Top 10 Sites Found in One Day!!!!

WSFCS Teachers can access netTrekker through Learning Village

Since I normally share sites related to Writing, Reading, and Creativity ….

I thought I might branch out a bit and share some Science sites that I thought were interesting:

• Wonderville 
• National Geographic Education
• Shape It Up!
• The Space Place
• GRIN
• EngagingScience
• Animated Science Storybooks
• Using Scrapbooks in Science
• Peep and the Big Wide World
• Exploratorium: Return to Mars

What is even better is that I found all 10 of these sites in one day ….

I saved time searching for resources by using netTrekker ….

Using netTrekker Search, I did searches for simple science topics (ex. rocks and electricity) and was able to get results from many places. I also looked at the related subjects when viewing the results, so I was able to find a variety of resources!

I could limit my search by grade level, subject, and even type of resource …

And the best part is that all of the resources and sites accessed through netTrekker have been through a teacher review process …. which helps students when they do research as well …

photo credit: placbo via photopin cc

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Making the Elections Relevant

As this year's Elections draw closer and closer do your students really know what is going on?

With all of the ads on TV, radio and the internet it may be difficult for your students to see the big picture as you explain the election process to them.

Although this can be discussed in all grade levels it is more prevalent right now for students that are in the eighth grade. How might you ask?

Students in the eighth grade are currently learning about the Revolutionary War and the events that happened immediately afterwards. Those events helped to lead us to our first Presidential election. Again you may be asking why is this an important event in the lives of these students. The answer is simple, during the next elections cycle they will be High School Seniors and may have the opportunity to vote. So it is important for them to understand the process and how they can make a difference if they choose to vote, remembering to tell them that it is their choice.

Here are some resources that can help make the difference in how your students perceive the Elections and how they can get involved and make it relevant to their lives.

• Have your students create Political Cartoons using this Arts Edge Lesson that brings in a cross curricular component to the normal Social Studies curriculum.  As well Arts Edge has a great Lesson on the Election Process to help enhance your instruction on how the process works.
•  You can use Read Write Think as a launch point to provide a number of resources on the Election Cycle and ways to get your students involved.  Some of these resources discuss using Avatars to create political cartoon skits.
• You can use this Themed Resource page from Smithsonian's History Explorer to give your students some more background on the election process.  See how Mass Media plays a role in the election process with this resource from Smithsonian. 
• Try all of these resources that Thinkfinity has gathered together for you regarding the election process.
• Here are a lot of Election Lesson plans and activities from EDSITEment that go along with the Social Studies curriculum.

So even though I am talking to all you eighth grade teachers out there, anyone can utilize these resources to help make the elections relevant to your students by having them become involved through some of these activities.

This will help drive home the importance of the subject material and even help them to understand the current events that are going on in the world around them.


photo credit: The Suss-Man (Mike) via photopin cc

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What do you use to evaluate?

How do YOU evaluate a website?

What makes YOU feel good about the information that you get and possibly use from a website?

Do YOU just go with a gut feeling or is there more to it than that?

I got an email from a teacher a few days ago asking for some ideas and resources she could use to work with her 3rd-5th grade students on evaluating website and conducting effective research.

I had a few ideas, so I sent her some links.

Then I asked friends I am connected with on Skype and got more ideas, so I sent her another email ... and then another email ... and then another email

I started looking at some of the suggested resources, found some other resources and ideas ... so I sent her another email!

I know, I know, I know ...

I did not make very good use of email since I should have pulled together everything ... but I got excited and wanted to share with the teacher who had asked! :)

Since I like to share, I thought I would share them here too (this is also a good way for me to put them in a place where I can find them ... a little selfish)!

