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!

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

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

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/