Class Website

I have been wanting to make a class website for a while now.  This summer it became my summer project. There are quite a few free sites that make it easy for anyone to set up their website.  After playing around with a few i found the one I preferred was Weebly.
There are a lot of free themes you can use and it's quite easy to change things around.  I also like that the free web address you get is short.  It's basically 'yourname.weebly.com'. Shorter than a lot of other free sites.
You can find free clip art on the web.  There are quite a few that are free for educational use.  My favourite so far is http://classroomclipart.com/ .
After spending a few hours setting it up and adding the pages I wanted I know I'll be able to just log on once a week to make the few changes easily without it taking up a lot of extra time.  An easy way to connect home and school!

Dropbox

Being a teacher often means that you do a lot of work from home to prepare for class.  I finish up class presentations, write report cards and prepare lessons as often from my home computer as I do my school computer.  Dropbox has helped me tremendously by allowing me to share folders between these two computers.  Dropbox is a free folder that you install on your computer and that will allow you to share across computers.  All you have to do is install it on whatever other computers (or smart phone or tablet) you use and all those files and folders you store in the dropbox are always available.  Another great feature of dropbox is that you can share a folder with other people.  I share folders with colleagues so that we can both have access to lessons we are collaborating on.  It's also an easy way to share documents without the need of a memory stick.  The free account gives you 2GB of storage but you can earn more space by completing simple getting started tasks or by referring your friends.  If you use my referral link you will also be granted an extra 500mb of space.  You can also subscribe to get even more space but I find that for my purposes the free account is plenty.

Calmness Counter

Life in a classroom can sometimes get hectic and noisy!  This free tool might be the answer to try and control some of the chaos.  This is really cool especially if you have a smart board in your class.  You plug in a microphone to your computer, go to this website and it actually measures the amount of noise in your class with an easy to read gauge.  You can set the sensitivity to the level that you want and it will clearly display if the noise-level is getting too high.  Amazing!

http://www.ictgames.com/calmCounter.html

Movie Poster Maker

Here is a really cool and easy to use site to create your very own movie posters.  There is an easy to use form that you fill in with your title, tags and even a space for the credits.  You can also upload your own picture and then a realistic movie poster is created in minutes.  The file can then be saved and you can print or even order the movie poster.  A really cool thing about this site is that if you use your own picture you can even get a hi-resolution version that you can use to print out from any retailer.  They don't force you to order from them. I was able to explore the movie poster section but with a quick glance at the rest of the bighugelabs.com site it seems that there are a bunch of cool things to do with your digital pictures like turn your pics into puzzles, magazine covers, pop art.  Lots of fun for teachers with a ton of educational possibilities!
http://bighugelabs.com/poster.php

KinderArt

I love art but I sometimes find myself struggling to find ideas for original art projects every week.  This site is a wonderful resource to help!  It is a site with thousands of art ideas all categorized by type of art (ex. sculpture, drawing, painting, etc.), theme (ex. folk art, multicultural art, holidays, etc.) or by grade.  This site also has colouring pages with their original art, patterns for different art projects, blank calendar pages, etc.  It also has a store where you can purchase books, art supplies or bundles of already made colouring pages but most things on this site are free.  There are enough ideas on this site to last many years!!!

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

TES Connect

Here is a great site from the UK with free teaching resources.  In the resources section there are thousands of teacher created lessons (lesson plans, activities, games, teaching ideas and worksheets as well as ready-made powerpoint presentations), All you have to do is sign up (which is free) and you get access to all of these resources.  There are tons of them!  It's divided by section: Early Years (Preschool), Primary, Secondary, Whole School and Special educational needs and then also by subject.  Although geared for UK teachers most stuff is relevent or just needs to be mildly adjusted.  It saves a lot of time in preparation.  I have used it many times to help present lessons on different religious celebrations.  The powerpoint presentations were great to use on my smartboard.  The other good thing is that it's all created and submitted by teachers so it's already tried.  Users can also vote on a specific resource so you can see how much it was liked by others.  It's worth a browse!

http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resources/

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

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

Youtube and Zamzar

There is a bigger and bigger push to bring technology into our classrooms.  Students are more engaged if we teach using different media.  I have found a ton of good resources on youtube.  There is so much that I can't even begin to describe it all.  These clips can be used to reinforce a topic (watching a caterpillar spin a cocoon for example) or watch animated version of favourite stories for younger students.  This must be done in advance, however, as there are also a lot of things that are not appropriate for the classroom! Another frustrating thing about youtube is that it is blocked on the computers in my school board so I have to download all videos from home.  In order to download them from home I go to Zamzar.com.  All you have to do is copy and paste the URL and this site emails you the download link.  You have one day to download it.  It's really easy.

http://www.youtube.com/

http://www.zamzar.com/url/

Windows Movie Maker

Here's a great program that is automatically on most PC's but little people know about.  Windows moviemaker is an easy, very user-friendly program to make movies on your PC.  If you are at all familiar with imovie you will find that moviemaker is a great alternative for PC users.  You can upload pictures or movie clips and simply drag them into your storyboard to make a movie.  I have used it with my grade one class and they loved it.  I just used my digital camera's filming option to take short clips of my students and we created a really fun project together.  The students loved seeing themselves on the screen.  With older students you can even have them make their own movie.  You can add titles on the clips or before, insert credits and also add music.  There are also many different transitions that you can use to make it look more professional.

