Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Great Source i Write


The link takes you to the Grammar Handbook where you can view mini-lessons in video format however take some time to look through this site for lots of writing help. WOW!!

Monday, May 25, 2009

Night at the Museum

Mark Moore, WVDE consultant for Thinkfinity, has found some resources for Night at the Museum, Battle of the Smithsonian which opened this weekend in theaters
across our region. Check out these resources brought to you by the
Smithsonian and Thinkfinity.

Wolfram Alpha


Over the past week, every blog I read has posted about Wolfram Alpha. "It's a computational knowledge engine: it generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links." Some bloggers have compared Wolfram Alpha to the computer on the Enterprise in Star Trek! This site has been on-line for a little over a week and it has already had 100 million searches! When you check this out, go to the example page to see the potential of use. The FAQs helps to understand this new site and gives a link to a video to get more info. Think about using Wolfram Alpha with students when completing research projects. Great info! Just for fun...type in Hello and see the response. Then type in Do you speak Spanish? Wolfram Alpha has a sense of humor!!

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Target Grants

Field Trip Grants
The field trip grants are for next year and are due in August. The web site states: "Thousands of educators each year receive no-strings-attached funds to cover field trip-related expenses, such as transportation, ticket fees, resource materials and supplies."

Arts Grants
These grants are awarded to programs that bring the arts to schools or make the arts accessible to children and families.

Early Childhood Reading Grants
These grants support programs that foster a love of reading and encourage children, from birth through age 9, to read together with their families. I am considering this one for Family Reading Nights similar to Family Math!

Family Violence Prevention Grants
These grants support programs that strengthen families and communities by keeping them safe.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Kids Know It Network


Kid's Know It Network has some fantastic resources. Most recently I used it with 4th graders who were studying space. Click on Free Educational Movies on the left side and look to see what they offer. You'll find resources for all academic areas. Explore other areas of this site. There is plenty to use.

The Hobby Shop



The Hobby shop has wonderful science activities for some virtual hands-on activities. There is an interactive periodic chart, a catapult game, a rocket experiment and much more. The teacher resources list South Carolina CSOs and I am sure they can be aligned to ours. Great fun...and educational, too!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Jigsaw a Lesson


Remeber when we did a jigsaw lesson for professional development?? Just in case you've forgotten that great cooperative learning strategy, here's a site dedicated to Jigsaw!

Glogster for Education

I told you about Glogster months ago however I just found out they now have an educational section. This allows you to register and make rosters for your class. Sounds like Glogster will then give your user names and passwords for all your students. This is a great addition to this site and allows me to feel a bit more comfortable knowing that classes are separate from the regular site and are private. Glogster is a great tool for students to use for building projects for any subject. They can add video, photos and text to showcase a finished product. Check out this site and register your classes. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to view videos on how to use Glogster. Keep scrolling down to check out student samples. Build your own glogster to make a lesson for students! Enjoy!!

My Award Maker


Bloggers are buzzing about this free site! When you go into the home page you will find the templates for education. Click on the button and you will see lots of colorful and free templates to download. I chose one, filled it in, and printed it out but did not save it to my computer. It does appear that you can save the fillable form to use at a later time or you can just use the site whenever you need it! Thanks to Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day for sharing this resource.

Scientific Method Web Page

The Scientific Method Web Page looks to be a great resource for students in upper grades. I like the sections: Read It, See It, Watch It and Hear It. Then there is another section for a quiz. Thanks to Dan Trip for developing the site and all those bloggers out there who are sharing it with the world of education.