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Kids these days don't read email. So how do you get them to remember important assignments, tests or messages for their parents? You send them a text. SendHub is a fast and simple communications tool designed to help educators communicate more effectively with their students after the school day ends. Their simple user interface enables teachers and administrators to make calls, send messages to individual students or entire classes, and also stay in touch with parents. Here are a few reasons why SendHub might be right for your class: * Easily build your class database with text to join, or simply import existing contact lists. * Send messages from your phone or the Web-- communicate the way you want to. * Schedule assignment or test reminders to be sent to students for any time in the future. * Share groups with other teachers or administrators without hassle-- then everyone with your group will get changes you make immediately. Signup for free at www.sendhub.com

The national survey of kids ages 6-17 and their parents also found that half of kids ages 9-17 say they would read more books for fun if they had greater access to ebooks-although 80 percent of kids who read ebooks say they still read books for fun primarily in print. Read to find more information.

Daily math problems for parents to do with their children as young as 2! Most likely appropriate for elementary age but there are three differentiated levels. Heard it on NPR this morning.

share with parents

Genetics and the passing of traits from parents to children is one of the topics in middle school  and high school science that I've often seen students take a personal interest in learning. In the following TED-Ed lesson How Mendel's Pea Plants Helped Us Understand Genetics, students receive a crash course in heredity, genotypes, and punnett squares through the story of Mendel and his study of peas. The full lesson with questions is available here.

With Tellagami, begin by creating and customizing a character. Although there is not a great deal of variety in virtual appearance, just enough options exist to personalize your character. From there, you choose a background either from a few in the app itself or your camera roll. I love to take a picture at the front of the classroom and have my character introduce me to the class. I have worked with teachers where they introduce the classroom to students or parents with their character in different spots around the room, even on a bookshelf. After you customize your character and background, you can choose how you want your character to talk, either by recording your voice or typing in text. If you record your voice, you have 30 seconds. If you choose text to speech, there are male and female voices with a few different accents. Some quick ideas you might try: * Have your character tell a story. * Pick a person in history and have them introduce themselves * Use a plant cell as the background and have the avatar name and discuss the function of each part of the cell. * Recite a famous poem or speech * Read a poem they wrote * Take a trip or go back in time and describe where the location/time period * Speak in Spanish, French, Mandarin or any language When you are all done, Gamis can be emailed, posted to Facebook, or Tweeted, which also generates a link to share. You can also view your movie online and get the embed code. I could see embedding a whole bunch of these on a class wiki or blog. You can also save them to your iPad Photos, which is what I like to do. From there, Gamis can be combined together in iMovie or incorporated into other apps like Explain Everything. (Greg Kulowic has some great examples of this, as "appsmashes.") Your only limit is your imagination! Using animation with your students can have a profound effect on how they participate in a project. Their work can be liberated when they have the opportunity to separate

City of Immigrants is set in New York City in 1907. Players take on the role of a fourteen year-old Jewish immigrant named Lena Brodsky. Lena is from Russia and she arrived in New York after her older brother who came to New York a few years earlier and sent money home to buy passage for family members. Lena is now trying to earn money to send home so that her parents can come to New York. Throughout the game you meet other people in Lena's life in New York who are faced with tough choices just like she is. Applications for Education City of Immigrants could be a great game for middle school students and some high school students to play to learn about the challenges that faced immigrants to New York in the early 1900's. What I really like about the game is that players meet the various people involved in Lena's life. Meeting those people could help students understand the community dynamics common to immigrant neighborhoods at the time. The Mission U.S. games are available to use in your web browser. Some of the games will work on iPads and Android tablets. The Mission U.S. website offers an educators section that includes printable lists of vocabulary terms, writing prompts, and post-game discussion prompts.

The internet catalogue for students, teachers, administrators & parents. Over 20,000 relevant links personally selected by an educator/author with over 30 years of experience.

Pre-K-8 elementary educational resources for teachers, students, and parents.