K to 12 Education Web Sites of the DAY
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Explore important topics and resources in Education.
Locate useful web sites for K-12 math, science, language arts etc. Preparation for Student Assessment and Testing CanTeach Marilee's Word Puzzles Sue's Internet Collection of ED Resources
Thursday, November 28, 2002
ENC: This Week: Classroom Calendar: The Marvelous Möbius Strip Is it art or is it geometry? It's both, of course.
Monday, November 25, 2002
Free worksheets, reproducibles, and printable activities for grades K-3.
Saturday, November 23, 2002
National Library of Virtual Manipulatives Virtual manipulatives related to the NCTM Geometry standard. These interactive activities will supplement and support concrete activities used in the classroom.
Tuesday, November 19, 2002
ITforLearning Is our teaching effective? Who's being left behind? Which skills must our teachers master next, in order to help students move ahead? How can we prepare students for mandated assessments without tunnel-vision teaching-to-the-test? How can we begin to collect benefit from the dollars we've invested in education technology? How are we going to get the money, the time, and the talented people we need to sustain improvement?
Monday, November 18, 2002
Customer Entry Welcome to the York University Libraries’ Ask A Librarian Chat Reference Service, where we provide online real-time assistance on research and the use of library resources.
Ask A Librarian Chat Reference participates in the Ontario Collaborative Virtual Reference Project (OCVRP). The service is jointly staffed by York, Ryerson, and Guelph University Libraries.
VRD- Facets of Quality for Digital Reference Services This document outlines important characteristics and features (referred to as facets of quality) for building a digital reference service for all audiences, including the K-12 educational community. The facets are intended as a set of standards for organizations to achieve in creating and maintaining digital reference services participating in the Virtual Reference Desk (VRD) Network [a collaborative Internet-based question and answer service providing support to digital reference (or AskA) services by accepting out-of-scope and overflow questions], but can be applied to all digital reference services and consortia.
VRD- AskA Locator: By Subject To submit an AskA service for inclusion in the AskA+ Locator, please refer to the criteria established by the expert panel before completing the submission form.
About VRD The Virtual Reference Desk (VRD) is a project dedicated to the advancement of digital reference and the successful creation and operation of human-mediated, Internet-based information services. VRD is sponsored by the United States Department of Education.
What is Digital Reference?
Digital reference, or "AskA", services are Internet-based question-and-answer services that connect users with experts and subject expertise. Digital reference services use the Internet to connect people with people who can answer questions and support the development of skills.
Googlewhacking: The Search for The One True Googlewhack Some writers recently have suggested that Googlewhacking may affect Google's ordinary search results. That's extremely unlikely. The few dozen whacks on this page do appear in the Google database; they arrived there before the craze was under way. So if you're often searching for 'squirreling' or 'boogers,' you may find a few more results, for which we apologize :-)
Sunday, November 17, 2002
HOT LINKS TO CHRISTMAS LESSON IDEAS
(copy and paste into your favourite browser-UNDER CONSTRUCTION)
There are quite a few here to sift through, enjoy them.
Barbara's Christmas links page from Palmerston
http://www.palmdps.act.edu.au/christmas/christmas02_main.htm
A Christmas Treasure Hunt - I liked this one.
http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/denise/ChristmasTreasureHunt.htm
How is Christmas celebrated around the world?
http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/denise/HowChristmasIsCelebrated.htm
A page of Christmas links for websites, webquests & worksheets at:
http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/denise/Christmas.htm
Santa's Mail Room
http://www.north-pole.net/sendletter.html
Celebrating December Around the World -
http://www.education-world.com/a_special/december.shtml
Education World offering on ways to incorporate the holidays into your
classroom; includes ideas from articles and websites to help you plan
effectively
Clip Art - http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/xmas/clip.html
Free images you can use on your webpages, newsletters, activity sheets and letterhead. Check this out!
Christmas Around the World - http://www.santas.net/aroundtheworld.htm
Extensive listing of traditions from various countries.
Christmas on the Net - http://www.holidays.net/christmas/
Excellent overview of the history and traditions of Christmas; includes an animated calendar and music files
Christmas Traditions in France and Canada -
http://www.culture.fr/culture/noel/angl/noel.htm
Available in French and English, a joint effort from Canada and France
to present the traditions of these nations in consort: family traditions,
religious traditions, community celebrations, and coverage of the
Middle Ages, the 15th through 18th centuries, and the 19th and 20th centuries.
http://www.christmas-cookies.com/
Dozens of downloadable recipes you can use with your students.
Party Games and Ideas -
http://hometown.aol.com/SantiKlaus/KidsPartiesXmas/HolidayFunPg6.html
Puzzles and games you can use in your classroom this December for
Elementary and Middle School aged students.
Trees and More - http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/hort/trees.html
From the University of Illinois Extension, a highly comprehensive guide
to all kinds of December greenery: varieties, facts, traditions, care,
events, flowers, recipes and so much more (thus, the title!).
Trivia Quiz - http://www.familygames.com/features/quizzes/xmasquiz.html
Thirty questions on Christmas traditions presented in an interactive
multiple choice format which allows the participant to click on any and
all of the choices to test their knowledge and gain information on the
history of this holiday.
The Twelve Books of Christmas -
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/wwr/christmas/index.html
Recommended reading from the American Library Association for Christmas
season in your classroom; great Children literature to enrich your unit of study
Virtual Christmas Tree Farm -
http://www.christmastrees.on.ca/vtfsite/vtfmain.html
The Christmas Tree Farmers of Ontario have put together this virtual
field trip to a farm to learn how trees are grown, cared for, harvested and
sold for the holidays; includes a history of trees and kids activities too.
