If you have a particular topic or interest area in mind, we recommend that you try your web browser search function. Select "Find." Enter a key word like "math," "reading," "volcano" or "slavery." You get the idea!
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Book Reports – The EduHound has assembled a nice selection of resources that can help your readers write better book reports. We especially like the five-step plan from Random House.
Marie Antoinette — Did she really say "Let them eat cake"? Barbara Feldman's top five Antoinette sites for kids.
Science & Math Games — Fun-Based Learning offers several free science and math games that teach chemistry concepts, graphing, and more. Free, or subscribe and remove the Google ads.
Journey of Democracy — Website commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown landing offers K-12 educational resources and lesson plans.
Dr. Goodword's Word Wizard — Information for grades 4-7 on the most often mispronounced and misspelled English words, tips for writing, and word games as well as fun articles on the use of spell checkers and the inconsistency of English spelling.
Help for Parents — Perspectives and resources on parent involvement from the National Education Association.
National Women's Hall of Fame — American women who have made significant national or global contributions in the fields of arts, athletics, business, education, government, the humanities, philanthropy, and science.
The History Lab — The History Lab offers teachers a template for creating primary source based lessons and activities for students, with a focus on inquiry learning. The completed labs are archived for use by anyone. Registration is free.
600 Successful Lesson Plans — Created and contributed by teachers who've used them successfully in their classrooms. Reviewed at Education World, where you can find many other Grades 6-8 site reviews!
Forensics in the Classroom — If your students are interested in crime scene investigation, check out this free offering from Court TV— free curriculum units on forensic science for middle and high school students.
Calendars Through the Ages — How did various cultures develop their calendars? Which calendars are still is use today? What is their astronomical basis? How did the ancients decide on a "week" and "month" and how did the names of the days develop? A great resource for teaching about the ways we've chosen to structure time!
Project Constellation — This NASA website was created to serve as a place the public can learn about Project Constellation, which is the long-term project that will once again take humans back to the moon for a variety of scientific endeavors. Check out the Lunar Mission Animation!
The Cool Spot — The Cool Spot, created by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, is based on a curriculum for grades 6-8 developed by the University of Michigan. Its goal is to give young teens a clear picture of alcohol abuse among their peers. See Education World review.
Resources for Writing — So much of today's push around adolescent literacy involves reading. However, there are invaluable resources on the writing end, too. Here's a collection of them.
Exploring the Environment — Exploring the Environment includes twenty-five online modules for grades 5-8 and 9-12 that cover such topics as coral reefs, El Nino, climate change, volcanoes and much more.
Reach Every Child — Horace Mann and teacher Alan Haskvitz developed this site of educational resources for teachers and students. It includes lesson plans to make reaching students and using technology easier.
Running English Pilot Academy — This K-12 project, developed by a Canadian K-12 educator who is in training for space exploration, blends elements of health, communication and science through activities that take place in a natural outdoor setting. Can't be explained in a few words, so check it out!
Best Foods, Worst Foods — This site, developed by students, promotes healthy eating in an entertaining fashion.
Solar Eclipse — On March 29, 2006, many of the Earth's inhabitants will be able to see a total or partial eclipse of the Sun. This story at Education World includes links to many resources that can prepare students for this astronomical event.
Newton's Castle — Students will learn about Earth's rotation, optical illusions, logic puzzles, color, and more — and find thought-provoking questions to foster further discussion.
Beyond the Fire — Stories of 15 teenagers who came to the U.S. from war zones. Includes talk section for teachers to discuss how they are using the site in their own classrooms.
Algebra Solutions — This A+ rated site is great for students wanting to brush up on their algebra skills or get help with homework assignments, says Education World.
Winter Olympics — You'll find a nice set of resource links about the 2006 Winter Olympics at the EduHound website, including lesson plans and clip art for educators.
BBC Civilizations — At this interactive website, recommended by a MS history teacher, students can visually see the development of major civilizations and religions through time. "It uses web technology to reveal the sweep of historical forces and the rise and fall of great empires and ideas over 5000 years in a way that no book could ever do."
