Best WebSites for Elementary Teachers

an elementary in-service offered by Nancy Gridley and Laura Oakes

Check out this site created by Laura & Nancy: www.geocities.com/k6tech

The elementary teachers who participated in this in-service are listed below. They surfed the Internet and evaluated web sites. Participants used multi-tasking to take notes while reviewing web sites. Everyone had a great time exploring and sharing ideas. Thanks to all of our participants! The evaluations that follow are grouped by area of interest.

Denise Cadou, Marshall Hill,Grade 3
Ginger Contillo, Apshawa, Self-Contained LLD
Connie Cornwell, Maple Road, Grade 2
Jodie Henne, Westbrook, Grade 1
Susan Holden, Westbrook, Grade 3
Susan McEvoy, Apshawa, Grade 3
Grayce Mouravieff, Apshawa, Grade 3
John Riggs, Paradise Knoll, Grade 6
Pauline Santelli, Westbrook, Grade 2
Leslie Spohn , UGL, Grade 5
Diane Stackpole, Maple Road, Grade 3
Alice Suska, Marshall Hill, Grade 6

Teacher Tools

WEB SITE: Teacher oriented web site by Houghton Mifflin
URL: http://www.eduplace.com/ss
DESCRIPTION: Gives you outlines, information on Houghton Mifflin Books
IMPLEMENTATION: Great resource for teachers

WEB SITE: The Education Place
URL: http://eduplace.com/
DESCRIPTION: Links and activities in four subject areas for grades K-8. Many choices.
IMPLEMENTATION: Content correlates to the Houghton Mifflin reading program. All appropriate for elementary grades.

WEB SITE: Education World
URL: http://www.education-world.com/
DESCRIPTION: All subject areas. Many options and links. Grades K-8
IMPLEMENTATION: Worksheets available for copying. Brain teasers and games are especially good for math. Hints and solutions provided.

WEB SITE: DearKidInfo/Dear Teacher Tidbytes
URL: http://teachertidbytes.com/
DESCRIPTION: Easy to use. Explore many subjects from grammar to current events. Bits of information in science, history, art, music, etc.
IMPLEMENTATION: Appropriate for elementary grades. Reference and resource for teachers as well.

WEB SITE: Enchanted Learning
URL: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/
DESCRIPTION: Designed for children. Includes a pictionary, foreign language dictionaries, puzzles, games, activities, crafts, as well as information. Designed to develop creativity in children.
IMPLEMENTATION: Especially for children ages 5 to 10. Many puzzles and coloring sheets that can be copied.

WEB SITE: Parents Page
URL: http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/50.html
DESCRIPTION: Many sites recommended by librarians. Activities and lesson plans for art, music, creative writing, math, science, health, etc.
IMPLEMENTATION: Most activities and lessons seemed to be designed primarily for K-2.

WEB SITE: Teacher
URL: http://www.teachers.net/
DESCRIPTION: Links and activities for all subject areas for all grade levels
IMPLEMENTATION: Elementary ideas that can be time consuming but is worth the time. Cute poems and songs

WEB SITE: Games
URL: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/
DESCRIPTION: Games designed to capture imagination with ease of use for creative learning and enjoyment. Many Science, Math and Language Arts activities.
IMPLEMENTATION: Excellent for all grade levels

WEB SITE: Lesson Plans
URL: http://www.kids-learn.org/pumpkins/welcome.html
DESCRIPTION: Many subject area lesson plans from experienced teachers. Poems, creative writing and art ideas are presented and can be easily printed out for classroom use
IMPLEMENTATION: All grade levels

WEB SITE: Education World
URL: http://www.education-world.com/index.shtml
DESCRIPTION: This is a very good site for finding information about a variety of events and subjects in class. This is good for K –6 teachers.
IMPLEMENTATION: Elementary - all areas of the curriculum – for all the months. The site changes to coincide with the months. This site had a good link to the Museum with a worksheet that goes along with it.