Research and Media Skills are such a big part of the Common Core that I thought these might be useful so here are some of the things I found:

• Digital Literacy Tour from Google
• Search Engine for Students from Sweet Search
• Resourcing the Curriculum: Evaluating Websites  (from the Department of Education)
• A Guide to Critical Thinking About What You See on the Web from ITHACA College Library
• Teaching Students to Evaluate Websites from Infosearcher
• Web Evaluation from CyberBee

I also found some questions on a Thinkfinity forum about evaluating websites. There are some great resources and ideas in the comments. Here are a few of them:

•  "One of the sites I've used with 4-6th graders is All About Explorers http://allaboutexplorers.com/  This site has several lesson ideas to help students evaluate information as different levels.
• "I've also used the "rule of 3".  I told them that they should find at least 3 other sites that support the information that they will be reporting.  We also talked about verifying a website author"
• There are some lesson plans on ReadWriteThink that take on evaluating online resources. These might be helpful, depending upon the grade level where you teach:

1. Inquiry on the Internet: Evaluating Web Pages for a Class Collection for grades 6-8
2. Research Building Blocks: Examining Electronic Sources for grades 3-8
3. Wading Through the Web: Teaching Internet Research Strategies for grades 6-8

You can find examples and non-examples, checklists, lessons, ideas, links to other sites, and many other things!

Go explore ... come back and share what you found ...

Remember that SHARING is the most important part ... even if it is not with me, but make sure to share with others!

photo credit: Britta Bohlinger via photopin cc

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More Election Connections!

This morning Melissa wrote a blog post about Let's help students make connections with elections! This reminded me of some more election resources, but through Edmodo. When you are in Edmodo, there are several election communities that you can follow. (Remember you can follow any of these publisher communities in Edmodo by click on the Browse button next to the word Community). In these communities, you can connect with other teachers teaching about the election or find resources on the election. Here are a couple of communities that you might be interested in.

photo credit: Vaguely Artistic via photopin cc

Bill of Rights Institute: There is a video on the history of voting, and teaching with current events. You can sign up for lessons to be mailed to you on current events, voting, free press, the constitution, etc.


Election Insights: Activities for the debates, election, etc. Click on the button Collections for more resources.

iCivics: Constitution resources, branches of government resources, etc. Click on the button Collections for more resources and games.

Edmodo has some ideas for teaching the election: 3 Ways to Engage Students through Edmodo.


Image from PhotoPin: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaguelyartistic/61275039/

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Let's help students make connections with the elections!

Do you know how many days it is from today until the Presidential Election?

Do our children understand the signs, commercials and debates they are seeing and hearing?

I found something on the Library of Congress site that could help:

This image is not interactive but if you click on it, you will be taken to the interactive site where it is from!

At the site, when you hover on the words at the side, blue questions appear above the voting box (which is animated). Those can be guiding questions for the text you will access when you click on the categories.

I think a KWL or KWLH chart might work well ….

According to ReadingQuest Strategies:

What Is K-W-L?.
K-W-L is the creation of Donna Ogle and is a 3-column chart that helps capture the Before, During, and After components of reading a text selection.

K stands for Know
This is the prior knowledge activation question. 

W stands for Will or Want
What do I think I will learn about this topic?
What do I want to know about this topic?

L stands for Learned
What have I learned about this topic?

Asking questions can engage and inspire learning! It also provides direction for what you want children to learn from a resource. I have written a previous post on KWL charts and also one on FQR charts which may work even better for nonfiction … Facts, Questions, and Responses.

These nonfiction information articles provide a place for guided practice on this type of text as well as what to do when you encounter words that you do not know when you read.

Another idea is for children to create posters/signs/lists online or offline of the interesting information the discover. You could even jigsaw this site by having different groups read each section and then report back to the other about what they learned. This could be a time for students to choose how to represent the information to share it!

Here are places you can find nonfiction reading strategies and lessons that could be used with the material you find on the Library of Congress site:

• Class Tables of Non-Fiction Features and Text Structures
• Look in the Literacy Cookbook for Recipes for Effective Literacy Instruction
• Reading Nonfiction Texts Lessons from NCTE 

You never know what you might learn from reading nonfiction!

Did you know that George Washington was reluctant to become our first president?

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