Library for All Six Degrees of Education

 

I greatly appreciate people who recognize a problem and work in new, innovative ways to solve it. Today I learned about Library for All, who has just launched a truly innovative campaign to eradicate illiteracy in the developing world. The campaign is called Six Degrees of Education. Library for All is building on the theory of “six degrees of separation” to reach some key donors and influencers, such as George Lucas and Queen Rania. People who can help achieve the mission of providing access to books for millions of children in developing countries through the Library for all digital library.

Check out the Six Degrees of Education Library For All page and let’s see how our six degrees of separation can help spread literacy virally! Share on social media sites, when you are chatting with friends, or networking at a conference. According to the the six degrees of separation, if everyone who read this blog participated, we could help Library for All reach this goal in no time!

I relish the summer time because it provides me the opportunity to read, learn, and read some more. Everyone should know that gift! We can help, join me in spreading the word about Library for All’s Six Degrees of Education Campaign!

Oxford Owl Maths: math ebooks, activities

iLearn Technology Oxford Owl Math ebooksWhat it is: Oxford Owl is the awesome site I wrote about yesterday.  They have a fantastic collection of free ebooks and accompanying activities for kids.  The site is making an appearance in today’s post because they ALSO have Oxford Owl Math for ages 3-7.  There isn’t quite the breadth of resources here that you will find on the main Oxford Owl site, but they do have some great suggestions for math activities, both online and offline, and there are some online math e-books.  The 3-5 section currently has the most e-books, online math games, activity sheets that can be printed out, and offline games to play.

How to integrate Oxford Owl Maths into the classroom:  Oxford Owl Maths has some wonderful math themed interactive ebooks that include practice with position words, counting, shapes, time, and adding/subtracting.  The ebooks make for a great introduction or review in the kindergarten and first grade classrooms.  The telling time ebook and activities are even appropriate for second grade students.  In the kids treasure box, students can collect online trophies for the games and puzzles they complete, find recipes to make in the kitchen, and download offline activities.

Oxford Owl would be a nice center activity that even the youngest students could explore independently or with a partner.  It could also be used for whole class stories with an interactive whiteboard or projector.

This is a good site to introduce parents to for at home reading, play and math practice.  If you have a classroom website, Oxford Owl is a great one to link to!

Tips: If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the Oxford Owl Literacy site.

Tell us how you are using (or plan to use) Oxford Owl Maths in your classroom!

ABC Mouse: math, reading, geography, and science curriculum (interactives/games/books)

What it is:  ABC Mouse is a complete online curriculum for pre-k and kindergarten students that provides a step-by-step learning path.  There are six academic levels that include curriculum that includes over 350 interactive lessons and more than 2000 learning activities.  As a student completes one activity successfully, they are guided to the next.  The interactive lessons include online picture books, puzzles, games, songs, art, activities and printable activities that relate to different topics and disciplines.  Each lesson offers different ways to learn to meet the needs of a variety of students.  The reading curriculum in ABC Mouse helps students recognize letters and sounds of the alphabet and sight words.  There are hundreds of books build in including fables, fairy tales and non-fiction.  In addition to sight words, students can learn phonics, sound recognition and rhyming words/word families.   The math curriculum teaches students numbers, shapes, patterns and measurement.  Students will play games and activities that help them to recognize and count numbers 1-100, identify and draw shapes, and the meaning of addition and subtraction.  ABC Mouse’s World Around Us is an introduction to science, social studies and health curriculum.  In the World Around Us, students will learn about the body and health, sports, plants and animals, weather and seasons, and earth/moon/sun/stars.
The lesson builder, lets you choose the content and activities for students to interact with based on their needs and interests.  Progress tracking makes it easy to see the number of learning activities that have been completed.  There are a lot of fun goodies tucked away including a virtual zoo, farm, aquarium and the ability to record a book in your own voice.
This is a comprehensive, well put together site that is FREE to public schools in the United States and Canada.  It is a wonderful addition to the kindergarten classroom!

How to integrate ABC Mouse into the classroom:  ABC Mouse is a fun website.  Activities in ABC Mouse are fantastic for center use in a one-two computer classroom (or more).  The activities and games are short enough for a center activity that students can cycle through.

