Virginia Trekkers Recycling Podcast
The Virginia Trekker’s Recycling podcast is a super cool podcast that I learned about via Suzanne’s Blog. It is a video podcast so students can see first hand what happens to recyclable materials once they reach a recycling center. It would be great to show in honor of Earth Day!
Also on the Virgina Trekkers website are some fantastic reycling links. Be sure to check those out as well.
Thinkfinity
While getting caught up on my technology related readings, I stumbled upon a great list of technology tools compiled by Jackie Gerstein. One of the tools on this list was Thinkfinity, “the cornerstone of Verizon Foundation’s literacy, education and technology initiatives”. Thinkfinity is a great resource that contains over 55,000 standards-based lesson plans, student materials, interactive activities, and other quality on-line resources.
Thinkfinity is able to provide such rich content through its partnerships with other organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and International Reading Association to name a few. I did a quick search by typing Fractions in the keyword box and choose grades 3 -5. The site returned 11 pages worth of lessons, activities, etc. The results contain a brief description and a yellow star if the lesson is aligned with state standards. Click on the yellow star to get more details on what standard the activity is aligned with.
Thinkfinity also provides free professional development for teachers and has partnered with the Georgia Department of Education and the Georgia Standards Organization. The Professional Development Programs is designed to
- Provide teachers with the tools and materials necessary to locate and use online resources effectively.
- Help educators work with their peers to create useful lesson plans, activities and research exercises.
- Meet educators’ needs for high-quality training with measurable results.
- Leverage a scalable training model to produce the greatest educational impact.
Thinfinity is a superb resource and one that I hope you’ll take the time to visit.
Arcademic Skill Builders: Online Educational Games
Arcademic Skill Builders: Online Educational Games is a FUN website containing educational games that focus on building math, language arts, vocabulary and thinking skills. The games provide focused repetition to help with automaticity and fluency of basic skills.
The games are divided into 5 different categories: Add and Subtract, Multiply and Divide, Integers, Fractions and Ratios, and Language Arts. Within each category there are multi-player and single-player games. The math games are aligned with NCTM standards and the site has plans to add some great features which will enable you to save records, taylor content for differentiated instruction, and determine student problem areas.
This site could be used in math or language arts centers or as a whole class activity. I hope you will take the time to check it out!
On-Line Comic Strip Creators
Comic strips are a great tool to use with writers, especially those that may struggle or be reluctant. They are also a great way to kick off the writing process by using them to plan what you want to write about. Below are two free on-line programs that you can use with your students.
The first one is Make Beliefs Comix! This site offers a variety of choices: 15 characters, 2 to 4 panels, background colors, and panel prompts to name a few. Each of the characters has several different emotions to choose from. And you can either print or email your finished comic. Here’s what the interface looks like.
Don’t forget to check out the bottom of the page. Clicking on the Teacher Resources button will take you to “21 Ways to Use Makebeliefscomix in the Classroom”, a list that is chock full of great ideas! There is also a Story Ideas button to help get your writing juices flowing. And lastly, if the task of using the online creator seems a little daunting, check out the Printables button. Clicking on it will take you to many different panels you can print out and fill in.
The second on-line creator is from Read Write Think! To start, you give your comic strip a name and a sub-title, type in your name and click the arrow. Next, you select how many panels you want: 1, 2, 3, or 6. Then you start by picking your characters, text or thought bubbles, and props. To choose a different background, use the up and down arrows on the right side. Click the finish button when you are done to either print your comic or start another one.
A quick search of the word “Comics” on the Read Write Think site returned 171 results. The list can be narrowed down by grade, subject, resource type, etc. Some of the lessons I thought were of interest are “Using Comic Books to Teach Onomatopoeia”, “Word Study with Henry and Mudge“, and “Comics in the Classroom as an Introduction to Narrative Structure“.
I hope you enjoy these two resources!