New York Public Library Digital Gallery — This comprehensive digital gallery provides a wealth of rich media for use in the classroom. With the abundance of material in the databases, visitors may find it a little overwhelming at first glance but there are user friendly help pages available for searching, browsing, and user guides. Read this Education World review and find a link to the site.
Boston Tea Party – On December 16, 1773, a small group of American colonists (many of them dressed up as Mohawk Indians) sneaked onto three ships in the Boston harbor, and dumped more than 300 cases of English tea overboard as a protest against British taxation. The British responded with several harsh measures that ended up uniting the colonists in their quest for independence. Barbara J. Feldman, editor of the Surfing the Net with Kids website, offers a collection of resources about the famous event. To view some period images, visit this page at the Awesome Stories website: If you click on "tea," you'll see an actual bottle of the tea thrown into the harbor!
December Holiday Sites — Don't let the December holidays disrupt the learning in your classroom, says Education World. This collection of online resources will help incorporate them into your real learning activities—and provide a little fun as well. Includes resources for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas.
Unraveling King Tut's Mysteries — National Geographic offers a detailed online look at the new Tutankhamen American tour.
Positive Classroom Discipline — New and veteran teachers alike can learn something from the "King of Classroom Management" Ð Fred Jones. Here's a treasure trove of Jones' articles from Education World.
Your First Day of Teaching —Harry and Rosemary Wong sum it all up for you in this Teacher.net column, with links to other Wong advice columns.
Classroom Management —The Really Big List of Classroom Management Resources is a great find for novice teachers and others who are new to middle school.
World History Matters —This resource-rich site offers history teachers guides to primary sources, multimedia case studies on how to analyze documents, teaching sources and more.
Free Classics —At the Classic Reader website, you'll find the complete texts of many classic books and short stories. No longer under copyright, these free materials can be downloaded and used as you like.
Eco-Classrooms —The vision of Hands on the Land is to provide a national network of field classrooms to enhance kindergarten through high school student-learning. The site is designed primarily for teachers and program providers (rated A+ by Education World.)
Insects on the Web! — Enjoy the enthralling gallery of beetle photos on the Living Jewels Web site and MicroAngela's eerie close-ups of common insects taken with an electron microscope. This article recommends other links to sites with insect-related information, puzzles and downloadable masks.
Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms — Historic Maps is a project of the Newberry LibraryÕs Center for the History of Cartography. It features lesson plans built around historically significant map documents that support a variety of social studies, history and geography curricula The site won Education World's A+ designation.
Algebra Ideas — A middle grades teacher writes: "This website will keep you and your students busy for a lifetime. The questions are absolutely engaging and ask you to think about things you didn't think you could."
The Journey to Planet Earth Action Kit — Explores the issues about the Earth's future environment raised in the recent PBS series. You'll find hands-on activities for middle school students in and out of the classroom.
Funny Poems — April is National Poetry Month and expert websurfer Barbara Feldman has pulled together links to selections of "funny poems" by five poets. At the Kenn Nesbitt site, you'll also find advice for kids on how to write funny poetry.
Lots of Book Reviews! – Allreaders.com features detailed book reviews from all genres as well as presenting featured authors, latest book reviews of your favorite books, or you can enter a book review and get listed as a scholar. You'll find lots of adolescent literature — and several ways to search, including title, author, plot, genre, main character, main adversary, setting, and style!
Alcatraz Island — From the 1930s to 1960s, Alcatraz was the the nation's most infamous maximum security prison, housing inmates such as Al Capone & George "Machine Gun" Kelly. Before the prison was created, the island was home to American Indians. Today, it is one of San Francisco's most prominent tourist attractions. This National Park Service site tells the story of the island and the prison. Sure to engage middle schoolers!
Poetry Slam PowerPoint Style! — Students select poems, create PowerPoint presentations that use graphics and text to enhance those poems, and then display their presentations as they read their poems aloud. Includes a lesson plan.
