Rhymer

 

What it is: Rhymer is a free online rhyming dictionary from Write Express. Students can find end rhymes, last syllable rhymes, double rhymes, beginning rhymes and first syllable rhymes.

How to integrate Rhymer into your classroom: Set up an inspiration center during a poetry unit. Students can stop by the center when they need a little poetic inspiration.

Tips: Bookmark this site for easy access.

 

 

imbee.com

 

 

What it is: Social networking is now school networking! Imbee allows teachers to extend their classroom beyond four walls and onto the Internet. Establish class blogs and promote online interaction and collaboration. Teachers and Parents can work together closely to guide and teach about social responsibility online while increasing classroom learning.

How to integrate imbee.com into your classroom: Use imbee as a platform for your students to publish their work. This will give students a sense of audience and act as a motivator for students. Students can collaborate on projects and help edit each others work. This is a wonderful tool for teaching students Internet safety and responsibility in a safe, controlled environment.

Tips: Visit imbee.com/teacher for lesson plans, a teacher tour, and to find answers to questions you may have about imbee. The creators of imbee are very open and willing to take teacher suggestions and implement them in new imbee versions.

 

 

Cavantastic

 

 

What it is: Canvastic is a great student focused graphics and text publishing tool for kindergarten through eighth grade. It has easy to use tools and options. You won’t find any of the “toy” features that you find in Kid Pix type applications. The control given to teachers is wonderful. Teachers can give students access to tools gradually so that as they learn more, they can use more. It actually grows with the user. It has the best spell checking feature for students I have seen. You can try Canvastic for free in your classroom for as long as you like but the print, export, and save features are disabled. For $39 you can purchase Canvastic.

How to integrate Canvastic into your classroom: Use Canvastic as part of your publishing center. Students can publish written stories complete with illustrations. Students can create their own graphic organizers on any subject using the Canvastic software.

Tips: Join the Canvastic community to contribute ideas for improvement of the software, how you are using it in your classroom, and to foster an atmosphere of communication and exchange. In the Community you will find example lesson plans that are tied to state and national standards.

 

 

 

Berenstain Bears

 

 

What it is: The popular children’s series, Berenstain Bears goes 21st century with their very own website. Students can visit the art gallery, read biographies of each of the bears, print out activities, read interactive story books, visit Barn theater for some Berenstain Bear videos, write an email to the Bears at the post office and more.

How to integrate Berenstain Bears into your classroom: Allow students to explore the Berenstain Bear site as part of their reading time. The site is sure to motivate students to read. This is a great site to have on hand for indoor recess days!

Tips: Make sure you have the most current Java and Quicktime players for the interactive books and videos.

 

 

 

Jan Brett

 

What it is: Author and illustrator Jan Brett has a wonderful website full of useful tools for teachers and fun activities for students.

How to integrate Jan Brett into your classroom: Use Jan Brett’s printable Classroom Help-a-longs to decorate bulletin boards, print name tags, and more. Print Jan Brett’s games for students to play when they finish an assignment early. Use the On Screen Computer Games during a unit on Jan Brett. There are so many printables and activities on this site, it will keep you busy all year!

Tips: Sign up for Jan Brett’s newsletter to receive an email when there are updates and additions to the site.

 

 

Zoho

 

What it is: Zoho is a free office productivity suite. Zoho Writer is an online word processor with collaboration features. There is no download or install, just sign up to start creating documents. Zoho Sheet is an online spreadsheet application where students can create and share spreadsheets on the web. Zoho Show is an online presentation tool to create, edit, publish and show presentations. Zoho Notebook allows you to create, aggregate, and collaborate on content online. Zoho Planner is an online organizer to maintain your todo’s, reminders, notes, and attachments. Zoho Meeting allows for desktop sharing, web conferencing, online meetings, and remote assistance.

How to integrate Zoho into your classroom: Zoho is an amazing tool. Use in place of office suites that require expensive licensing. What is helpful for the classroom is the ability for students to collaborate on projects. Students can begin a project at school and easily access it later at home.

Tips: Sign up requires an email address, if your students do not have an email address, set up a special email account just for Zoho (you can set up one email address that all students use, as long as they have different usernames this shouldn’t be a problem.)

 

 

I Know That Language Arts

 

What it is: I Know That Language Arts builds student’s language arts skills for kindergarten through sixth grade. Activities include word searches, word matching, word builders, scrambled stories, sentence puzzles, punctuation paintball, word tage, and more.

How to integrate I Know That Language Arts into your literacy curriculum: Instead of the standard DOL, set your students up for some Punctuation Paintball. Allow your students to use I Know That Language Arts for practice, as an extended learning activity, or as a center during literacy.

Tips: I Know That has some advertisements on its site, these can be removed by purchasing a subscription. I use the sites advertisements to teach my students about how to spot ads on a website and why some sites have ads. Check out the teachers guide for each game and activity for some great ideas.

 

 

The Little Animals Activity Centre

 

 

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.

 

 

e-learning for Kids

 

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

 

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.