WEB SITE: Teacher’s Net
URL: http://www.teachers.net/lessons
DESCRIPTION: This site is good for finding some information, but in order to get lesson plans, there is a charge. I would not recommend this site. There are many other sites that can be used.
IMPLEMENTATION: For some research of area subjects this site could be used.

WEB SITE: Teacher Tidbytes
URL: http://www.teachertidbytes.com/
DESCRIPTION: This is a very good site for finding a variety of information about different subjects. There are teacher sites and parent/student sites. You can be connected to different museums, encyclopedias, etc. There are many links to holidays, and special events, science, math, etc. There is a connection to clip art sites.
IMPLEMENTATION: An excellent site for a variety of information year round. Good for teachers, parents and students.

WEBSITE: Kid’s Search Engine
URL: http://www.yahooligans.com/
DESCRIPTION: This is an excellent site for kids AND teachers. The school bell section has many suggestions for teaching ideas and learning. There is a section to look up info on authors and books. There is a list of all holidays found on the calendar and sites to go to. There is a kid’s almanac.
IMPLEMENTATION: This site can be used for research for both teachers and students. Good for all ages levels.

WEBSITE: Teacher Pathfinder
URL: http://www.teacherpathfinder.org/
Description: This is an excellent site for a variety of subject matter. There is a list of the typical subjects and links to different sites on the subjects.
IMPLEMENTATION: This site is a good reference site for teachers to find information on subjects.

WEB SITE: Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators
URL: http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide
DESCRIPTION: This site covers just about every subject that would be covered in school.
IMPLEMENTATION: This site could be used to clarify terms and concepts that would be taught in any curriculum. Since this site contains a wealth of information, it would be advised to choose a few sites from this major web site to coordinate with your lesson.

WEB SITE: Teacher Tidbytes
URL: http://teachertidbytes.com/
DESCRIPTION: This site contains different sites that teachers could use for their professional purposes. A variety of topics are covered.
IMPLEMENTATION: All areas of research on practical topics are viewed. The extent of research is questionable; however, the variety of information could be useful.

WEB SITE: Ask Jeeves for Kids
URL: http://www.ajkids.com/
DESCRIPTION: Ask any question, and this site will provide you with an answer from science to social studies to any academic area.
IMPLEMENTATION: You can use this site if you are on any unit in the elementary classroom. Since the questions may elicit a complex response, the teacher may have to either clarify some points or advise the students to ignore the part of the explanation that is not understandable. For example, if you ask the program, " Why is the sky blue?" you may get more explanation than you would require. Pictures also accompany the explanations.

WEB SITE: Houghton-Mifflin Social Studies Center
URL: http://www.eduplace.com/ss
DESCRIPTION: This web site compliments the social studies program in the Houghton Mifflin series.
IMPLEMENTATION: This is a good site for the social studies curriculum. It even includes current events that are updated monthly. This is a good cross-reference site.

WEB: SITE: Yahoo Lesson Plans
URL: http://dir.yahoo.com/Education/K_12/Teaching/Lesson_Plans/
DESCRIPTION: This program is a part of Yahoo that addresses educational topics in all areas of the curriculum, including science, social studies, literature and many more topics.
IMPLEMENTATION: This could be coordinated with any subject area and could provide updated material. This site could add to any topic or subject.

WEB SITE: Fun Brain
URL: http://www.funbrain.com/
DESCRIPTION: Interactive educational games categorized by age (6 and under, 7-10, 11-15, 15 and up). Each game has a brief description and level of difficulty.
IMPLEMENTATION: Elementary – all areas of curriculum

WEB SITE: Reach Every Child
URL: http://www.reacheverychild.com/index.html
DESCRIPTION: The Horace Mann Companies has teamed up with National Teacher's Hall of Fame inductee, Alan Haskvitz, to produce a web site full of resources for teachers and students. Alan has collected these resources over the years and used them in his classroom. Included in this site are over 5,000 resources.
IMPLEMENTATION: Web-site with resources for teachers and students. Updates often.