Underwater Volcano — NeMO is a seafloor observatory at an active underwater volcano. This multimedia site from NOAA allows students to explore a seafloor observatory geographically or by topic. It includes animations, fly-through movies and an interactive diving simulation!
Tuskegee Airmen — A selection of resources about the first black Americans to become military pilots who fought both fascism and racism during World War II. (Surfing with Kids)
A Tapestry of Time and Terrain – This A+ site from the United States Geological Survey features a "digital tapestry" of the continental United States, outlining the geologic story over the last 2.6 billion years in a highly visual way. Puzzles, a movie—and a PDF download of the beautiful map.
In Pursuit of Tolerance – Edmund Burke, an eighteenth-century writer and philosopher said "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." If spreading tolerance and stopping hatred is important to you, these sites gathered by Surfing the Net with Kids offer both historical perspective and concrete action items
Show Biz Science – Children's science writer Vicki Cobb features fun science activities in her "Show-Biz Science" column at Education World. Check out, for example, "I'm Dreaming of a Bright Holiday" (properties of light); "Mayonnaise Have Seen the Glory" (emulsions), "Show-Stopping Dropping" (gravity/physics) and many more!
Textmapping – Textmapping is a graphic organizer technique that can be used to teach reading comprehension and writing skills, study skills, and course content. This site is a free resource for teachers with LOTS of lesson guides and free online training.
Access Excellence – Access Excellence is a national educational program that provides health, biology and life science teachers access to critical sources of new scientific information. Among the many website resources: The Mystery Spot – Interactive, online scientific mysteries developed by Access Excellence for classroom use.
Dinosphere – "Now You're in THEIR World." A terrific website of the Indianapolis Children's Museum, exploring that favorite topic of many middle schoolers – dinosaurs. There's a special Webquest for Gr. 6-8, "Who Should Own the Bones?", available in English and Spanish.
For Cutting-Edge Librarians – Whether you're a school or public librarian, Jenny Levine should be on your list of Internet mavens. Her blog is one of the best ways to keep up with the Web-driven information revolution. Highly recommended by several MS media specialists.
Whiteboards – Students love working on their own whiteboards; it's a great way of keeping an entire class actively involved in a lesson. Education World offers five examples.
Ripley's Freaky Fridays – This Live Chat program at ePALS (every Friday from September 17 to November 19) will feature items from Ripley's Believe It or Not! There's a teacher's guide with discussion topics designed to engage students.
The Lesson Plans Page – This ad-supported website offers more than 2,500 free lesson plans – plus links to many other education resources, including fund-raising ideas, inspiring teacher stories, job-hunting tips and more.
Effective Classroom Management Techniques – Sage advice from classroom management expert Fred Jones, including 12 teacher-tested tips for behavior management. At Education World.
A Guide for New Teachers – Today's new teachers have many more resources available to support them than teachers did 20 years ago. For example, they can rely on the advice of Yvonne Bender, author of the New Teacher's Handbook. Read this interview with Bender at Education World.
Teachable Moments – TeachableMoment.org brings current topics in the news to the classroom by providing K-12 educators with "timely teaching ideas to encourage critical thinking on issues of the day."
Reducing Teacher Burnout – A teacher friend says of these tips: "They're pretty general, but good advice nonetheless for our new–and mature–teachers as we gear up and begin planning for next school year."
eThemes – Developed initially for Missouri educators, eThemes is an extensive database of content-rich, age-appropriate website resources organized around specific themes. All the sites and have reviewed and approved as child-safe. Currently, there are more than 750 eThemes on topics ranging from Africa to Yellowstone National Park.
ISS EarthKAM – Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle school Students is a NASA education program that provides excellent activities and learning guides for learning about Earth through digital pictures taken from the International Space Station. "Incredibly interesting site," says Education World.
Books for Middle Readers – FlamingNet is a father-son website featuring recommended books for students aged 8-16 and "their parents, grandparents, and teachers, who are looking for books to recommend." It includes curent and classic titles, all read by 13-year-old Seth Cassel and rated 0-10 (with some help from Amazon). There's a special section on the Civil War.
