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

Literactive

Here's a cool site with phonics activities and online books for young learners.  It's geared for children between the ages of 4 and 8 who are just learning to read.  A simple free registration is all it takes to access dozens of activities and guided reading books.
From the website:  The program takes the early learner on an interactive journey of exploration and learning. Starting with initial nursery rhymes, it moves through pre-reading activities, alphabet awareness, letter sounds, short vowels, CVC word blending, initial blends, long vowels and all the phonic activities critical for developing early reading skills. Scientifcially researched and teacher approved, The Road to Reading is the most comprehensive reading program available online.
The activities are fun and young children will enjoy playing with then without even knowing they are learning valuable pre-reading and reading skills.
http://www.literactive.com

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

Up to Ten - Boowa and Kwala

Up to Ten is an extensive web site with over 1000 educational and fun games for kids up to age 10.  Younger kids (0 - 6) can click on the Boowa and Kwala section to access lots of games, activities, songs, stories and colouring pages.  It is all very well organized so even younger students can navigate it on their own.  Older students (6-10) can access the games section where the selection isn't as extensive but still quite large.  This section has classic games, puzzles and coordination games.  Another really great thing about this site is that it is completely bilingual: English and French!  On the homepage there are three sections (Free, Premium and Teacher).  The free section is very abundant and it is not clear how to subscribe to the paying portions but, in my opinion, the free section is so extensive there is no need.

http://www.uptoten.com/

Gullah Net

Here's a neat website perfect for Black History Month.  Gullah.net is a website devoted to learning about the Gullah culture of Saint Carolina.  On the website you can hear folktales told in English or Gullah with animated pictures.  The folktales include stories such as "The Three Little Pigs" and "The Little Red Hen" so it can be used even if you aren't doing a "Gullah" unit in class.  Just hearing the narrator in English is worth it.   On the Gullah music part of the website you can see the evolution of African music in America.  A fun, interactive website to help learn about another culture. 

http://www.knowitall.org/gullahnet/

Math Worksheet Wizard

Math Worksheet Wizard is a great tool for teachers.  You can get random math worksheets at the click of a button.  The really good thing about this site is that it caters to young kids who need pictures all the way up to students in grade five who need more complex problems.  This site covers arithmetic, time, money, measurement, as well as shapes, colours and numbers for the younger grades.  The thing I really liked about this site is that, for younger kids who are just learning, you can either match to find the right answer or write it in yourself once they get more comfortable.

http://www.mathworksheetwizard.com/

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/

Billie Brings His Buddies - Safety Curriculum

Keeping kids safe is a constant worry.  The Canadian Centre for Child Protection has created a free program for grade one students to teach them "the buddy system".  It's complete with a lesson plan for the teacher, a letter for the parents with activities to do with their child, an online storybook and a new game to reinforce safety at Halloween.

http://kidsintheknow.ca/app/en/billy_brings_his_buddies

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/

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/

Little Critters website

My children love the "Little Critter" books by Mercer Mayer.  I came across the official little critters page and thought it was fantastic!  There are clips of Mercer Mayer reading some of his stories, sing-a-long clips, games, colouring and more surprises.  A great resource for kindergarten or early elementary teachers especially if you are working on an author study with your little students.  The clips are also great if you happen to have a smartboard in your class because you can show the actual author reading the book- what can be better than that?  One of our favourites is "There's an Alligator Under my Bed".

http://www.littlecritter.com/

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/