Deb Norton Tech

How many times have you been frustrated with your students not using "there", "their", and "they're" correctly?  Do your students have difficulty with subject/verb agreement?  Perhaps Road to Grammar Jr can help. Road to Grammar Jr is a site that has grammar quizzes, practice and games.    Subject/Verb Agreement  Their, there, and they're Students can choose from over 300 grammar quizzes. This site is appropriate for all learners, but is geared towards grades 3rd - 8th.  It is also appropriate for ELL/ESL learners. The quizzes provide instant feedback.  If your answer is correct, there is a check mark, and if your answer is incorrect, there is an X.   I did not see a way to print the quizzes when you are finished, but students could make a screen capture of the page or raise their hand for a teacher to check their score. I would use the quizzes on this site for individual practice or as a way to introduce or review a grammar s...

Hitting the Target is a site that teaches all about angles using sports. You begin by choosing 1 - 4 players, type in your name and gender, and the you begin.  There are 4 sections to choose from. The first will teach students how to properly use a protractor.   The next one teaches about right angles.   The third section is on acute angles and the forth is on obtuse angles.    Each section is interactive.  Students must complete tasks to show their understanding.   I'm planning to use Hitting the Target when we teach angles in math class.  It will be a great reinforcement for our students.

Here is a web site that seems to have a lot of everything!  It is called KidsKnowIt.com .  First of all there are tons of educational games to be played on all academic areas.  Here is one on the U.S. States.   These are the different categories: There are learning activities that teach all kinds of topics. Here is one on the human body.  Others include dinosaurs, state capitals, rocks and solar system, just to name a few. There are educational songs to listen to.  Check out this one on capitalization. Next, there are movies that teach different topics. Check out this one on averages .   Averages is a hard topic to teach, but this video does a great job explaining it so kids understand what averages are. There are 32 movies available! Also there is an online virtual world called Miamiopia that kids can join and explore.  Registration involves creating a username and password.  No email is required.  Check it out her...

Flisti.com is the easiest site I've ever found for creating on online poll or survey question. Here is an example of a survey question I created on Flisti.com What kind of car do you drive? Minivan Compact Truck Convertible SUV or View Results Create your own poll at Flisti.com Here is what I like about Flisti.com : Creating a survey question is as easy as typing in the question and possible answers. You have an option to allow multiple answers You can choose to post your question on Facebook or Twitter. or  Copy and paste the URL to share your question or Use the embed code to post the question on your blog or website. View the results in a bar graph format when you are done. I would like to use Flisti.com with students to allow them to collect information for data analysis.  It would also be fun to post questions on our class wiki. 

School Time Games looks really good!  There are over 200 educational games on a variety of topics.  Here is what they say on the site:  SchoolTimeGames.com provides learning activities for students of all ages. We've selected a variety of engaging games and puzzles that are connected to all the major subject areas in today's school curriculum. This looks like a site worth exploring! To go to School Time Games click here.

I use Spelling City quite a bit with our students, and recently I just found out that this site has spelling, vocabulary, practice, and games for holidays during each month of the year!  These will be great for bell work and practice! Check it out here!

I plan to discuss the earthquake and tsunami in Japan with our students. Here are some short animated slide shows from BBC News that explain some natural disasters: Earthquakes Tsunamis Volcanoes Hurricanes Tornadoes I like that these slide shows are simple and also have animation.

Lately I've been hearing quite a bit about Paper Slide Movies. These are basically using drawings on paper and a video camera to record a topic.  Here is an explanation from a teacher to his students of paper slide videos: Click here to see an example made by 1st graders about the bald eagle. Here is a paper slide  video about solving math problems: Common Craft makes advanced paper slide videos to explain things simply. Click here to see their site. Don't you think paper slide videos would be a lot of fun for your students?  They are a great way to use your flip video camera as well.  I could see creating one on a topic in a content area or on solving math problems.  "How to" videos would be great and so would a paper slide video explaining a craft or hobby.  What other ideas do you have?

Here is a website that will calculate how old you are -- not only in years, but also in months, weeks, days, hours, and seconds! It also counts down (by seconds) to your next birthday. Warning - this may be depressing to adults! You might want your students to  estimate  how many minutes (or hours or seconds) they are old, or maybe even have them try to  calculate  it themselves. Then they can go to the website and see how close they were!

Have you ever taken a look at the site Interesting Ways ?  It has slide shows on different ways to use many tools in your classroom.  There are quite a variety of topics.  I have gotten a lot of different ideas on ways to use QR codes, Google Docs, Interactive White Boards, and many online tools. The ideas are submitted by educators and others around the globe.  If you haven't checked out Interesting Ways , I think you should give it a try. Here is one of the slide shows on Interesting Ways to use Wordle in the Classroom.  (Click on the picture.)

There is a great site called Janet's Planet.  It covers health and space topics.  We are using with our students today for our bell work.  They will be playing the Jeopardy game . Take a look!