WEB SITE: Google (Search Engine)
URL: http://www.google.com
DESCRIPTION: a no-frills search engine, Google uses sophisticated next-generation technology to produce the right results fast with every query. Google returns relevant results because it responds to your query using an automated method that ranks relevant websites based on the link structure of the Internet itself. Google stores many web pages in its cache to retrieve for you as a back-up in case the page's server temporarily fails.
IMPLEMENTATION: Search engine

WEB SITE: Teachers Net
URL: http://www.teachers.net/
DESCRIPTION: A teachers’ resource, including living chats, and grade/subject specific mail-rings.
IMPLEMENTATION: A good resource for finding out what teachers across the nation and abroad are teaching.

WEB SITE: Ask Jeeves
URL: http://www.ajkids.com/
DESCRIPTION: This web site will provide an answer to any questions a student may have. For example, why is the sky blue? It provides interesting text, information and great pictures. It also provided several alternate questions and provided information rather quickly.
IMPLEMENTATION: Elementary – all areas of the curriculum, strong with science questions. A great tool for answering big questions quickly.

WEB SITE: Enchanted Learning
URL: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/
Description: A web site that provides many different topics for children to explore. It even includes Spanish. If you are researching butterflies, it provides excellent illustrations, information – even an illustrated dictionary. It also provides information about products that you can purchase to complete a lesson. Classroom activities are suggested as well. Ease of use is one of the greatest strengths.
IMPLEMENTATION: Elementary level. Mainly science areas.

WEB SITE: The Idea Box
URL: http://www.theideabox.com/
DESCRIPTION: This site is great for finding quick ideas and projects for the classroom. It mainly focuses on crafts, recipes, songs and seasonal projects. It does list an idea of the day or for the week. One other benefit is that it links to great sites like The Busy Teacher.
IMPLEMENTATION: Early elementary.

WEB SITE: Teacher Tidbytes
URL: http://www.teachertidbytes.com/
DESCRIPTION: This web site is packed with information on all topics. There are many links to other sites. It can be somewhat time consuming to navigate. There are so many topics that it should be fairly easy to locate information.
Implementation: All levels

WEB SITE: Education Index
URL: http://www.educationindex.com/
DESCRIPTION: This site helps you locate the best education sites for all subject areas and ages. An interesting aspect to this site is that it includes a "Virtual Refrigerator Door" for parents to scan their child’s artwork onto the Internet. Their name and the picture they’ve drawn appear on the site.
IMPLEMENTATION: All levels, depending upon the search you are conducting.

WEB SITE: The Puzzle Maker
URL: http://www.puzzlemaker.com/
DESCRIPTION: This site allows you to create customized puzzles to use in the classroom. Although some of the puzzles worked fine and were great, a few did not work properly. This was a bit disappointing! There were some great puzzles and it’s wonderful to be able to just print out the work, rather than creating the puzzle by hand. All you do is plug in the information.
IMPLEMENTATION: All levels

WEB SITE: School Discovery
URL: http://www.school.discovery.com/schrockguide
DESCRIPTION: This is a great web site for educators. It links to many different subject areas across all grade levels. If you are looking for a lesson, you will probably be able to locate it through here.
IMPLEMENTATION: All grade levels

WEB SITE: Enchanted Learning
URL: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html
DESCRIPTION: Links to different activities for primary grades
IMPLEMENTATION: K-3 great for studying animals

WEB SITE: Teacher Resources
URL: http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide
DESCRIPTION: Information and resources in school areas from a-z
IMPLEMENTATION: all grades

WEB SITE: Enchanted Learning
URL: http://www.EnchantedLearning.com
DESCRIPTION: lesson ideas for Spanish-English
IMPLEMENTATION: information for the new Spanish elementary program teachers and middle school

