Curious George Measurement

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I use with my students. If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site. Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

If you check last week’s website suggestion, you know that our new math topic is working on measurement. Luckily, I teach first grade, so we are only measuring with non-standard units! However, PBS apparently has this one covered! In this week’s website, Curious George uses different items to measure how tall things are – coins, donuts, teddy bears, it’s perfect for non-standard units!  Click here to check it out.

Okay two weeks of very primary websites means next week we’ll have one more geared for everyone!

Hope you enjoyed this Wednesday’s Website suggestion – check back each Wednesday for a new Wednesday’s Website suggestion. Also, feel free to check out some of my previous Wednesday Website suggestions including: Science Kids, Find the Dog’s Bone, Storybird, Counting Money, Presidential Biographies and Math Magician.

Measuring Words on the Computer

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I use with my students. If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site. Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

 

It’s a new month, which means it’s time for a new math topic! This month, my class is working on measurement. Luckily, I teach first grade, so we are only measuring with non-standard units! Unluckily, it is hard to find computer games that focus on this topic. I was about to give up and let this month’s computer center simply focus on addition ( a skill we can always use practice in!), and then I came across a great PBS game that works on the language that goes along with measurement. You know: longer, shorter, higher, lower, heavier, lighter. For my English Language Learners, this will be a great way to work on that vocabulary that we as teachers “assume” that all of our students know! Here’s a link to the game, which uses Clifford to get kids thinking about those comparison vocabulary words.

 

Hope you enjoyed this Wednesday’s Website suggestion – check back each Wednesday for a new Wednesday’s Website suggestion. Also, feel free to check out some of my previous Wednesday Website suggestions including: Science Kids, Find the Dog’s Bone, Storybird, Counting Money, Presidential Biographies and Math Magician.

Super Social Studies Site

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I use with my students. If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site. Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

Last week, we looked at Science Kids, which is an all inclusive website for lots of science topics.  This week, we’re going to look at Social Studies for Kids, a great website for lots of different Social Studies topics including history topics, world religions and holidays and geography.  The write ups are very kid friendly and give just enough information on a topic for a 2nd – 5th grader to get what they need, without overwhelming them.

This was one of my favorite websites when I was doing Internet Scavenger Hunts with my students.  There is a lot of good information on Native Americans, US History and World Religions & Holidays.  I used it a lot this year to help ME and my students understand Muslim Holidays!

Hope you enjoyed this Wednesday’s Website suggestion – check back each Wednesday for a new Wednesday’s Website suggestion. Also, feel free to check out some of my previous Wednesday Website suggestions including: Science Kids, Find the Dog’s Bone, Storybird, Counting Money, Presidential Biographies and Math Magician.

Science Galore!!!

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I used with my students. If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site. Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

 

What science topic are you covering right now? I’m starting States of Matter next week, and I’m going to be using Science Kids, because it has tons of stuff for my kids! There are games, experiments, factoids, videos and even images! What’s really great is that there are 30 different topics covered on Science Kids, so you can use it for just about any science topic you have coming up.

 

 

I am going to use this website as a way for my students to do “research” in their Science Discovery Journals for the various experiments we will do. The videos are an especially good way for my non-readers to get some good information! We will also use the website for preview and follow up information as a whole class.

 

Hope you enjoyed this Wednesday’s Website suggestion – check back each Wednesday for a new Wednesday’s Website suggestion. Also, feel free to check out previous Wednesday Website suggestions including: Find the Dog’s Bone, Storybird, Counting Money, Presidential Biographies and Math Magician.

Presidential Information

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I used with my students. If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site. Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

 

With President’s Day a few days away, I thought I would follow up last week’s Wednesday Website suggestion of Multimedia Biographies with another biographical website – this time specifically on presidents. This website is actually a section of the White House’s website, and it has a terrific biography on each president. The biographies are a little long, so I always assigned reading them as a partner project. Usually, I would have each partner pair pick a president and complete the Biography Project about their president. Then, on President’s Day or another day late in January, I would allow them to come to school dressed as their president and present their projects. It’s also a great time to have parents come in and see what their students have done – and give you a chance to increase parent involvement!

 

Hope you enjoyed this Wednesday’s Website suggestion – check back each Wednesday for a new Wedensday’s Website suggestion. Also, feel free to check out previous Wednesday Website suggestions including: Find the Dog’s Bone, Storybird, Counting Money and Math Magician.

