third grade (although my fourth and fifth grade students still ask to play the games).

How to integrate Gamegoo into your literacy curriculum: Use Gamegoo games to reinforce literacy learning. In the one or two computer classroom, use Gamegoo as a center during literacy time. If you have access to a computer lab or mobile lab, build it right into your literacy curriculum.

Tips: Gamegoo has a great teacher section that gives descriptions, skills reinforced and grade levels of each game. Click on “Home” to get to the teacher section.

 

 

Wonderville

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What it is: Wonderville is a place where your students can explore science in a fun, interactive environment. Wonderville has science games, interactive activities, printable activities, science works videos, ever wonders (fun facts), and downloads. Topics covered include photosynthesis, energy, fossils, forces, weather, basic physics, robots, moon phases, water treatment, levers and much more! This website is best for 3rd-8th grade. Most of the activities are a little difficult for 2nd grade.

How to integrate Wonderville into your science curriculum: Wonderville is a wonderful way to introduce an activity or as a culminating activity. In the one or two computer classroom, set it up as an experiment station. In a computer lab or mobile lab setting, all students can complete experiments together. Use the free printable activities to enhance your current science curriculum. Students will love this hands on approach to science!

Tips: Bookmark www.wonderville.ca for quick access. There are two options on the site, Wonderville, and Wonderville 3-D. Unless you have an incredibly fast T1 line, stick to Wonderville. Wonderville 3-D is generally VERY slow running, especially when multiple students are trying to access it at once in a lab setting. Invite students to play the 3-D version at home.

 

 

Knowledge Bears

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What it is: Knowledge Bears (www.kbears.com) is a site dedicated to learning and fun for kids. It offers students information about animals, dinosaurs, geography, space, science fair projects, weather, farms, and underwater animals. This interactive site is a good place for learning to start!

How to integrate Knowledge Bears into your curriculum: Use Knowledge Bears to introduce a new concept…invite your students to fill out a graphic organizer such as a KWL chart while they explore. Knowledge Bears is also wonderful for teaching the basics of research. Primary elementary students can use knowledge bears for a research project. I play Knowledge Bear Jeopardy with my students when I am teaching them how to navigate the internet (use links). Separate your class into teams (each team needs a computer or group of computers, I use a projector for the Jeopardy game board) then play Jeopardy, the first team to find the answer on Knowledge Bears gets the point. The kids love this activity and it is a wonderful way to teach research skills.

Tips: Let kids explore this site on their own…they will love it! Download the Jeopardy activity from here: kbears jeopardy.ppt or kbears jeopardy.key.zip

 

 

Think.com

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 What it is: Think.com is a FREE online community for learning. Learning is social, think.com engages and inspires students by providing a wider (but protected) audience. It turns students into multimedia authors for their classmates and allows them to think and learn together. This is more than a blog and safe! Only teachers and students from your school can enter this password protected learning community (or you can open it up a little so that other schools can communicate with yours… like pen pals). Think.com allows members to use websites and interactive tools to publish their ideas, collaborate on projects, and build knowledge together.

How to integrate think.com into your curriculum: Think.com is incredibly motivational for students. It can be integrated into any subject and any curriculum. Give students a writing assignment and have them brainstorm together on think.com. Have them post projects they have been working on and encourage them to view each others projects and sites (you won’t have to prompt too much!) Students will use this tool outside of school and naturally extend learning on their own. They can create their own “homework help” pages where they are the expert. Learning a new language? Think.com offers the interactive learning tool to thousands of schools around the world in 8 languages, get real world language experience for your students! This tool is really limitless and can be used with students as young as second grade.

Tips: Think.com has tutorials for teachers, you can quickly and easily learn how to use the tool. Think.com also offers teacher-created lesson plans that incorporate think.com.

 

 

 

 

Read Write Think

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What it is: Read Write Think offers a collection of online student materials that support literacy learning in the kindergarten through twelfth grade classroom. The free interactive materials can supplement any curriculum and provide an opportunity for students to use technology while developing literacy skills. There are 52 interactive activities with everything from Word Family Sorts, to a Comic Creator.

How to integrate Read Write Think into your reading and writing curriculum: For the one or two computer classrooms, use one of the interactive activities from http://readwritethink.org as a center activity. Many of the activities allow students to demonstrate understanding of their reading. Allow students to use the activities as they complete reading. Read Write Think has hundreds of ready made literacy lesson plans that incorporate the interactive activities on the site. Use these when you have access to a computer lab or mobile lab.

Tips: Create bookmarks to the individual activities instead of the Read Write Think site. This will save students (and you) time.

 

 

Google for Educators

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What it is: Google is more than just a search engine, at www.google.com/educators you will find Google Tools for your classroom along with great ideas others are using Google in their classrooms. Google’s classroom tools include book searches, Google Earth, maps, news, iGoogle (a place where you and your students can collect useful content from all over the web and view it in one place), web search, custom search engines, Google notebook, Blogger, Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets (free!), Groups, page creator, picsa, SketchUp, and more! All of these tools are free to use and exceptional! Google tools make it easy to stay in contact with your students and families.

How to integrate Google for Educators into your classroom: Use Google Earth for real world geography lessons, have students pinpoint places in history and add relevant information and picture to Google Earth. Create a custom search engine for your students when research is required. Use Google groups to connect your students outside of the classroom. Create a web page for your classroom where you can easily update students and parents. Use Google Docs and Spreadsheets in place of costly word processing programs. Google Educator has fabulous ideas for integrating each of their classroom tools into the classroom.

Tips: Create your own custom searches for the elementary classroom, this will protect your students from inappropriate content that they may run across in a general web search. Use Google Docs and Spreadsheets so that students can save their work online and access it from home and school. Browse the classroom activities on Google Educator, there are some great ones!