National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

Here's a site with a huge amount of math manipulatives with your students.  Everything from base ten blocks, to virtual calculators, to pie charts... there are really too many to many to talk about.  Everything is categorized by grade and by program (algebra, geometry, number and operations, and more).  This is a great site for math.  Really great for use with an interactive whiteboard like the smartboard!

Website:

http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html

E-Learning for Kids

What a find!  Here is a site with dozens of games and lessons for students from kindergarten to grade six.  Subjects include the typical ones usually found on teacher websites like math, language arts and science but there are also games and lessons for life skills, environmental skills, computer skills and health.  Lots of animations grab the students' attention easily and are really fun.  It's a great resource especially for classrooms equipped with interactive whiteboards like SMART boards.  There are also lessons for english language learners.  Another neat thing about this site is that it is not only available in English but also in Dutch, Spanish, French and Portuguese. 

Website: http://www.e-learningforkids.org/index.html

Snakes and Ladders

Here's an online version of the popular Snakes and Ladders game from the BBC.  You can choose between one or two players and the players.  The players roll an online die and have to move their token the right amount of squares.  It's a great game for early elementary to practice their counting skills.  It's also fun to play on the smartboard!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/numbertime/games/snakes.shtml

Bus Songs - Huge collection of kids' songs

How many times have you begun to sing a familiar children's song only to realize you only know the first verse and end up humming the rest?  Here's a fantastic site with lyrics for over 2000 children's songs.  There are lullabies, nursery rhymes as well countless sing-a-long songs.  There are even songs from favourite family movies such as Willy Wonka and The Jungle Book.  Many of the songs also come accompanied by a video clip and audio of the music.  Some songs also have alternate versions.  It's a great find for any parent or teacher of young children.

http://bussongs.com/

Make Beliefs Comix

This is a really fun site to use with all kinds of students.  Makebeliefscomix.com is a site where students can create their own comic strips.  They can choose from 20 different characters, each with different emotions, 25 objects, different talking balloons, they can add colour, quotations, whatever!  Very easy to use and a great way to get students to write!  The site also offers story ideas to inspire even the students with writer's block.  Once your comic strip is done, you can print it or email it.  Another neat thing for teachers on this site are the printables.  Comic strips with black balloons that students can fill in with the dialogue.  A great idea and really fun. 

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/

Mr. Nussbaum's Interactive and Educational Games

This site is simply amazing!  Mr. Nussbaum is a young teacher who created this site to help students learn while having fun.  There are flash games for the main subject areas: math, language arts, science and social studies.  In each subject there are a wide variety of topics within them.  They are really fun games that grab students' attention and help reinforce the skills without them even realizing it.  Another thing I like about the site is that it's not seperated by grade level which makes it a lot more accessible for special needs students.  I taught math in a special needs high school and my students were able to play the games without having to feel bad that they were only playing elementary games.  There is so much on this site that unfortunatley I don't have room to describe it all.  It is definitely worth a look.

http://www.mrnussbaum.com/index.html

Roy the Zebra

Here's another great early literacy site I came across.  This site has interactive reading games as well as 9 guided reading stories complete with worksheets and lesson plans!  It seems to be best for emerging readers, so the students need to have some understanding of reading to start with but a really fun way to learn and have fun at the same time.  It's perfect for the smartboard or other interactive whiteboard but parts of it could also be played by a student by themselves on the class computer.  A really fun find!

http://www.roythezebra.com/index.html

Starfall

Starfall is a site I use daily with my students.  I use it so often that I was surprised that I hadn't posted it to this blog before.  It's a reading website with a phonics based approach for young students.  For the very beginners there are little interactive videos for all the letters of the alphabet showcasing their sounds.  It then also has short easy books for students as they slowly progress.  What's nice about this site is that it is good for children of all abilities.  If a student has trouble reading a word all you have to do is click on it and it will sound it out for you.  There are other little neat things to explore too like a calendar (which I use with my students ever day) and other interactive activities for different holidays.   It's especially nice if you have a smart board in your classroom but it's also very user friendly and even a young student could use it independantly on a small computer

.http://www.starfall.com/