Free Online Biographies

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I used with my students. If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site. Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

 

With President’s Day, Black History Month and Women’s History Month coming up, I thought that this week’s Wednesday Website suggestion should include some biographies about some of those important people we study.  Multimedia Biographies (hosted by Harcourt Publishing) has biographies that are on a 3rd or 4th grade reading level.  (I have used it with grades 2-5.)  Each biography also has links to explanations of some of the important events for each person.  For example, George Washington’s biography has a link to an explanation of the Articles of Confederation.  The biographies are grouped by category, but can also be searched alphabetically.  I first used this site when I taught 3rd grade with my Black History Project and my Biography Project.  Then, when I taught in in the computer lab, I used this website for my Technology Projects.  Click on the images below to see some of the ways you can use this site.

  

Hope you enjoyed this Wednesday’s Website suggestion – check back each Wednesday for a new Wedensday’s Website suggestion. Also, feel free to check out previous Wednesday Website suggestions including: Find the Dog’s Bone, Storybird, Counting Money and Math Magician.

Show Me the Money!!!

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I used with my students. If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site. Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

My math topic for the month of January is counting and comparing money.  This may not seem like a big deal, as it’s part of every American curriculum I’ve ever seen.  However, for my students (who live in Morocco) counting American money is, well a foreign concept!  I do work on counting Moroccan money (dirhams) with them as well during calendar, but it is not technically part of my standards.  I also don’t have many manipulatives in my classroom.  (You would see my classroom wishlist board on pinterest!)  So, having them count money can be very time or money intensive on my part.  That’s why I was so excited to stumble back upon this week’s website while I was looking through my bookmarks.  It’s simply called Counting Money and it’s hosted by Harcourt School Publishers, but as of right now, it’s FREE, and I play to use it a lot with my students this month!!  Click on the picture so you can use it too!

Hope you enjoyed this Wednesday’s Website suggestion – check back each Wednesday for a new Wedensday’s Website suggestion. Also, feel free to check out previous Wednesday Website suggestions including: Find the Dog’s Bone, Storybird and Math Magician.

Kid Friendly Search Engines

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!!  For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia.  During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I used with my students.  If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site.  Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

 

This week’s Wednesday Website suggestion is a Kid-Friendly Search Engine.  Search Engines like Google and Yahoo are a major part of how people do research “in the real world”, so it’s very important for kids to learn how to use search engines properly.  However, I personally don’t want to be responsible for some student finding an “inappropriate” website or image when doing a Google search, so when I am working with kids, I use a variety of kid friendly search engines.  My favorite is AskKids, because it does a good, clear, easy search, but monitors the items found so that they are safe for kids to use.  The next time you ask your kids to do internet research, try using www.askkids.com to ensure to help them stay safe on the web.

 

Hope you enjoyed this Wednesday’s Website suggestion – check back each Wednesday for a new Wedensday’s Website suggestion. Also, feel free to check out previous Wednesday Website suggestions including: Find the Dog’s Bone, Storybird and Math Magician.

Online Stories for Kids

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!!

This week’s Wednesday Website suggestion was brought to my attention last year from my son’s first grade teacher.  (How many of you have ever stolen ideas you’ve seen your kids do?  I know I’m not the only one!!)  It’s called Storybird, and it’s made a HUGE difference with my reluctant writers.  I do a lot of writing in my classroom.  We do Free Write every week during centers, to allow students time to write for pleasure.  I use the Primary Narrative Writing Journal during Guided Writing to model my writing expectations, and I do Modeled Writing anytime I can fit it into a mini lesson.  However, Storybird is the one thing that finally got one of my stream of letters writers (you know lkjaoicmslikeis says lion) to write to write 4 true sentences (His story, about rabbits was:  I see rbts.  I see 8 rbs.  I see 2 rbs hop.  I lk rbs. – For those of you with beginning writers, you know how much that can mean!)

Storybird allows students to choose from real illustrations, and put them into a virtual storybook.  Then, they can write the words to go with the picture.  When they are finished, you are able to share their online stories with your class, parents, and even embed them on your blog!  It’s a great resource, and the basic version is FREE!

Hope you enjoyed this Wednesday’s Website suggestion – check back each Wednesday for a new Wedensday’s Website suggestion. Also, feel free to check out previous Wednesday Website suggestions including: Find the Dog’s Bone and Math Magician.

Fast Fact Practice

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!!

This week’s Wednesday Website suggestion is from Oswego Math Games (which could be a Wednesday Website suggestion all in itself!)  It’s called Math Magician, and it’s one of the best ways I’ve found for kids to practice their facts.  It has addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, so it works for grades 1-5.  Plus, each operation has 14 different levels, so it’s a great way for kids to progress through fast fact learning.  It’s also timed, which is great for my one computer computer station!  I’m using the addition section right now, in coordination with my addition quizzes, and it’s helping my kids a lot!

Hope you enjoyed this Wednesday’s Website suggestion – check back each Wednesday for a new Wedensday’s Website suggestion.  Also, feel free to check out previous Wednesday Website suggestions including: Find the Dog’s Bone.