TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Jun 19, 2011
Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive
Democracy Kids - Duckster
Grades
2 to 8tag(s): branches of government (64), congress (39), democracy (19)
In the Classroom
Use this site as a basic introduction to social studies lessons on the Houses of Congress and the judicial and executive branches by exploring the links at the bottom of this page. Encourage your students to write letters to senators or representatives after learning about their accessibility. Assign students specific government officials to research and prepare a multimedia presentation to share with the class. Have students create a Thinglink, reviewed here. This site allows users to narrate a picture. Have students create a simple online posters using PicLits (reviewed here). Rather than a traditional report, challenge students (independently or collaboratively) to create an online book using a site such as Mixbook (reviewed here).You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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TVA Kids - Tennessee Valley Authority
Grades
2 to 12tag(s): electricity (61), nuclear energy (20)
In the Classroom
Share this site with students on your interactive whiteboard or projector and allow students to explore on their own. Create a scavenger hunt with questions from the students and have students explore the site to find answers. Watch videos on your interactive whiteboard during lessons on energy production, conservation, or history lesson. After learning about a specific topic, challenge cooperative learning groups to enhance their learning by completing a presentation with "talking pictures" using Blabberize.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery for Kids - Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Grades
3 to 8In the Classroom
Introduce this site on an interactive whiteboard or projector and try the activities as a whole class. Or have small groups rotate to a whiteboard and manipulate the activities together. Put a link to the activities on your class website and let students use as a center. Use the quizzes as a pretest to see what students already know. When you have finished studying the unit have students retake the quiz to see how much they learned. Print out the provided activities and use for homework or to provide extension activities for more advanced students.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Pi Land - Eve Andersson
Grades
7 to 12tag(s): pi (26)
In the Classroom
Introduce this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector, then allow students to explore on their own. Use the poems, photos, and other aesthetics as examples, then have students create their own Pi aesthetics to share on your classroom website or blog. Have a class competition to see who can memorize the most digits in Pi after training with the Pi memory trainer.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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History of Vaccines - College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Grades
8 to 12In the Classroom
This site is ideal for an interactive whiteboard or projector. Have the students open the site and use the whiteboard tools to do a general overview of the history of vaccines. Students can then select specific areas of interest and go to the articles section to get more information on areas of their choice. Enhance learning by having students create an online poster project combining information from here and from their own research using a tool such as Web Poster Wizard, reviewed here), or PicLits, reviewed here, or modify learning by asking students create their own interactive timelines using a site such as Sutori, reviewed here, that can include images, text, and collaboration.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Big Read - The National Endowment for the Arts
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): literature (217), resources (88), writing prompts (58)
In the Classroom
You will want to save this website to your favorites to return to it often and implement materials to fit your curriculum. The materials may be projected on your classroom whiteboard or projector to enhance background information, comprehension, and critical thinking for the literary selection you are currently studying. Thought provoking questions could be used for both oral and written responses.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Economist - The Economist
Grades
9 to 12tag(s): charts and graphs (170), data (148), statistics (120)
In the Classroom
Use the chart as a basis for writing prompts, fishbowl discussions, blog posts, and more. Create a wiki page about the background information of the chart. Consider using the topics here to conduct your own research and publish your own charts through a wiki or blog. Want to learn more about wikis? Check out the TeachersFirst's Wiki Walk-ThroughAdd your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Tortoise and Hare Race - Shodor
Grades
3 to 12tag(s): estimation (34), functions (51), measurement (124), patterns (62)
In the Classroom
Provide students with a copy of the explorations questions to complete alone or with a partner. Use on your interactive whiteboard for a quick 5 minute filler, change the amount of the tortoise's head-start each time to offer different outcomes each time. Ask students to predict the outcome of each race before beginning, allow changes midway, and discuss what is happening to change students' opinions.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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The Exquisite Corpse Adventure - Library of Congress, Nat'l Children's Book & Literacy
Grades
6 to 12tag(s): stories and storytelling (48), writing (319)
In the Classroom
Explore new worlds in reading by introducing your students to The Exquisite Corpse Adventure. Children of all ages have played progressive story games for centuries, where one person begins a story, stops at a cliffhanging moment, and the next person picks it up and continues, and so on, until everyone in the group has the opportunity to contribute. Take a look at the website to become familiar with the episodes and then put your own spin on a similar project. It can combine the tradition of oral storytelling with the written form, and even include illustrations so that you can tap into students' range of strengths and weaknesses. Whether you choose to "tighten the reigns" by setting the parameters, such as including the use of vocabulary, grammar, and literary elements you are studying, or letting it evolve spontaneously, the possibilities are endless. Best of all, the contributors get to decide what happens next. Perhaps students could be involved in creating a similar ongoing story on a class wiki (learn more about wikis at the TeachersFirst's Wiki Walk-Through. The story can continue throughout the school year and culminate with a digital story presentation created with tools from Educational Uses of Digital Story Telling.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Education Eye - Futurelab
Grades
K to 12tag(s): maps (207), search engines (49)
In the Classroom
Stay current in the latest ideas, technologies, and pedagogy around the globe. Be sure to save this one in your favorites. Share a result on your projector or interactive whiteboard to spark interest in real world topics related to your current unit of study.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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