Miss Mosher’s Sites to Support Learning
Click on the picture below to learn why our students like attending St. Agnes.
Click on your grade level to work on skills you are learning in your tier groups.
Kindergarten Fine Motor and Basic Skills
My Favorite Sites Of The Year!
Have Fun Teaching
The music and dvds on this site provide great teaching songs and turn alphabetic principal into a fun rap. A great site for math development and skip counting as well.
Thinkfinity
http://www.thinkfinity.org/home
Bring more hands-on math, science, social studies, and reading to kids with this collection of experiments, online activities, videos and podcasts. Dive into the many multifaceted, multi-week projects on topics that kids love to explore. This site has tons of interactive games and online activities, kids learn while they play.
American Memory
memory.loc.gov
American Memory, maintained by the Library of Congress, is an online gateway to unique primary source materials that relate to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers seven million digital items including manuscripts, sheet music, photographs, films and sound recordings that are organized in more than 100 collections, such as Civil War Photographs, History of the American West, and Voices from the Dustbowl. The searchable content areas include economics, geography, social sciences and technology. The site also provides activities and lesson plans for using the collections in classrooms.
Blue Web’N
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/
Blue Web'n is an online library of outstanding Internet sites categorized by subject, grade level, and format (tools, references, lessons, hotlists, resources, tutorials, activities, projects). Blue Web'n does not attempt to catalog all educational sites. Sites are hand-picked and are, in our opinion, among the most useful for classroom or instructional use. To receive email updates, send an email message to bluewebn-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. You will then receive weekly emails of the top site picks for teachers! Check out the link for Filamentality – this is a terrific way for you to create and post online activities for your students as well as look for resources already selected by other educators. (School Center can also be used in this manner.)
BrainPOP
www.brainpop.com
BrainPOP is a producer of original animated K-12 educational movies that explain concepts in English, math, science, health and technology. There are a number of free movies available for teachers. For access to the more than 300 colorful narrated films on topics such as asthma, atoms, digestion, static electricity, photography and robots – teachers may opt to may for subscriptions to the site. It is all correlated to national standards from NCTM, NCTE and NSTA. The site also provides related educational content including games, quizzes, puzzles and activities, with opportunities for students to get questions answered and exchange e-mail with BrainPOP characters.
Crayola Creativity Central
www.crayola.com
This content-rich, free multimedia site presents art resources that are applicable to every curriculum area from pre-K through high school. Crayola offers craft and projects ideas for each grade level, instruction on art techniques for using different types of media, lesson plans and classroom teaching tips. It includes related content with games, quizzes and an online calendar featuring daily art ideas. The site has several search engines for finding topics easily, and hosts an online gallery that is one of the largest collections of student art on the Web.
Education World
www.educationworld.com
Education World was developed in 1996 as a free resource guide to make it easy for K-12 educators to integrate the Internet into the classroom. It has now become one of the most comprehensive sources of curriculum materials on the Web, offering a safe search of more than 500,000 resources, with original content that is not available elsewhere. This material includes lesson plans, teaching units, curriculum guides in every subject area, special features tied to the calendar, school reports, site reviews, professional articles and related resources.
I Know That
http://www.iknowthat.com/com
This is a fun interdisciplinary site that is easy to search and enjoyable for both teachers and students! Find interactive tools – searchable by content area and/or grade level. A wealth of information – useful for all elementary teachers!
Marco Polo
http://www.marcopolo-education.org/
Marco Polo maintains a collection of standards-based, discipline-specific educational Web sites for K-12 teachers. Each of the collections is sponsored by the major content organization supporting the national standards for that particular area. For example – visit Illuminations and you will find a wealth of awesome interactive Math resources for children sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Click on Expeditions and your students will be treated to an interactive exploration of geography via the link to the Expedition Hall. This site is sponsored by National Geographic. In a nutshell, MarcoPolo features seven content Web sites with lesson plans, student interactive content, downloadable worksheets, links to panel-reviewed Web sites and additional resources created by the nation's leading education organizations
The New York Times Learning Network
www.nytimes.com/learning
This is a news-centered multimedia education site for grades 3-12, with up-to-date features that change daily. These includes stories and photographs from the world-famous newspaper with related activities, guided Web tours on topics such as The Presidential Cabinet or Westward Expansion, news summaries and quizzes, and a variety of free question services. The network also maintains an excellent collection of curriculum materials in every content area.
