Holocaust Remembered

International Holocaust Remembrance day is January 27.  Here are some resources that I posted last year for National Holocaust Remembrance Day that is recognized on May 1.   Please remember to preview everything BEFORE sharing them with students due to the graphic content that some pages may have.


United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

The Paper Clip Project

The Holocaust - lots of links!

Holocaust Websites - lots of links!

Interactive Map of Auschwitz

Holocaust Interactive Timeline

Winter Holidays

With many teachers looking for new ways to talk about the winter holidays in their classrooms I thought about some resources from Scholastic that I enjoy.  These are not "new" but they are fun to use and are good conversation starters. The links below take you to interactive scrapbook pages that work well on interactive white boards or on computers for students to explore. 

Christmas Scrapbook

Hanukkah Scrapbook

Kwanzaa Scrapbook

 

The first day!

The first day of class is upon us.  How are you going to be using technology on the first day of class?  Do you have a good interactive white board lesson that you are going to use? A fun sight that has back to school games?  Did you make a slid show about your self to share with your kids?  Leave a comment and let us all know!

Read Wright Think

The Read Wright Think page has lots of information for the classroom and for home or after school activities to engage students in reading. There are lots of lesson plans that you can search by grade level, topic, objective, or theme.  There are also student interactives, podcasts for students, and a text messages that are recommended for adolescent readers. The also have lessons set up by the month!  What a simple way to find reading lessons for your class!  There are 24 lessons for April and they have an Earth Day Lesson.

TIME

As I was working on a debate for one of my master classes over the weekend I stumbled across a neat resource from TIME Magazine. The have several interactive graphics! There are lost of interesting topics that they cover. I have listed some below but there are several more. 

How Do Children In Your State Test?

Federal law demands testing for reading and math, but lets states make the tests. Critics say this leads to grade inflation. One way of determining the rigor of state exams is to compare them to standardized tests given nationally.

Test Patterns

In global testing, Shanghai and other parts of Asia left the U.S. in the dust

Balance Act

As the U.S. government continues its deficit spending, the need to raise taxes and cut large, popular government programs will become critical

Where Things Are Just Right for Life

Three ways to spot planets

How Geothermal Heat Works In Your Home

Geothermal heat pumps use the nearly constant temperature underground to heat or cool a building's interior

100 Days of the BP Spill: A Timeline

An interactive, day-by-day look at how BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico became the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. Click on the bars below to access the important events from the first 100 days.

Space

Space is something that kids love to learn about.  Here are several webpages that have wonderful photos and fun interactive resources for you to use with your students. Several of these webpages would work well with an interactive white board.

Kids Astronomy

NASA Space Place

Amazing Space

NASA Kids Club

Learning to read with Startfall

Starfall has four different sections and several other activities to use with your students with using phonics. This page would work well with an interactive white board for full class instruction or with students on individual computers with head phones.  It could be uesed as part of your centers rotation. I find this page easy to use for teachers and students. My 5 year old pre-schooler has no trouble using this webpage with no help from mom or dad.

The ABC's section helps students get ready to read.  There is an activity for each letter.

Learning To Read has 15 book and activity groupings based letter combinations, sight words, and vowels. There are even some short videos.

The It's Fun To Read section is fun!  There are several different activities that the students can use.

I'm Reading has several eBooks for the students to explore.

There are several other activities that would be fun to do with you class for several holidays as well.  There is also an interactive calendar that is fun to use as well. It works well with an interactive white board and your calendar helper would love it!

The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad is sometimes hard for students to understand.  Here are some good resources for you to use in your classrooms.

National Geographic The Underground Railroad - Using the drop down menu you can get several pages of information to use with your class.  There is a time line, a game called The Journey, for Kids, and Faces of Freedom.

Interactive Map - This is a nice interactive map that shows the routes out of the slave states to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Underground Railroad Flight to Freedom Program - This is a neat page with several interactive activities. Make sure you check out the activity at the top of the page. 


Scholastic The Underground Railroad - This was made for an interactive white board but could be used in other ways as well. The page also has teacher resources, slide shows, activities, and printables (one is a min-book). 


Songs of Freedom - This page gives the background on some of the songs sung by the slaves including Follow the Drinking Gourd, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, and Wade in the Water. 

American Space Program Interactive Timeline

This is a cool interactive time line of the American space program posted by NPR. It starts in 1960 and goes to December of 2010.  It has good photos and information.  It would be a good addition to any lesson on space for any age group.

American Space Program Interactive Timeline