WEB SITE: Teachers
URL: http://www.teachers.net/
DESCRIPTION: teachers chat rooms, resources, lessons, etc.
IMPLEMENTATION: opportunity for teachers to see ideas from other teachers; section for substitute teachers

WEB SITE: For teachers: lessons
URL: http://www.teachers.net/lessons/
DESCRIPTION: lesson plans
IMPLEMENTATION: added ideas for lesson plans

WEB SITE: Ask Jeeves for Kids
URL: http://www.ajkids.com/
DESCRIPTION: Search engine for children to use (The adult version is http://AskJeeves.com). Children type in their question, and Jeeves directs them to the answer.
IMPLEMENTATION: Search engine for kids

WEB SITE: Ask Jeeves for Teachers
URL: http://www.ajkids.com/teachers/TeachersMR.asp
DESCRIPTION: Listing of links for teachers addressing a variety of topics. A question can be typed in directly and "Jeeves" will answer it.
IMPLEMENTATION: Good search for Links.

WEB SITE: Ask Eric Lesson Plans
URL: http://ericir.syr.edu/Virtual/Lessons/Science/Physical/index.html
DESCRIPTION: This web site has great science lesson plans for grades K-12. The experiments are arranged alphabetically.
IMPLEMENTATION: Primary-Intermediate-different types of science.

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Holidays

WEB SITE: Halloween
URL: http://www.kate.net/holidays/halloween
DESCRIPTION: Various activities, crafts, ghoulish sounds, games, recipes and information with regards to Halloween.
IMPLEMENTATION: This is a great site for all ages!

WEB SITE: Thanksgiving
URL: http://kidsdomain.com/holiday/thanks/
DESCRIPTION: Thanksgiving resource
IMPLEMENTATION: Excellent site for teachers as a resource for Thanksgiving: coloring pictures, mazes, word searches, books to read

WEB SITE: An American Thanksgiving
URL: http://www.night.net/thanksgiving/
DESCRIPTION: Great activities for Thanksgiving
IMPLEMENTATION: Appropriate for grades 3-6. Correlates with Social Studies curriculum in grade three.

WEB SITE: Ben and Jerry’s
URL: http://www.benjerry.com/
DESCRIPTION: Fun Stuff. Games, riddles, mazes, and puzzles for holidays.
IMPLEMENTATION: Good for elementary. Easy, medium and hard levels for games and puzzles.

WEB SITE: Sports Illustrated Kids
URL: http://www.sikids.com/halloween/index.html
DESCRIPTION: All sports related activities for fun such as a haunted house, horrors, and trick -or-treating.
IMPLEMENTATION: These are high interest activities for those interested in sports, sports trivia, and sports history.

WEB SITE: Holidays
URL: http://www.kate.net/holidays/halloween
DESCRIPTION: Excellent site for holiday ideas with a wide variety of activities for all holidays. Site includes sound with songs to correlate with holidays. It also has clip art ideas
IMPLEMENTATION: Excellent for all grade levels

WEB SITE: Holidays
URL: http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/thanks/word
DESCRIPTION: Four crossword puzzles and word finds for Thanksgiving. Answer sheets provided. Good site but limited activities.
IMPLEMENTATION: useful for elementary activities

WEB SITE: Holidays
URL: http://www.magic-rainbow.com/pof/holidays/halloween/index.html
DESCRIPTION: This is an excellent site for educators. It has many colorful graphics and stories that can be printed for classroom use. Many other links for other teaching activities are available.
IMPLEMENTATION: All grade levels

WEB SITE: Ben & Jerry’s Thanksgiving
URL: http://www.benjerry.com/thanksgiving/
DESCRIPTION: This site has a list of different ideas for Thanksgiving. There are recipes, info on Indians, coloring pages
IMPLEMENTATION: This is a seasonal site for Thanksgiving.

