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!

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

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

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/

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/

Freeplay music

This site is a fantastic resource to find different background music for powerpoint music or even as theme music for movie projects. It is easily searchable according to type, tempo, style and feel.  There are many different royalty-free instrumentals available.  It can give a really original feel to any presentation you create.
http://www.freeplaymusic.com/search/

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.

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/