Science Snacks - These pages at the Exploratorium website are full of Snacks — but they're not the kind you eat. They're the kind you can learn from and have fun with. Exploratorium Science Snacks are miniature versions of some of the most popular exhibits at San Francisco's museum of science, art and human perception.
TeenReads - Teenreads.com gives teens a place to talk about their favorite books and find the hippest new titles. It includes info and features about their favorite authors, books, series and characters. Rated "A" by Education World.
Very Cool Tools - Our correspondent writes: "During my workshop today I learned of some amazing online tools for teachers. The virtual manipulative site really fascinates me!"You'll find links to all 25 tools at this archive page.
Before, During and After the Civil War - This selection of images at the American Memory (Library of Congress) website presents a chronological overview of the war as depicted in items from the Civil War collections at the New York Historical Society. Be sure to search for other Civil War materials at the site!
ESL Gold - This site is truly a goldmine for ESL teachers and students, and others who work with ESL learners. ESL Gold "strives to reduce your preparation time by providing clear, easy-to-access handouts, lesson plans and exercises that you can print out and take directly to class."
Study Guides and Strategies - This commercial-free site offers a wide variety of information about effective study -- and much more. Topics include: preparing to learn; studying; classroom participation; learning with others; project skills; reading skills; preparing for tests; taking tests; writing basics; math and science, and "webtruth.".
The Smithsonian Websites - The Smithsonian Institution is not a single museum, but rather the world's largest collection of museums (sixteen) and affiliate museums (129), housing 143 million objects and hosting 45 million visitors a year. These Smithsonian sites are a few of web wizard Barbara Feldman's favorites.
NASA Solar System Exploration - NASA's main website for the unmanned exploration of the solar system offers people-friendly information on the planets and bodies in our solar system and the robotic missions sent out to explore these worlds. It's big! Here's the site map. And kids will love Drive a Mars Rover, at the Planetary Society website.
The Middle School Hub - Middle School Hub is an ad-free interactive learning center that features educational games, puzzles, quizzes, and spelling activities. It also includes subject guides for English language arts, math, science, and social studies.
Student Intervention Resources - These downloadable resources at the Intervention Central support a problem-solving model in which teachers work collegially with their peers to develop effective teaching and behavior management strategies for struggling students.
Visible Earth - A searchable NASA directory of images,visualizations, & animations of Earth. Topics include soils, clouds, storms, hurricanes, droughts, precipitation, vegetation, oceans, sea ice, human population, land use, erosion, fires, rocks, minerals, regions, & countries.
Solve Medical Mysteries! - This interactive online game at the Rice University website lets students solve medical mysteries and learn how infectious diseases are spread. Three "Missions" teach the fundamentals of microbiology, infectious diseases, and epidemiology. They include virtual labs and are aligned with National Science Education Content Standards.
Big Dig Archaeology -From 1993-98 more than 4,400 bargeloads of dirt were taken to Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor, where an old dump made way for a new park. The Big Dig website is an overview of a 1992 archaeological dig (done before work began on the island) which produced a wealth of information on Native American culture and lifestyle.
Pursuing Tolerance - Edmund Burke, an eighteenth-century writer and philosopher said "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." If spreading tolerance and stopping hatred is important to you, these sites at Surfing the Web with Kids offer both historical perspective and concrete action items.
A "Real" Webquest - This webquest for 5th grade world history was recently praised by WQ guru Bernie Dodge during one of his online training sessions. As Dodge says, a true Webquest challenges students to develop and use higher order thinking skills.
Earth Observatory - NASA's "home planet" website won the 2003 Webby Award for best education website. Earth Observatory provides freely accessible new satellite imagery and scientific information, focused on Earth's climate and environmental change. All materials are available for re-use, except where copyright is indicated.