WEB SITE: Magic Rainbow
URL: http://www.magic-rainbow.com/pof/holidays/halloween/index.html
DESCRIPTION: This was an excellent web site with lots of fun activities and graphics. There was even virtual trick-or-treating for kids! You can also find general information if you’re not looking for holiday information.
IMPLEMENTATION: Elementary level

WEB SITE: Kids Domain
URL: http://www.kidsdomain.com/
DESCRIPTION: This was another excellent site. There was plenty of information for children, parents and educators. There were crafts, recipes and activities.
IMPLEMENTATION: Primary grades

WEB SITE: Halloween/Holidays Site
URL: http://www.kate.net/holidays/halloween
DESCRIPTION: Large number of Halloween activities at various levels. Books, history of, recipes, puzzle and lot more!
IMPLEMENTATION: All ages!

WEB SITE: Holiday Activities
URL: http://www.magic-rainbow.com/pof/holidays/halloween/index.html
DESCRIPTION: Various Halloween activities including Trick or Treating!
IMPLEMENTATION: Gr. Pre-K -K

WEB SITE: An American Thanksgiving
URL: http://www.night.net/thanksgiving/
DESCRIPTION: Terrific varied activities
IMPLEMENTATION: Appropriate for Grades 3-6. Correlates with Social Studies curriculum in Grade 3.

Web Site: Pumpkin Patch
URL: http://www.kids-learn.org/pumpkins/welcome.html
DESCRIPTION: A collection of pumpkin poetry in varied styles
IMPLEMENTATION: Useful in teaching types of poetry. Helps to inspire students’ writing.

WEB SITE: Holidays
URL: http://www.kate.net/holidays/halloween
DESCRIPTION: nice Halloween activities, fun to do, ages 7-12
IMPLEMENTATION: curriculum and October activities

WEB SITE: Halloween (Sports Illustrated)
URL: http://www.sikids.com/halloween/index.html
DESCRIPTION: varied fun, writing and reading activities correlating sports and Halloween
IMPLEMENTATION: reports, adlibs

WEB SITE: Ben & Jerry’s Thanksgiving
URL: http://www2.benjerry.com/thanksgiving/index.html
DESCRIPTION: Thanksgiving poems, songs, ideas and word finds
IMPLEMENTATION: November activities

WEB SITE: Chantessy’s Place of Frightful Fun
URL: http://www.magic-rainbow.com/pof/holidays/halloween/index.html
DESCRIPTION: Interactive Halloween activities for children
IMPLEMENTATION: Games, coloring pages (on-line), memory games, links

WEB SITE: Pumpkin Patch
URL: http://www.kids-learn.org/pumpkins/welcome.html
DESCRIPTION: Poems written by second graders, includes resources, pumpkin facts
IMPLEMENTATION: Good examples of different types of poetry for young children

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Language Arts/Books

WEB SITE: Harry Potter
URL: http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/
DESCRIPTION: Harry Potter book reviews, and related games, and activities
IMPLEMENTATION: Independent reading for grades 3-5

WEB SITE: Harry Potter
URL: http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/
DESCRIPTION: Reviews of the 3 Harry Potter books, excerpts of each book, biography of the author, and games and activities based on the books.
IMPLEMENTATION: This is an excellent site for readers who enjoy the Harry Potter books as well as a good introduction for prospective readers.

WEB SITE: Eric Carle
URL: http://www.eric-carle.com/
DESCRIPTION: Links and activities for kdg-2^nd grade. Lesson plans included. E-mail to author available
IMPLEMENTATION: Elementary-Kdg-2^nd grade Reading, math and Science

WEB SITE: Awesome Authors
URL: http://www.jps.net/hatzi/awesomeauthors.htm#D
DESCRIPTION: Excellent description of books by famous authors. Biography, pictures of authors are also given. Many selected activities using the books-puzzles, games, word finds can be printed for classroom use.
IMPLEMENTATION: Excellent for all grade levels Kindergarten-high school

WEBSITE: Jan Brett
URL: http://www.janbrett.com/
DESCRIPTION: This is a site that lets you learn everything you wanted to know about Jan Brett and were afraid to ask. Well, ask no more! There are activities that refer to each of the Jan Brett books. Excellent site.
IMPLEMENTATION: Very good for primary teachers when using the stories of Jan Brett.

