Houston's Neuhaus Education Center
Reading site. Videos, lesson plans and research to aid teachers, and even parents. Phonics-based lessons are targeted to beginning and struggling readers.
www.readingteachersnetwork.org
Houston Public Library
The Houston Public Library portal gives free access to Tumble Books online. To access, go to
http://www.houstonlibrary.org/
Click "Kids and Teens" on the bar across the top
Click the "Kids" box
Click the orange "Tumble Books" button on the left
Educator Initiatives and Performance
This Texas Education Agency teacher resource has links to important information for professional educators, such as loan deferment and cancellation, master teacher programs, teacher mentoring, and the school leadership pilot program.
ritter.tea.state.tx.us/edex
Interesting Things for ESL Students
This site features a collection of word games, puzzles, quizzes, exercises, slang, proverbs, and more for students who study English as a second language.
manythings.org
Carol Hurst's Children's Literature
This resource is a list of featured children's books. Each book page includes a review of the book, a listing of things to notice, activities related to the book, related books, and links to other resources.
www.carolhurst.com/titles/featuredtitles.html
Grammar Girl
Grammar Girl is a podcast that provides quick tips to improve your writing. Covering the grammar rules and word choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers, Grammar Girl makes complex grammar questions simple with memory tricks to help you recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules. Grammar Girl has been featured by The Oprah Winfrey Show, The New York Times, USA Today, and BusinessWeek, to name a few.
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/
100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know
The site features a list of 100 picture books recommended by the New York Public Library.
kids.nypl.org/reading/recommended2.cfm?ListID=61
Reading Recovery and Guided Reading Leveled Books
Developed by Beaverton School District in Oregon, the Leveled Books Database allows educators to search by English title, Spanish title, publisher, author, subject keyword, reading strand, guided reading level, reading recovery level, or a combination of fields.
registration.beavton.k12.or.us/lbdb
Children's Picture Book Database
Developed at Miami University, the Children's Picture Book database allows you to find books using a keyword search from a list of areas of study; an alphabetic keyword search; or a search using a combination of fields-author, publisher, date, abstract provider-to limit your results.
www.lib.muohio.edu/pictbks/search
Book Adventure
Find the right books for your classroom using lists of award-winning books and helpful reviews. Lists include Best-Selling Children's Books, Booklists for Young Adults, and links to the Association for Library Service to Children's lists of Caldecott and Newbery Medal winners.
bookadventure.com/te/bkt/te_bkt_bar.asp
International Reading Association: Choices Booklists
Each year, thousands of children, young adults, teachers, and librarians across the United States select their favorite recently published books for the Choices Booklists. These lists are used in classrooms, libraries, and homes to find books young readers will enjoy.
http://www.reading.org/Resources/Booklists/ChildrensChoices.aspx
Gamequarium
Navigate through more than 1,500 online, interactive learning games while an octopus swims across your computer screen. Find activities indexed by subject, topic, and theme. The underwater atmosphere encourages students to return for more learning fun.
http://www.gamequarium.org
Helicopter History Site
Although fixed-wing aircraft receive more attention by historians, helicopter flight was the first flight envisioned by man. Trace the evolution of rotary wing aircraft back to Leonardo da Vinci.
http://helis.com
Visuwords Visual Dictionary
You may not think of a dictionary as state-of-the-art, but with Visuwords, an online graphical resource, users can look up words to find their meanings, as well as relationships to other words and concepts. This results in a diagram similar to a neural network that floats into place before your eyes. Enter words into the search box or click on a node to expand the tree. Hover over nodes to see the definition and drag nodes to move them around to help clarify relations. Visuwords uses Princeton University's open-source database, WordNet.
visuwords.com
Have a Seat
Do-it-yourself kids' furniture that combines modern design with recycled materials? Check out Foldschool, a Web site with free, downloadable patterns for child-sized stools, chairs, and rockers, all created from recycled cardboard. A proposed solution to the "superficiality and ecological absurdity" of mass culture, Foldschool was created by Swiss architect Nicola Enrico Stäubli, who offers design templates and instructions on line.
Though designed for kids under six years of age, the eco-friendly furniture can support the weight of an adult. Assembly requires very simple tools: a sharp-bladed knife, household glue, and new or recycled four-millimeter single-layer cardboard.
foldschool.com
Good Stuff: Free K-6 Financial Literacy Lessons
ING Direct, a branchless direct bank with operations in nine countries, including the United States, has created a free K-6 educational site called Planet Orange. Teachers can find resources and activities to help explain basic money skills such as earning, spending, saving, and investing. They can also find educational materials including lesson plans and quizzes to help students learn the value and good use of money. Find out more at Planet Orange:
http://www.orangekids.com/teacher/
.
Good Stuff: Free Resources for a September 21 Peace Day Observance
Even though summer is just beginning, September is right around the corner, and with it, an opportunity to plan or participate in a community-school Peace Day Observance. Since 2001, the Peace One Day organization has been promoting September 21 as an annual Peace Day observance to advance active learning in the areas of conflict resolution, global citizenship, human rights and the link between sustainability and peace. Their goal is to provide resource materials to every school in the world, inspiring a generation to become the driving force behind the vision of a united and sustainable world. To learn more or to access free lesson plans and resources, go to
http://education.peaceoneday.org/
.
Office At School
Microsoft Office provides this free resource for teachers. The site features free popular classroom templates, such as a periodic table, multiplication table, electronic grade book for Excel, emergency contact information sheet, classroom materials sign-out sheet, multiple choice test kit, and more.
www.office.microsoft.com/en-us/school/FX102781621033.aspx
JEA Digital Media
The Journalism Education Association is the only independent national scholastic journalism organization for teachers and advisers. The Web site provdes information for high school journalism advisers, including Web sites, podcasts, blogs, broadcasts, and social networks.
http://jeadigitalmedia.org
Create Shakespeare's Globe Theater
This site provides templates to print, cut, and fold a model Globe Theater. Available in black and white, color; PDF, and GIF file formats. Make a larger model by using a photocopier to enlarge the templates.
http://papertoys.com/globe.htm
Get free supplies and books:
An online charity which provides books and supplies to teachers who enroll in the program and post their classroom needs to the site. Also has information on grants and funding.
DonorsChoose.org
Interested in writing book reviews yourself?
Check out Deborah Sloan's Picnic Basket. Sign up to write a review and receive a copy of the book to share with students.
Thepicnic-basket.com
