Free Online Animated Books

Another free and useful online resource!  I found out about this via Mo Willem's Twitter oddly enough.  I will say that without the link it was hard to search for on it's own.  Barnes and Noble has this great free resource on the kid's section of it's website.  B&N has a collection of stories read by celebrities, frequently the book's author.  Each month features a new book but you can access past stories by using the scroll bar on the bottom.


Here's the link so you don't have to hunt it down!
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/index.asp




Enjoy!

Parent- Teacher Conferences Schedule Manager!

Hey teachers out there! How many of you have wished you had a personal assistant to do some of those little jobs like scheduling conferences? I'm thinking, "hello! personal assistant- sign me up!" Sorry to say, personal assistants are still not in your school's budget. However, the latest trend with P-T-C's is online scheduling. I searched a bunch of sites and found one that does not require membership and does not require the parents to sign up for anything either. It is designed to manage volunteer events and also includes a link for teacher use.

The site you want to use is called Volunteer Spot. It took no more than 10 minutes to set up two days of conferences with time slots and sign up limitations. After completing one day I was able to copy that format to the next day. Once I established my event (P-T-C's Spring 2012) I had the option of generating a link, which I did. I emailed the link to my classroom distribution list and was done. This site lets me track who has signed up and provides an option for a schedule print out. The one option it doesn't do (at least not that I have found yet) is stalk, erm, 'remind' parents to sign up for a conference.

Volunteer Spot is a great tool and I highly recommend it. Short of getting that personal assistant we are all longing for, this is the most stress free conference scheduling I have done.

Link: Volunteerspot.com

Here's to a well planned Spring conference season!

Another free find on the web!

Just a quick post tonight. I was searching for a resource for some math activities today and stumbled on a new website.

Check out Education.com for a load of free resources. Items are categorized by grade level and then subject matter and again broken down within each subject. This site has activities and worksheets- and lots of both.

All in all, I consider this find a great use of a prep block!

Happy searching!

Happy Birthday Dr Seuss! (Read Across America day)

At the end of the day today I walked into the classroom next to where I am long term subbing. Sitting on the table was a Seuss activity, ready for the morning. There I was, teaching in the home state of Dr Rhyme totally forgetting his birthday- opps! I came home from school with a mission- find Seuss ideas for tomorrow.

All I have to say is that after Google and Pinterest searching I remembered that Dr Seuss has an amazing website. If you don't know what i'm talking about you need to immediately follow the link at the bottom of this post. Seussville is a website for students and teachers complete with everything from games to lesson plans (there is a parent's section as well). The educators section has a month by month event guide featuring teaching guides for various books correlating to the 'holiday' of the month.

Check out Seussville! (http://www.seussville.com/)

Just remember that at the end of the day (after you've heard your name a million times over, you are convinced you're going to be saying the same name in your sleep that you said every 2 minutes and you just can't wait to get to 100 gems/jewels/compliments/marbles/whatever so you can have pj day), “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

Have a Seuss-tastic Friday!

Sheppard Software Free Game site!

My quest for free online resources continues! Today's find is a multi-level collection of games supporting each of the core subjects. While I was leery of the website as it appeared to be a software company, it actually has a plethora of free games.

After getting past the visually overwhelming design of the homepage I was excited to explore the numerous categories. I discovered as I was selecting options around the page that many of the words and icons I scrolled over were being read aloud. I tried out a few of the games and found that this read aloud feature continued within the games, including a read aloud of the directions.

Along with being able to select by subject you are also able to select an additional Preschool collection. The games in the preschool collection have softer graphics and are great for Preschool and Kindergarten usage. If you hang out with the big kids, there is oodles of stuff for you on this site as well!

Within the Preschool-Kindergarten section of the website I think the Animals section is the best feature. The animal section features a collection of activities themed for ocean, jungle, forest and farm. The direct link to this portion of the site is: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/preschool/animals.htm

If you hang out with the big kids, there is oodles of stuff for you on this site as well! I liked the the life cycles activities. These activities are themed for frog, butterfly and bird life cycles. Once a creature is selected you have the option of watching a video or playing a game. I played the butterfly game and was presented with icons for the different stages of the butterfly life cycle. To play the game you organize the icons onto a life cycle circle. When the incorrect icon is selected the icon would fly back to the start point rather than attach to the circle. The direct link for the life cycle science games is: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/scienceforkids/life_cycle/index.htm

Link to Sheppard Software homepage: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/

Link to Sheppard's Preschool page: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/preschool/preschool.htm

Thanks for reading!

NCTM Illuminations Review

I was thinking with all of the website reviews I've been doing this week I was falling into a pattern of literacy focused posts. How do you fix this situation? Well, by taking a look at the list of websites bookmarked on your computer and searching for something other than literacy.

A few weeks ago I was helping out in a First Grade classroom and learned about a kid's section of the NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) site. My mother has been teaching math for about 30 years and while NCTM is a well known organization in our family, it's something that I never paid much interest to as an Early Childhood educator. Who knew it was full of easy to play, developmentally appropriate games? (Clearly, the First Grade teacher I was helping out).

A definite challenge with this site is getting to the games. The teacher I was with told her First Graders to, 'think yellow.' Following the links from the homepage with these steps:

1. Select the "Activities" button (yellow- and on top)

2. Select the "pre-k - 2" yellow stars (also on top)

3. Click the "search" button

4. You are now on the games page- pick a game. (The class I was with was directed to play a specific game).

It would be beneficial to add a link directly to the games page for that grade range to the bookmarks menu of the computers students will use. Of course, this is one of those ideas that takes the extra time we are often strapped for.

One of the games I liked was "Patch Tool." Patch Tool is a virtual play mat for pattern blocks. I would begin by using the blank canvas option for exploration and eventually moving to the "puzzle" outlines. One of the challenges to the puzzle outlines is that to complete some of the puzzles some pattern blocks require rotation.

A second game I could see myself using is "How Many Under the Shell." How Many Under the Shell is a subtraction game featuring a fun animated octopus. In this game the player is given a number of bubbles per round. After viewing the bubbles with corresponding numerals some of the bubbles become hidden by the shell, leaving the player with the remaining bubbles to count up from.

Link for Illuminations home page: http://illuminations.nctm.org/

Link for the First Grade games page: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activities.aspx?grade=1

Check out the games and feel free to leave your thoughts on them here.

Thanks for reading!

Storyline (Online video book collection)

I figure since I'm having such luck finding free and useful websites, I should keep Googling. A few interesting key word searches later I located a website run by the Screen Actor's Guild. While SAG is not the first agency I would think of for classroom freebies I can honestly say that they put together a nice resource.

Storyline is a video collection featuring actors reading picture books. The videos transition smoothly from the actor/actress holding the book to pictures from the book. The videography is well done and the videos are enjoyable to watch. Be sure to click the 'more stories!' button at the bottom of the displayed links to access the variety hiding on additional pages. When you select a specific video you are provided with addition links for complimentary activities for that story. http://www.storylineonline.net/

Happy viewing!