Worldwide Christmas Calendar -
http://www.algonet.se/~bernadot/christmas/calendar.html
Independent Children's Artist Network
Saturday, November 16, 2002
Reading Rockets: Launching Young Readers Launch a child into a bright future with reading strategies that work from PBS.ORG.
http://www.pbs.org/launchingreaders/images/homepage_shifty_ani.gif
Book Units PreK-12th grade A superb collection of lesson, units and activities for core works of literature.
Monday, November 11, 2002
Ginny's Teachers' Curriculum Resources By Subject
Sunday, November 10, 2002
Grade 1 - November Issue
Our Grade 1 teacher explains classroom goals for the month of November.
Activity of the Month: Practise phonics with Kids Lab.
Report Cards
With report card time looming at the end of the month, parents of Grade 1 students often look forward to counting all the A's which their child might receive. If your first child is in Grade 1 this year, it might be helpful to be aware that the marking scheme may be somewhat different than one to which you may be accustomed. A child who meets all the expectations of the programme should receive a B or a B+. In order to receive an A, a child must "consistently exceed" the expectations - a daunting task indeed, for someone just beginning Grade 1. So celebrate those B's. It means your child is doing just fine!
Language Arts
By November, Grade 1 students have learned most of the consonant sounds and at least two or three short vowel sounds. Now it gets exciting, because they should be able to spell dozens of words simply by applying their new phonics skills! For example, if they know the consonants m,s,f,c,r,t,l, and p as well as the vowels a,i, and o, they can spell words like map, mop, tip, fast, and crop. Parents can help by asking their children to practise a few words at home each night. Don't forget to include the blends (fl, sl, fr, cr, st, etc.). Parents may find Kids Lab, a phonics web site, useful and fun.
Parents often ask why their child can easily spell a word but encounter difficulty when trying to read the same word. This is because the skills are different. Sounding out a word to spell it involves encoding. Sounding out a word to read it involves decoding. With daily practice, most children will become adept at both skills on their way to becoming readers.
Our self-selected reading block becomes quite noisy by November. This is the time when the children choose a book to read by themselves or with partners. It used to be called silent reading, but it is anything but silent in Grade 1. As they start to recognize words from either the Word Wall, class-displayed word lists or by sounding them out, they don't hesitate to spread this excitement to anyone within earshot!
Mathematics
Most Grade 1 classes will have introduced addition and subtraction by now and a great deal of the Math time is spent in consolidating the understanding of the concepts. This means lots of practice using the number line and counters. Parents can help at home by teaching their child problem-solving skills using everyday situations. For example, while setting the table for dinner, you could ask, "We have three glasses on the table already. If we put two more, how many will we have altogether?" This kind of daily practice at home and at school will help to ensure that your child has a solid grasp of adding and subtracting.
Science
In Science, we'll be dealing with some of the expectations in the Life Systems as well as Matter and Materials strands. The children will be learning to use their five senses when making observations. They will be encouraged to use more than one sense and not simply to rely on their sense of sight. Their ability to use descriptive oral language throughout the unit will be one of the tools that will be used to evaluate their progress. Some of the Math expectations in Data Management will come into play here also, as we graph some of the results of our observations. Science activities are a wonderful opportunity for children to learn group work. Learning the art of compromise is very difficult for any age group, but the skills involved can definitely be taught and encouraged at the Grade 1 level.
French
Grade 1 students will be working on vocabulary based on members of the family (maman, papa, soeur, et père) as well as occupations of the adults whom they meet at school each day (secrétaire, professeur, et directeur de l'école). They will continue to work on colours, numbers (counting to 30) and the alphabet.
D. Nieminen, Grade 1
St. Marguerite d'Youville School, Ottawa
Courtesy: Rogers Hi-Speed Internet Education Centre
Saturday, November 09, 2002
Picture Stories
What is PictureStories?
Picture Stories lets you make little webpages of stories you write where some of the words are replaced with images (called "rebuses"). What makes PictureStories cool is that the images are dynamically pulled from popular web-based image search engines (like Yahoo). Lots of people have written cute little storybooks for kids that are like this, and I thought it'd be neat to be able to do your own.
KIDS LAB
Friday, November 08, 2002
New Teacher Connection
Reaching the Reluctant Teacher How Teachers Learn Technology Best --- "Technology reluctants have special needs, interests and learning styles that must be addressed with respect and ingenuity if we expect to see such teachers embrace the new technologies being placed in their classrooms."
Tuesday, November 05, 2002
Language Arts
Kids Snow Page
Education Network of Ontario :-)
NUMBER and WORD PUZZLES Ken Egan updates this Australian site monthly and offers a range of interactive ... on
your computer) and non-interactive work sheet number and word puzzles.
Monday, November 04, 2002
ECOO resources
ECOO OUTPUT magazine
WebQuests > Featured Projects In addition to San Diego University's huge site on WebQuests, check out what this city's teachers have created as a result of their Technology Challenge Grants Program. There are WebQuests here for studnets of all ages. They follow Dodge's WebQuest model and are ready to use in the classroom to tackle a variety of issues and topics.
Saturday, November 02, 2002
Teacher Tools - by Teachers for Teachers Forms and Letters!!! This section of Teacher Tools contains more than 80 templates for documents most teachers use every day. They are downloadable and modifiable.
