Elementary Teachers’ Resource Sites
Topic Index
SITES FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
- News Quiz is KET’s current events program for 4th- to 8th-grade students.
- Integrating Technology in the Classroom—A 1st-grade teacher in Indiana developed this slide presentation of tips on how to integrate technology into the elementary classroom. Included are management tips for a centers approach to teaching.
- Hazel’s Home Page is a must-visit site for K-6 teachers. Hazel, who teaches 1st and 2nd grades in Tennessee, has posted classroom-tested online projects, links, and interactive games.
- Teacher’s Edition Online—This fabulous K-12 site offers a “Lesson Plan of the Day,” a lesson plan archive, bulletin board tips, and “Take 5” activities: ideas to use in the few minutes of dead time when a lesson finishes up early.
- Playground Pals is an Australian project which aims to develop positive playground environments. Through mailing lists and class collaboration, students can teach others their favorite games, and teachers can share successful strategies for peer mediation and playground programs.
- The MSN Lesson Collection is a growing archive of lesson plans and student activity sheets designed by teachers. U.S. teachers who submit their favorite original lesson plan are eligible to win a computer or other prizes.
- Gander Academy’s Theme-Related Resources on the World Wide Web was created by a grade 5 teacher in Canada. The pages of links have been arranged based on themes taught in his primary/elementary school. Excellent!
- The page of education resources developed by Highland Park Elementary School is a good example of how a school can provide excellent resources for other educators.
- Tapped InTM is a growing community of K-16 teachers, staff members, and researchers engaged in professional development programs and informal collaborative activities with colleagues.
- TeacherSource rounds up PBS resources for teachers.
- AskERIC Lesson Plans contains more than 2,000 unique lesson plans written and submitted to AskERIC by teachers from all over the United States.
- K-12 Curriculum and Lesson Plans contains a wealth of links to K-12 sites.
- The World of Puppets—In this webquest, K-2 students create their own puppets and explore world cultures through their puppetry. Internet experiences are designed to be teacher-directed, whole-class experiences. A computer hooked to a TV or other presentation system is recommended.
- The Missouri Botanical Garden has developed four videos about the environment for primary through grade 8. Lesson plans and web-based activities enhance the curriculum and complement the videos.
- TeachNow has customizable teacher resources.
- ThinkQuest Junior is a program that engages the strong interest of younger students in computers and the Internet, giving them and their teachers a structure for integrating computers and the “Internet style” of learning into their everyday lives. It is designed for students in grades 4 through 6 who work together in teams, coached by their teachers, to build web-based educational materials. Prizes include cash and equipment awards to both students and their teachers.
- Getting Started on the Internet: Searching the Web Is as Easy as ABC!, the third article in a series from Education World, focuses on simple searching techniques used by teacher Tammy Payton’s 1st graders! Her “easy-as-ABC” project can work at any grade level and includes ideas for searching across the curriculum.
- Surfing for ABCs teaches kindergarten and primary kids what the Internet is and how to surf safely. It includes a lesson plan and can be modified to teach older students (and adults!) about the World Wide Web.
- K-5 CyberTrail, with Syd the CyberGuide, takes elementary teachers who are new to the Internet for a tour of educational resources on the web. It features elementary school sites on the “Tenderfoot Trail” and curriculum resources for elementary educators on the “Explorer Trail.” The site was developed by public broadcaster WMHT in Schenectady, NY as part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s K-12 Internet Testbed Project.
- KET’s Art On-Air pages include biographies of the artists from the 1996/97 series and links to lots of art resources and lesson plans.
- International Kids’ Space is a resource area where children can share their works of art, short stories, and music with others.
- The Refrigerator: An Art Contest for Kids chooses five contestants each week to participate in the competition. Kids can vote and comment on their favorite picture. Think you have what it takes to be a contestant? See the Contest Rules for entry details.
- Magic School Bus Art Gallery
- 100 Picture Books Everybody Should Know is a great list for Pre-K to grade 1 of some of the best picture books around.
- At Reading: What To Teach and When, descriptions of student learning patterns at each grade level accompany guidelines for teachers on reading strategies. The site covers kindergarten through grade 6.
- Sound Reading—Try several sample activities for the emergent reader, using phonemic awareness tools (grapheme cards and color blocks—you can make your own) and incorporating a high degree of interactivity.
- Teaching Tips for Reading offers several strategies and prompts to use in the classroom for semantics, structure, graphics, self-monitoring, etc.
- At Monster Exchange, students try to communicate an original monster image into another child’s mind using learned writing skills and technology. Descriptive writing lesson plans are also available.
- Weekly Reader’s Galaxy presents news updates, advice, trivia games, contests, and an online coloring book. Teachers can use the Galaxy to find updates to Weekly Reader stories and explore web links to other news and education resources. Parents can get parenting tips and medical advice written by experts, as well as fun activities and recipes.
- NFBKids, from the National Film Board of Canada, is a fun, interactive site aimed at grades K-6.
- The Little Planet Times is a newspaper for and by kids (K-6) that encourages reading and writing.
- Dragonfly, a children’s magazine of investigation, is a theme-based journal that features children’s research, art, and creative writing. It’s also the basis for the PBS kids’ series Dragonfly TV.
- Storytelling, Drama, Creative Dramatics, Puppetry and Readers Theater for Children and Young Adults
- The Dr. Suess Site (by Random House) includes contests and more that will be of interest to elementary students.
- Desktop Publishing Projects and Resources for the K-12 Classroom—Even classrooms and schools with limited technology resources can integrate desktop publishing into the classroom with these tips, including tutorials and lesson plans.
- Cyber School Bus offers resources from the United Nations.
- Color Your World is a coloring activity. Print out a map of the world, then fill in the blanks.
- Introduction to Geography: Learning the Compass introduces 5th-grade students to basic geography concepts and map skills. This lesson covers compass directions, a concept central to using maps in geographic instruction and real-life applications. A 10-question quiz concludes the lesson.
- The “cARTography” program from KET’s Art On-Air tells all about map making.
- Hop Pop Town (aimed at 3- to 10-year-olds) encourages children to improvise and to create musical sequences, the vital factors for them to enjoy and learn music. Interactive Shockwave files let kids create music—scales, sounds of animals, orchestra instrument sounds, and others.
- The Great American Egg Hunt is an Internet egg hunt aimed at K-3 students. Eggs designed by elementary students have been hidden on school sites around the World Wide Web. Participants visit the school sites to hunt for the eggs and then follow links to answer questions. The activity gives young students practice in navigating the web for a purpose.
- Activities To Do on the 100th Day of School
- Dr. Rabbit’s No Cavities Clubhouse offers plenty of fun and educational dental health activities for kids.
- Berit’s Best Sites for Children presents an excellent, extensive list of links to sites oriented toward elementary school children. Each site has been carefully selected, reviewed, and given a rating from 1 to 5.
- Education.com has news for parents and lots of activities to do at home with their children.
- Kids Did This! is a wonderful round-up of web projects done by kids in a variety of curriculum areas.
- Yahooligans is a searchable and browsable index of the Internet designed specifically for 8- to 14-year-olds, sponsored by the search engine Yahoo.