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Welcome, Fall!  October is here! 

To get into the Halloween spirit, why not carve a pumpkin online?  There are two sites that I have found that are fun. 

 The first one located at theoworlds has the most options for your pumpkin.  It gives you to option to cut “freeform” or with straight lines only. When you connect the lines of your cut, then the piece automatically falls out of your pumpkin.  You can change the background picture, add your own message, print your pumpkin, save it to view later, or send it to your friends in an email.  Don’t forget you can turn on and off the spooky background music! As you can see from the picture above, the pumpkin is realistic instead of a cartoon.  I like it!

The second pumkpin site is called the “Pumpkin Simulator“.  You have a cartoon pumpkin to carve on, and when you are finished, you click, “done”.  At that time, a lit candle is added to your pumpkin and spooky music plays.  It doesn’t have any of the other options as the first pumpkin site, but it still provides entertainment!  Happy Halloween!

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See quiz at the end of this blog!

I came across the site Mystudio.com after reading The First Day of Kindergarten blog.  This site allows you to create quizzes enhanced with pictures, audio, or video and post them to your blog or website.  Think of the educational possibilities!  You could also use this as a great way to grab the attention of parents when they visit your classroom website.

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Wow, teachers and parents!  Have you seen Spellingcity.com? This is the best free spelling site I have seen in a long time.  Basically, the teacher or student can enter a list of spelling words and the site will provide you with interactive practice.  First, the site will say the word to you (in a very natural voice, I might add) and you type the word.  The site will speak a sentence with the spelling word in correct context as well.  Press the button to check your answers and the site corrects your work.  If you get one wrong, you have the option of completing extra practice with the word.

Here is what Spellingcity.com boasts on their website:

“SpellingCity is a fun new educational site that can help children improve their spelling skills:
-  contains over 25,000 words, including plurals, contractions, future and past tenses
-  uses a REAL human voice that says both the word and the word in a sentence
-  a ‘Teach Me’ function that spells out the word using both visual and auditory input to improve retention
-  teachers and parents can enter and save their own spelling lists for their students/children
-  students can play games with their words or any saved lists
-  teachers and parents can save and share their lists.
-  the forum allows teachers and parents to share lists and ideas”

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Check out the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives!  Right now this is a free site, and I’m not sure it will stay that way because the site is already advertising their activities on CD.  However, for now teachers can use this site in math class for free. The site offers a variety of online math manipulatives for K-12 ranging from Base Ten Blocks, to geoboards, and spinners.  Now you can use these items without the mess!  Virtual clean-up!  I used the geoboards in my class and laughed – the children were still expecting the rubber bands to snap off the screen and hit them.

Another one of my favorite sites is the interactive online clock.  Project this website in class to help your class tell time on an analog clock.  Using the red and green buttons at the bottom of the screen will allow you to create different times on the clock.  Notice that the sun and moon will rise and set in the background as you change the time, which helps the children distinguish between AM and PM.  If you use a Smartboard or an interactive whiteboard, this site is even better since students can come to the board and use the buttons to change the time in class.  Use the button on the right side, you can also display the time in a digital clock, so the students can compare the clocks side by side. Since you can hide the digital clock, it’s great for quizzing the kids on the analog clock since they can check their work on the digital clock.

A few other sites worth checking out for math instruction:

1.  Online graphing calculator

2. Interactive Math Games (such as Arthimetic Four)

3.  Create a graph

4. More virtual manipulatives

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Have you seen Bubbl.us? It is a free service that allows you to diagram and brainstorm online with webs. The site boasts:

“Why use bubbl.us?

Because you can:

• Create colorful mind maps online
• Share and work with friends
• Embed your mind map in your blog or website
• Email and print your mind map
• Save your mind map as an image”

How cool is that? I am using it to store webs online for peer review and discussion. In addition, I don’t need to worry about whether or not people have the software to view my web. Instead, they can go to bubbl.us and view it without software. Think of brainstorming in your classroom if your school does not have web software like Inspiration or Kidspiration. You now have a free alternative! You can customize the bubbles with fill color, and make main idea bubbles as well as several sub-topic bubbles. Zooming in and out allows you to view the web easily as it grows in size. Here is a sample web that I created on Bubbl.us. This is just a small section of a very large web AND I don’t need to worry about saving it to thumb drive since it is saved online.

See the controls on the bubble in the bottom right of the picture above? These are all the controls you will need to create a web within minutes. You can change the color of the bubbles, link to other bubbles, or create new ones within seconds. I find it to be a great alternative to use when Inspiration is not available.

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With children growing up in a digital age, many kids have access to technology in their homes.  After 10 years of teaching in elementary school, it suprised me how many students had access to technology in their bedrooms.  “I don’t care if I’m sent to my room,” I heard one child say, “because I have a TV, a DVD player, a CD player, a computer, and I love to IM my friends.”  In one scary instance, I had a female student tell me about a new friend she was meeting in the local park after spending the evening chatting over Instant Messaging.  I called her parents, who contacted authorities, and a distaster was averted.  This time. 

 Kids need to be aware of the dangers on the Internet.  How do parents and educators start this dialogue with students?  There are several websites available to kids, parents, and educators with a variety of resources in digital and print form. 

 On the top of my list is the website sponsored by The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children called Netsmartz. There are separate sections for parents, teachers, and kids, but certainly adults should look at all of these resources and not just the ones under their “tab”.  For example, the kids section has several interactive games that tell about the dangers of the Internet from spam to viruses to online predators. There is a very powerful game (about 2 minutes long) called “Who’s Your Friend on the Internet?”  I projected this game in my college technology class to a group of current teachers, and they ended up making the same mistakes that children do.  Lesson: You can NEVER be too careful. 

There is also a website just for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  They report that “approximately one in seven youths (10 to 17 years) experience a sexual solicitation or approach while online”.  Talking to your children and educating them about the Internet is the best place to start to prevent something from happening.

In addition, ChatDanger is a site “all about the potential dangers on interactive services online like chat, IM, online games, email and on mobiles”. 

Finally, SafeKids.com is a site that has a nice list of print resources including family contracts for online safety and guidelines for parents.

 Hopefully, these resources provide a starting point for discussion for your children or your students so we can be committed to keeping them safe.