TeenReads - Part of the Book Report Network, Teenreads.com is described as "THE place online for teens to talk about their fave books --- and find the hippest new titles!" Visitors to the site will find book reviews and highlights, newsletters, author spotlights, book club information, reading guides for teens, and much more.
BioInteractive - Education World describes this site developed by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as "extraordinary" and "highly interactive...for students and teachers of biology." Read the EW review and find a link to the site.
TSuperThinkers -This Flash-driven website features a set of original games and interactive mysteries designed to foster literacy and problem-solving. Created by children's book author Peter H. Reynolds and his creative team at Emmy Award-winning FableVision.
The Race for DNA - Science teachers will want to explore this special collection at Oregon State University, documenting the scientific (and very human) competition to be first to describe the double helix structure of DNA. The collection draws on the papers and work of Nobel laureate Linus Pauling. There's rich material here for a collaborative project among history and science teachers.
Teaching about War - Education World offers educators expert tips on how to address the issues of war and terrorism with their students. Included: Strategies for different age groups.
Discovery School - Education World calls this site "enormously impressive" with lots of valuable resources for teachers and students. And it's well-organized, too!
Very Cool Tools - Our correspondent writes: "During my workshop today I learned of some amazing online tools for teachers. The virtual manipulative site really fascinates me!"You'll find links to all 25 tools at this archive page.
Inventing - "Everything that can be invented has been invented." proclaimed Charles Duell, Director of the U.S. Patent Office, arguing in 1899 for the closure of his department. It seems he was wrong. The U.S. Patent Office is still busy. And the Web is full of inventions, inventors and advice on inventing. (Surfing the Net with Kids)
It's My Life - This interactive health site, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, focuses on mental health and relationship issues that children face in their everyday lives. Lots of color, cute graphics, and easily read text make this site appealing. RealVideo plug-in is needed to view the video clips. (Education World A+)
Vietnam Women's Memorial Project - Nearly 10,000 women actually served in-country during the Vietnam conflict. Articles describe the types of jobs women performed during the war. Also includes first person narratives from women veterans, information about the memorial, and links to more information.
Japanese-American Experience in WWII - "Life Interrupted: The Japanese American Experience in WW II Arkansas" shares the history of two Arkansas internment camps. "A beautiful interface (Flash) leads to a variety of resources for teachers, students, and others with an interest in History and/or Cultural Studies. Includes an interactive timeline, photos, VR panoramas." (Blue Web'n review).
Project-Based Learning Website - This free professional development module from The George Lucas Educational Foundation can be used as a self-study course or as a staff development presentation. The Web-based, interactive modules answer the what, why, and how of project-based learning and include video clips of real teachers, students, and schools implementing project-based learning.
Fast
Break! - The NCAA offers a set of teacher-authored lesson
plans (K-8) in six core subjects, all tied to national standards, good
behavior, and college basketball! Participating classes can win prizes.
An American Fairy Tale - This website, developed to accompany the Library of Congress exhibition of Frank Baum and the Wizard of Oz, shares history, the colorful illustrations and many artifacts. An integrated LA-history lesson for sure!
Noodle Quest – "Wow!," writes a teacher. "This amazing Web research tool actually answers the inevitable first question: 'Where do I start?' Just answer the seven multiple-choice questions starting with 'Are you a kid, pretty new to the Internet, or an Internet wizard?" and click 'Show Me a Research Strategy.' This is my pick of the day because of the variety and quality of the research sites it unearths."
ClassZone/Web Research Guide – This tutorial helps teach middle-school students to research, evaluate and cite websites. Itbegins with a quiz to evaluate how much students know about the Internet and offers five lessons. The first explores the advantages of both the Web and traditional library research.
The Kids Philosophy Slam – This annual program is designed to make philosophy fun and accessible to all kids in grades K-12, as well as to help promote critical thinking skills and encourage dialogue with other students and adults. The Philosophy Slam asks kids to answer a philosophical question. This year, it's "What is the Meaning of Life?" Students can express themselves in words, artwork, poetry or song. Each grade level has its own national winner.