EMints- Theme Pages

Emints ethemes is a true teacher time-saver when it comes to research. Instead of having to Google for ressources which can often take hours of time you can just visit Emints where they have done it for you.  There are hundreds of theme ressource pages for teachers and students.  Each theme page has a list of at least a dozen internet links to help teachers create their lesson.   It's a site created by the University of Missouri and is reviewed by teachers.  The theme pages are carefully constructed and offer really valuable sites.  Another really great thing is that it's theme pages are completely free to use- you don't even have to register for the site.  A great tool for research.

http://www.emints.org/ethemes/index.shtml

Online Radio

Looking for the perfect music to set the mood in your class?  How about some classical music during playtime to keep them a little bit calm?  Or perhaps some fun Christmas music to accompany a holiday party?  Whatever you need, you can probably find it on the AOL online radio site.
I often play different stations depending on what reaction I want from my students.  If they are working quietly I sometimes play nature sounds so that it's enough to have some background music but not too much that it will distract them.  There's even a station that offers "kid-friendly" radio so that you don't have to worry that they will be listening to inappropriate music.  You can also choose some stations as your preset favourites so that you can quickly find them.

http://music.aol.com/radioguide/bb

Free Fonts

Abstract Fonts is a great site with thousands of free fonts that can be downloaded and used.  These fonts can be used to make nice headings to display artwork or other students' work.  They can also be used by the students when writing cover pages or poetry that they want to display.  There are many themes covering special occasions such as holidays or even just different types to display different moods. 

http://www.abstractfonts.com/

Centre for Energy

I came across this site from the Canadian Centre for Energy Information. It offers some free resources for the older grades (mostly high school) to teach about fuel (from where it comes from to the determination of fuel prices). All resources are offered in English and French.

http://www.centreforenergy.com/Education/K-12/TeachingResources/ByProduct.asp

CurrClick

CurrClick is actually a website for homeschoolers but I use it frequently to help me in my class. There are hundreds of units of study available for download. Another really cool thing about this website is the free units section. There are numerous units that are actually free! You can also sign up for the newsletter which offers a new freebie of the week. Other units also regularly go on sale and available for reasonable prices.

Website: http://www.currclick.com/

Dove- Real Beauty Campaign

Here's a great free program for young teenage and pre-teen girls from Dove. I ordered the print version and just got it in the mail today. The program is geared toward girls self-esteem. There are numerous activities designed for girls to analyze their own self-worth, the media's influence and finding positive role models. You can order individual workbooks for each girl in your class. The program even comes with an accompanying DVD. Really nice free resource from a company that has done a lot of good in changing our views of beauty in the media. It's also available for download from the website. The website also has great videos about beauty (remember that great commercial with the model being retouched).

Website: http://www.dove.ca/en/default.aspx#/cfrb/educators/

The Virtual Body

Here is a neat site to learn about the different systems of the body. It's especially cool if you have a smart board in your class because there are great games such as building a skeleton or putting the digestive tract back in order. Students can do it individually on their own computer or as a class on the smart board. Great visuals!

Website: http://www.medtropolis.com/VBody.asp

Tomatosphere

Here is a really cool activity for students to be involved in a real-life space experiment. Teachers can register their class on the website and they will receive two envelopes of tomato seeds. One of the packs of seeds have been exposed to a real space environment and the other packet is a control group of regular seeds. The tomatoes are labelled with just letters so that we don't know which seeds are which until we submit our results to the Canadian Space Agency. This is such an amazing way to teach about space, food, plants, nutrition... the list goes on! The website has many resources for the teacher and students as well as some video clips of the astronauts in space.

Website: http://www.tomatosphere.org/

Sexuality and U

Sexuality and U is a fantastic Canadian website about sex and sexuality. For teachers wishing to teach sex ed there are powerpoint presentations, lessons plans and webquests. Many of the tools are available in powerpoint or PDF. Sexuality and U also has sections for teens where they can get honest answers to their questions and even a fun quiz to test their knowledge. A great find for a sex ed. teacher!

Website: http://www.sexualityandu.ca/