WEB SITE: Mrs. Jackson’s Morris Farm Alphabet Book Site
URL: http://lincoln.midcoast.com/~wps/jackson/alphabet.htm
DESCRIPTION: This site teaches the alphabet by using the Morris Farm.
IMPLEMENTATION: A first grade teacher could use this to teach the alphabet. Pictures of the farm could be used to show the pictures of beginning sounds.

WEB SITE: Eric Carle
URL: http://www.eric-carle.com/
DESCRIPTION: This site refers to the author, Eric Carle, who writes children literature on the primary level. His site covers his books, comments that he has made to his correspondents, etc.
IMPLEMENTATION: Primary teachers who are studying about authors could use this. This colorful site could add interest and activities from this author.

WEB SITE: Harry Potter
URL: http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/
DESCRIPTION: Harry Potter books reviews; related games and activities
IMPLEMENTATION: Independent reading for Grades 3 – 5

WEB SITE: Carol Hurst
URL: http://www.carolhurst.com/titles/birdwatch.html
DESCRIPTION: children’s book reviews
IMPLEMENTATION: teacher information on children’s books

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Social Studies

WEB SITE: Native American index
URL: http://www.hanksville.org/
DESCRIPTION: Links to different Native American Nations
IMPLEMENTATION: Links didn’t work, so it’s not a good site.

WEB SITE: Exploring Native Americans Across the Curriculum
URL: http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson038.shtml-sites
DESCRIPTION: Information on the different native American Nations
IMPLEMENTATION: Good resource for teachers to find information about Native Americans!

WEB SITE: Flags
URL: http://www.flags.net/
DESCRIPTION: This site provides statistics for each country, its location, and all of the flags of that country.
IMPLEMENTATION: Good site for finding pictures of national flags and/or any other flag of the country.

WEB SITE: Flags
URL: http://www.flags.net/
DESCRIPTION: This site is about flags of countries. This site is an excellent site for finding the origins of flags and what the different flags of the countries look like.
IMPLEMENTATION: This would be good for social studies class or if any class was making flags and needed the flag of a specific country. A good site for teachers or students.

WEB SITE: Color Landform Atlas of the United States
URL: http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/states/states.html
DESCRITION: This site covers the fifty states of the nation.
IMPLEMENTATION: This site could be used to study the states of our nation. There are maps, for example, of every state along with other studies and aspects of the states. This would be good for independent studies, or you could use this to show the class of an area of concern.

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Science

WEB SITE: Endangered Animals Hotlist
URL: http://www.teachertidbytes.com/Web_Lesson_Plans/A_Hotlist_on_Endangered_An.html
DESCRIPTION: Links to projects and Internet Resources
IMPLEMENTATION: To find facts and information about endangered species. To link to websites including an online coloring book.

WEB SITE: On Line coloring book for endangered species
URL: http://biology.usgs.gov/features/kidscorner/index.html
DESCRIPTION: Coloring pages for individual endangered animals. It gives a picture and short description of many endangered animals.
IMPLEMENTATION: Use when researching endangered animals. Each picture can be colored or traced and used as a cover for a research report.

WEB SITE: The Nine Planets: A Multimedia Tour of the Solar System
URL: http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/nineplanets.html
DESCRIPTION: This site lists books on the subject of the planets. An annotated bibliography is provided with the price of each book.
IMPLEMENTATION: This would be a good site if you were to teach the solar system and wanted a book display for references and information.

WEB SITE: Chemistry for Kids

URL: http://www.chem4kids.com/
DESCRIPTION: This science web site focuses on chemistry for grades 5 and up. It deals with matter, atoms, molecules, and chemical reactions.
IMPLEMENTATION: Intermediate science

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