Grade Level Gold
www.gradelevelgold.com
This site is a goldmine of free, teacher-selected online curriculum sites and materials targeted for each K-12 grade level and subject area. It includes resources for teachers and parents. Identified teacher advocates update the content in each area regularly, and send out weekly grade-specific e-mail identifying curriculum-rich online resources.
The WebQuest Page
webquest.org
The WebQuest model, developed by Bernie Dodge with Tom March at San Diego State University, is an inquiry-centered learning investigation where most or all information is drawn from the Web. This Dodge-hosted site is a forum for exchanging WebQuest ideas and resources, with examples at every grade level and content area. Follow the links for “Top, Middle, and/or New” on the left navigation window of the site. You’ll then be able to search through the Webquests based on grade level.
LANGUAGE ARTS AND LITERATURE
Read between the Lions- PBS kids
http://pbskids.org/lions/games/
Poetry for Kids
http://www.gigglepoetry.com/
Mad Libs
http://www.penguinputnam.com/static/packages/us/yreaders/madlibs/fun.html
Wacky Web Tales
http://www.eduplace.com/tales/
Geared at grades 3 and above – provides a great number of different interactivities along the lines of mad libs. This is a great extension site for reinforcing parts of speech. Students will enjoy creating their own Wacky Web Tales and sharing with peers.
Kidsreads.com and Teenreads.com
www.kidsreads.com, www.teenreads.com
These related sites are outstanding places for students to find information about their favorite books, series, authors and characters. Each site offers reviews of the newest titles, in-depth author profiles, interviews, announcements of book awards, games, puzzles, contests and opportunities for readers to write book reports and post ideas.
Reading Primary
Starfall
http://www.starfall.com
Julia’s Rainbow Corner
http://www.juliasrainbowcorner.com/html/funandgames.html
PBS Kids - Reading Rainbow & Read Between the Lions
http://www.pbskids.org
Spatial Concepts & Learning Adventure – Numerous interactive Preschool & Kindergarten Activities
http://www.meddybemps.com/9.600.html
http://www.meddybemps.com/7.33.html
Apple Picking with Wilbur the Worm – comparing and classifying sizes.
http://www.little-g.com/shockwave/apple.html
Kinderweb – identifying shapes, colors, and animals
http://bright-productions.com/kinderweb/index_silent.html
Language Arts Skills
http://www.joelson.addr.com/languagearts.htm
Reading Intermediate
America Reads – Just for Kids |
http://www.ed.gov/inits/americareads/kids.html Submit online book reviews |
Houghton Mifflin EducationPlace (Grades 2 and up) |
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmsv/
|
Book Adventure |
| Story Place | http://www.storyplace.org/ (In English & Spanish) |
| Read Write Think | http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/index.asp |
MATHEMATICS
AAA Math
www.aaamath.com
Select either a Math topic or a grade level to explore interactive, age-appropriate resources. This would be a good site to reinforce math concepts with students.
A+Math
http://aplusmath.com/
Flashcards, educational math games, etc. – More interactive sites to reinforce concepts.
ENC Online
www.enc.org
The Eisenhower National Clearinghouse maintains one of the best selections of K-12 math, science and technology education resources on the Internet, offering curriculum materials and services for educators, parents and students. These include thousands of online teaching materials and lesson plans categorized by topic, a "Digital Dozen" of featured monthly sites and related curriculum news that is updated daily.
National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/nav/vlibrary.html
Click on the grade level/subject area on the matrix to find age-appropriate interactive math activities for students. The tools on this site are extremely engaging and valuable to students to help learn and/or reinforce concepts.
Illuminations from NCTM
http://illuminations.nctm.org/
Similar to the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives – this site provides additional interactive math activities for students. These would serve as terrific extensions to help support the math curriculum. Follow the links for tools and resources to find very rich activities for your particular age group.
Natural Math
http://www.naturalmath.com/mult/index.html
More interactive Math activities.
The Math Forum @ Drexel
http://mathforum.org
The Math Forum, now housed at Drexel University, is truly the "last word" for in-depth online resources for any topic in mathematics from K-12 through college and advanced math. The site offers teaching and learning materials for arithmetic, algebra, geometry, probability/statistics and calculus, with weekly and monthly challenges, online discussions, a question-answering service and presentations on key education issues. (This is more teacher-focused than some of the other sites.)
