Teacher Tuesday: Starfall

This week, I'd like to feature a web site I read about on the Free Technology For Teachers Blog called "Starfall.com: Interactive Reading and Games." Starfall offers free online activities to help young students learn to read. Starfall covers everything from learning the alphabet to learning how to pronounce words. One of the best features of Starfall is in the "I'm Reading" section of the website. In the "I'm Reading" section students read short stories set in a variety of contexts. As students are reading, if they get stuck on the pronunciation of a word, they can click on any word in the story to hear it pronounced. This same concept applies to other activities offered by Starfall.

Check out this great blog at: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/05/starfall-interactive-reading-lessons.html.

Let me know what you think!

Family Fun Friday: Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs!!! My boys love learning about dinosaurs and I have found a great site to help make that learning fun: KidsDinos.com

With KidsDinos.com, Find out which dinosaur was the largest, which was the smallest, which had the most horns, the longest neck, or which ate the most food.   Dinosaurs ruled the earth for hundreds of millions of years. Than suddenly they disappeared. Where did they go?   Want to memorize dinosaurs? This fun and interactive tool will give you an easy headstart. Create a list of dinosaurs you want to study. Review them frequently until mastery is achieved.   Games, activities, and other fun and educational tools. Learning about ancient life should be fun.

Teacher Tuesday: Kidblog

I know from experience, that getting students to write can sometimes be difficult, but here is a website I found that may offer a possible solution.

Kidblog.org, I love it!

Kidblog.org is designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each student with their own, unique blog. Kidblog's simple, yet powerful tools allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community. Teachers maintain complete control over student blogs.

Application: Check out how this 4th grade teacher uses kidblogger in his classroom:

"Josh Bennett recently posted an article about using Kidblog with his 4th grade students. He talks about how blogs motivate students to publish their writing for an authentic purpose for a real audience.  He discusses his development of a blogging rubric utilizing elements from the 6 Traits of Writing.
Check out his succinct article for a nice taste of how student blogging can be en effective pedagogical tool in your classroom."

Try it out in your classroom and let me know what you think.

Family Fun Friday

If you are a space cadet like I am or have a Jr. Astronomer in your household, for the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope, Google released a new Google Earth tour of imagery captured by Hubble. It's awesome, the tour takes place in Google Earth Sky View. You can download the tour here or watch a preview in the video below.



Have a great weekend and enjoy exploring our beautiful universe together...

Teacher Tuesday

This week, I found a really neat resource for teachers and homeschoolers alike, called "Free Technology For Teachers." One of the features from this blog has to do with the 2010 Census and Google Maps, check it out

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/04/follow-2010-census-in-google-earth.html
 
According to his blog, "This Google Earth layer presents teachers with an opportunity to visually show students how much farther their local areas have to go in order to fully complete the Census. In a Civics class you could show students this data then challenge them to create their own campaigns to get people in their communities to complete the Census. Students could create a video or a multimedia collage (try Glogster) to encourage people to complete the Census form."

Let's get the word out, it's only 10 questions and only takes about 10 minutes to finish and mail back free of charge...

Happy Monday, Feel Free To Laugh Out Loud....

Family Fun Friday

Welcome to the first edition of Family Fun Friday. This is where I will review a website for the whole family to explore and have fun together.

Have you ever wanted to take the kids to a museum, but it's either too far away or closed that day. Never fear, there are a lot of museums that now have virtual tours or activities that you and your kids can do online together.

The National Museum of American History (part of the Smithsonian) is one of those museums. There are a lot of things to discover here. You can make a sod house, invent the light bulb with Edison, and even unlock the door to the "Nation’s Attic" by looking through the Museum’s collections online.

Go check it out and let me know what you think...