For kindergarten students in a computer lab, this is a great site to get their feet wet with the technology at the beginning of the year.  I often started my students on fun academic sites like Starfall.com where students could practice clicking, navigating, dragging/dropping, etc.  These type of sites build students computer confidence, improve their fine motor skills and provide them with content area learning at the same time.  I wish this site had existed when I was teaching kindergarten computer!

If you don’t have access to computers for the students but have an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer, students can take turns interacting with the ABC mouse activities.  The books make great class read along stories on the big screen!

ABC Mouse is a fun way to introduce new concepts/skills, as a place for students to practice concepts/skills, or for review.

Tips: If you aren’t at a public school, sign up for the sample content…the private school dollar amount is reasonable!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using ABC Mouse in  your classroom!

ePub Bud: ePublish Yourself

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What it is: ePub Bud is the YouTube of Children’s eBooks.  The site is YouTube-like in that anyone can create and share their own children’s ebooks.  The goal of this not-for-profit website is to provide an easy way to find, share, and self-publish children’s ebooks.  ePub Bud lets you create an ebook for a small audience, or for the whole world, digitize a real book by mailing in a physical children’s book and having it “digitized” for the iPad, upload an ebook file that you can read on the iPad, or download an eBook (classics and books others have shared).  Best of all, everything you do on ePub Bud is completely free!

How to integrate ePub Bud into the classroom: ePublishing is quickly becoming popular and more eReader devices are showing up in the classroom.  While there is nothing like holding a paper back book in your hand, their is also nothing like holding a good ebook in your hands.  Whatever we can do as teachers to get students reading, I say use it!  Use ePub Bud in your classroom to “publish” student stories.  The books can be shared with other students, parents, and schools.  Publishing an eBook of their own is highly motivating, and will have your students eager to write.  With ePub Bud, your students could construct their own text books.  Have them create ebooks about what they are learning to share with others.

If you have access to the iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad, consider sending in some of the books from your classroom libary to be digitized.  Many sites have free ebooks for kids, make them iPad, iPod, or iPhone friendly by uploading them to ePub Bud.  You can also search the extensive collection of classic children’s eBooks that are on ePub Bud and download those for students to read.  You will find children’s favorites from Beatrix Potter, Lewis Carrol, A.A. Milne, Frances Margaret Fox, Milton Goldsmith, and many, many more.

This is such a neat website and it is really and truly free.  You won’t even find advertisements on this site!

Tips: If you send in a book to be digitized, ePub Bud cannot send the original back for copyright purposes.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using ePub Bud in your classroom.

Wizz-e Free e-Books

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What it is: Wizz-e is a kids interactive e-book website.  Not all of the e-books are free, but they are SO high quality and definitely worth any investment.  Wizz-e does have some free e-books for you to preview.  Both Puss-in-Boots and the Elves and the Shoemaker are free to play online or download to your computer.  The stories can be read to students who may struggle with reading on their own.  Students can also choose to read the story independently without sound.  At the end of each e-book is a quiz that checks for comprehension.  Wizz-e also has a few games that students can play online including puzzles and hidden picture hide and seek.

How to integrate Wizz-e Free e-books into the classroom: The Wizz-e ebooks are a wonderful way to read a story as a class on a projector or interactive whiteboard.  With the large print and pictures, every student in the class can read along and see the illustrations clearly. These ebooks also make for an excellent reading center on classroom computers.  They are especially good for students who may struggle reading indpendently.  Students can listen to the story and follow along or read a page independently and then click to hear the story for understanding.  The e-books bring reading to life and will draw in your struggling readers.  Wizz-e only features two free ebooks but would be a worthwhile investment for your classroom library.  The site features a variety of topics and genres and has some amazing math and science stories that teach key concepts through story.  If you teach 3-8year olds the two free stories are must downloads!  The quiz at the end will ask students question at the book and help them to monitor their own comprehension.  The quiz models the questions that good readers ask as they read.

Tips: Because the Wizz-e books can be purchased, there is an option to purchase a gift certificate for the e-books.  This would be excellent to put on your wishlist for parents to donate to your classroom.  The e-books add to your classroom library but have the added bonus of creating a listening center where struggling readers can read along.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Wizz-e Free e-books in your classroom.