SCIENCE
K-12 Science Curriculum/Projects
http://www.k12science.org/currichome.html
There are numerous engaging science resources on this site including collaborative projects, real-time data collection projects and more! Sponsored by the Center for Engineering and Innovation in Science Education.
eNature.com
www.enature.com
This site would be good for intermediate students researching various animals. This comprehensive nature resource sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation, offers free illustrated field guides to more than 4,800 plants and animals, including amphibians, reptiles, insects, mammals, trees and wildflowers. The site also provides opportunities to learn about various habitats, keep online field notes, ask questions of experts, participate in discussions, hear bird songs and receive related newsletters.
Science NetLinks
www.sciencenetlinks.com
This site offers a wealth of free resources to support K-12 science, including standards-based lesson plans, recommended resources grouped by grade levels, and curriculum "benchmarks." The site also uses multimedia technologies, such as radio updates on science topics.
SwitcherZoo
www.switcherzoo.com
Follow the link for “Play Switch Zoo Online” to enter the interactive site for students. Students can develop their own breeds of animals – they have a blast developing these via the interactive zoo tool. The products of their creativity make for great writing prompts, story starters, and focal points of poetry. Visit the educator’s gallery for lesson plan ideas that correspond with this interactive site.
The Yuckiest Site on the Internet
http://yucky.kids.discovery.com/
Find links for “Your Gross and Cool Body” – great explanation for kids on the digestive system! Follow the link to “Worm World” and learn how worms help our environment (great extension for earth science)!
SOCIAL STUDIES
CNN Student News
www.cnnstudentnews.com
This information-rich multimedia site relates daily news stories to middle and high school curriculum content to help learners keep pace with world events. It offers a variety of teaching and learning resources, including background articles, online forums, films, sound clips and animations, and a powerful search engine for finding specific topics.
Time 4Kids
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/
The online version of Time for Kids magazine, is the news, homework helper and exploration destination for kids on the Internet. The site keeps you on top of the news and lets you create, learn, get involved, explore, play games and access tools to help you with your homework.
Live Webcams – a great way to bring the “World” into the classroom
Africam
http://africam.com/
Feeling brave? Travel with your students to the Serenghetti via a live Webcam. Take a peek at what the animals are doing at one of the multiple live webcams posted in the Djuma Game Reserve in South Africa. (Keep in mind it may be dark at the game reserve depending on what time of day that you are visiting.)
Bahamas Cam
http://www.perryinstitute.org/
Live from the Perry Marine Institute.
For more live web cams – visit the Discovery Channels Webcam link at
http://dsc.discovery.com/cams/cams.html
HEALTH, NUTRITION AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION
KidsHealth
www.kidshealth.org/kids
Sponsored by the Nemours Foundation, KidsHealth provides accurate, doctor-approved, jargon-free health information about children from birth through adolescence. The site offers a separate area for kids with age-appropriate content and offers thousands of original articles, animations, interactive activities, games and resources developed by health experts. This would be a terrific resource to provide students with an interesting site to research the human body systems.
Parents and Teachers Can Click on the Picture Below For Resources on MTSS, Assessments and Tiers:
Got questions-God has the answers and He has given us many different people to learn from.
So you can ask your parents, ask a teacher, ask a friend, or click on the picture below to ask another expert.
Here Are Some Ideas If You Do Not Have Internet But Have A Computer In Your Home:
- PowerPoint – It’s not just for presentations! Do away with PowerPoint coma in your classroom! Make the shift to thinking about PowerPoint for its multimedia capabilities.
- Develop interactive stories. Remember the days of Choose Your Own Adventure Books? Think Choose Your Own Interactive Adventure delivered by PowerPoint. The curricular focus of this example would be writing/story development. After developing out an adventure, pair intermediate students with primary story buddies – encourage older students to share their creations with younger buddies!
- Develop story problems in math and solve using clip art, web graphics, or the drawing tools to illustrate the problem and/or solution. The class could then compile an entire PowerPoint of problems/solutions and could then solve each others work! In this example the use of images/clip art serve as digital manipulatives to help students connect with problem solving and mathematical concepts.
- Publisher – may be used to engage students in producing professional looking products of their learning on a given topic. Examples include:
- In readying for a special program or presentation to parents, students may produce invitations, flyers or signs to advertise the event. Peer editing, drafting, and other steps in the writing process would apply in the implementation of this project.
