Kids Learning Station

Kids Learning Station is a great site filled with free printable worksheets for preschool and kindergarten students.  Skills ranging from alphabet skills to scissor skills all can be practiced using these sheets. All sheets are in pdf format.
http://www.kidslearningstation.com/

Classroom decor

Being a teacher, I love going into dollarama before a special day like Christmas or Valentine's Day. There are always lots of decorations that I can buy cheaply for my classroom or even my home. This year I bought some window decorations and a big paper snowman to display. I also liked the art supplies that I found with a holiday theme. I could make tree ornaments with gingerbread shaped art foam and decorate it with glitter glue- all from dollarama! I even found a full snowman suit for $2.00!

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/

Online Stopwatch

Here's a site I use often with my students. It's an online stopwatch that is displayed on the screen to show students how much time they have to do something. I use it most often when they are having snack to let them visually see how much time they have left. The kids love to countdown and make sure their snack is all finished and put away before the alarm goes off.

http://www.online-stopwatch.com/countdown-clock/full-screen/

Sesame Street

Here's a very content rich site for younger students. There are many games and colouring pages to use with your students but what I really like about this site are all the videos. You can choose which sesame street character you want, what theme you want, what skill you want to target. There are thousands clips both old and new. I have used it in my own grade one class when I introduce a new letter. Just type in the letter in the search bar and at least a dozen clips pop up with little video segments about that letter featuring cookie monster, grover, elmo or many other characters. Fantastic resource for younger students!

My own personal favourite clip is Cookie Monster and the Mystery Box - search for it!

http://www.sesamestreet.org

Speakaboos- Online Stories

Speakaboos is another great online story site. It offers classic fairytales and popular children's series such as Arthur. All stories are read by celebrities and the words are displayed as the narrator tells the story. There are also great songs and nursery rhymes that children will love to sing along with.

http://www.speakaboos.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/

Puzzlemaker

Here's a site I return to again and again. Puzzlemaker from Discovery Education is a very easy to use custom puzzlemaking site for teachers. I use the word search most often with my students' spelling words. I have also used the crossword to study definitions for different subjects. It's a great, easy tool to help make studying fun.

Website: http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/

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/

Hands on Banking

Hands on Banking is an online course for kids to adults created by Wells Fargo. It's a program to teach students money skills including earning money, spending, investing, credit and more. The teacher section features PDF instructor guides seperate for both kids and teens. It is an American program but can be adapted to Canadian classrooms. There are also online clips that students can use to study independantly. It is also available in Spanish.

Website: http://www.handsonbanking.org/en/

Open Office

Image via Wikipedia

Here's a neat freebie that's not specifically for teachers but something that students and teachers can use to work. From the website: OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.
This software from Sun Microsystems can be downloaded by students at home if they don't already have the commercial product on their computer. A great tool!

Website: http://www.openoffice.org/

Free Rice Games

A website that gives students practice with math, vocabulary, geography and helps feed hungry children at the same time! FreeRice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program. Our partner is the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. For every right answer a student gets 10 grains of rice are donated to feed hungry children. A great site for multiplication practice and really great for english vocabulary!

Website: http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Water is Life - World Vision

World Vision has created a free program for high school students to learn about water and the environment. This guide introduces controversial debates regarding the planet's fresh water resources. It includes lesson ideas, assessment tools, and activities to accompany the Water is Life Flash animation which is available for download on the site as well. The site also has other programs which you can order for a fee.

Website: World Vision teacher materials

Practical Money Skills

Visa has created a program for financial literacy for young and old. From the website: Give your students a deeper understanding of money management using a curriculum offered by Practical Money Skills. Here you’ll find lesson plans for students of all ages – from preschoolers and elementary school students to teens and college students. We also offer course materials for students with special needs. I especially like that there is a specific section for special needs students. All guides and students activities are available in PDF. There are also money games for students of all ages!

Website: http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/

Breaking News English

Breaking News English is a website designed for English Language Learners. It provides current news topics in a short, easy to read article. Each article is also accompanied by a range of activities for students to work on about the article and concerning vocabulary and grammar. All articles come in PDF or Word document format for easy printing.
I found it very useful with my english speaking learning disabled teenage students. It's sometimes difficult to find age appropriate material with a lower reading level but this is it! The website's creator also has other websites with articles about holidays or celebrities.

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/