- Produce a travel brochure as the capstone product of research on states, capitals, or regions.
- Select a historical period and create a newspaper from the perspective of the editor/journalist who lived during that era. Utilize the technology to help develop a rich vision of the era by inserting period images obtained from clip art, the web, or the Library of Congress American Memory Project (www.loc.gov/memory)
- Prepare a guidebook for a family or “client” who will be traveling to a specific area students have researched.
- Create a publication for a historical period, famous figure or location. Complete an in-depth study of the Westward Movement by creating a newsletter that follows a group of pioneers as they head west. Students could distribute updated newsletters, showing the progress of their journey. (In addition, Excel could be used to calculate and graph travel time and journey expenses.)
- Use the Paper Folding Projects -Airplanes and Origami Wizard to create fun projects to reinforce concepts in geometry and physical science.
- Excel - may be used in any situation where students have collected data and need to analyze and represent their results.
- Develop a data sheet and chart representing student survey data
- How many of each color m&m in a package
- How many student birthdays by month
- Probability study – reporting the results of coin flips
- Student opinion surveys, etc.
- Develop data sheets and charts representing their progress in the classroom. In this example intermediate students might keep their own gradebooks to chart their own progress in the classroom. This has been a successful use of Excel, particularly with students who lack motivation. If they can see their progress in chart form – it tends to keep them motivated an on track.
- Primary teachers may use Excel to develop pictographs with students. Students can explore numbers and different representations through the creation of a pictograph by inserting clipart or other images into a charted set of data.
- Create a timeline to illustrate the progression of a concept or period in history.
- Word – may be used for word processing of student written work. However, be cautious that you don’t assume that utilizing Word to type a paper or story constitutes technology integration. It does not. Word may be a useful to provide information to students from the teacher OR to check readability in student work or in websites. If you have not already explored the readability tool in Word, follow these steps to access:
- Click on the Tools Menu
- Select “Options”
- Click on the “Spelling & Grammar Tab”
- Check the box next to “Readability”
- From this point on when you or your students spell check a document, the final window that appears will show the readability of the document based on a Flesch-Kincaid level. Younger students may use Word to develop travel brochures, invitations to learning events, and flyers to help with community service/awareness projects.
- Windows Movie Maker – This tool is currently loaded on all of the laptops in the district. This tool can be great for students to put their learning into action! Digital pictures (still photos) as well as video can be captured into the computer and made into a movie. Digital storytelling promotes non-linguistic representation of what students have learned.
The role of technology in our learning environment is to enhance, engage, and support what we do with students. We strive to push ourselves out of the mindset of using technology for technology’s sake!
What St. Agnes Students Have Taught Me
A Poem By Miss Mosher
Have you put on a hat with elephant ears,
Laughed so hard it brought you to tears?
Worn a patch on your eye, a hook on your hand
As you taught the “ar, ar” sound in buckets of sand?
Have you awoken each morning with a tune in your head
That teaches each rule for the last book you read?
“Silent e,” “All the planets,” oh the “money song” too…
There’s those gumdrops, those bridges, Beluga’s still blue.
Have you noticed each crevice of a child’s smiling face
Been surprised by a “boo” or a small arm’s embrace?
Have you played the nurse, the detective, the judge,
Gone to retrieve that child who won’t budge?
Have you stayed up all night and actively thought
Of a method to teach those skills they “don’t got”?
Have you jumped up and down, done a victory dance,
As they read that hard word they see at first glance?
If you have, than you know this job’s hard to do.
You’re an actor, a teacher, a friend, oh it’s true.
A musician, a director, an author, a cook,
What you do in one day could fill up a book!
The planning, the meetings, the paperwork hit
Some days I’m sure you just want to quit
But then you remember what was said, “Can’t be done”
Has turned into victories your students have won.
Like that day when they read their very first book
You remember it well that bright toothless look
The excitement, the joy, the raised self esteem
Their hugs and their giggles, their faces just beam.
And you know it’s all worth it, both good days and bad,
If years from today they’ll remember they had
A teacher who loved them and saw in their eyes
Potential and talent- much to their surprise.
A teacher who took the time in each day
To point out their strengths to smile and to say,
“I’m proud of you. I’m glad I was here
to watch you triumph and blossom this year.”