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 Sweet Search is a search engine that searches only the sites that have been reviewed and approved by a team of librarians, teachers, and research experts. In all there are 35,000 websites that have been reviewed and approved by Sweet Search. In addition to the general search engine, Sweet Search offers five niche search engines. The niche search engines are for Social Studies, Biographies, SweetSites (organized by grade and subject area), School Librarians, and Sweet Search 4 Me (for elementary school students). (Richard Byrne) 

What it is: Mr. Thorne Does Phonics is a website and YouTube channel dedicated to teaching kids phonics through videos.  The site has a great tag line, "Where learning to read becomes reading to learn." The videos are divided up by categories which include: Introduction to PhonicsGeraldine the Giraffe VideosAlphabet Letters and SoundsMore Alphabet Letters and SoundsConsonant DigraphsLong Vowel SoundsConsonant BlendsAlternative SoundsAlternative Spellings200 High Frequency WordsGrammarChristopher Thorne hosts all of the phonics videos with occasional guest appearances from his friend Geraldine the Giraffe (who has her own book!).  The videos are engaging, help students listen for phoneme segmentation, and give them encouragement to replicate the phoneme sounds themselves.  This library of phonics videos is wonderfully comprehensive! How to integrate Mr. Thorne Does Phonics into the classroom: Mr. Thorne Does Phonics is a fantastic introduction to phonics, phonemes, and decoding words. Students can practice word recognition, pronunciation, and phonics rules with fun videos that can be played, paused, and rewound.  The Mr. Thorne Does Phonics site would be a wonderful site to have available for students on classroom computers as a reading center. Students can visit the reading center and pull up the video of the exact phonics skill that they need to practice.  Mr. Thorne Does Phonics would also be a wonderful way to introduce your whole class to a new phonics skill by playing the videos for them using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard. If you have access to a built-in webcam or portable video camera, encourage students to create their own Mr. Thorne inspired phonics videos.  These can be shared with other students in the class, parents, and younger grade levels.  The videos also make a great record of progress throughout the school year. Tips: You can also find Mr. Thorne's phonics videos on YouTube. Can't access YouTube at school?

An article by Donalyn Miller (The Book Whisperer) about ways to increase a reading culture in your school

A video showing a sample broadcast from a high school in Cold Lake

Lesson on water and soap molecules from Magic School Bus. 

Edmonton Public's Power School Training site

Here's a collection of holiday and winter sites for kids and teachers that should help make your last week of school festive and productive, and give kids some fun places to go on those cold, wintry days.

iPads have exploded throughout schools and classrooms. Their flexibility, versatility, and mobility make them a phenomenal learning tool. As teachers seek ways to integrate these devices, we recommend focusing on specific learning goals that promote critical-thinking, creativity, collaboration, and the creation of student-centric learning environments. Below, you will find a list of objectives, each one connecting to recommended apps and tools.

Tell stories with graphics, text, and audio with this visually compelling application on desktops, iPads and iPhones. Network socially without sidebars, ads, or logos in this online environment that focuses on the content you create with photos, video, and slideshows.Tip: Use this tool to share daily life in your dynamic library with the school community using video, photos, and text.

Site that shows how to use iPods in schools with staff and students to develop literacy skills

Ideas for back to school for inquiry classrooms

Activities and Lesson Plans from Saskatchewan Schools on the Needs/Wants unit for Social. 

A great article by Will Richardson about how we need to teach students how to 'brand' themselves on the Internet. While the focus seems to be high school, we can begin that work in elementary. 

Literacy (poem, abc's, sight words, word wall, morning message, classroom books, recommended reading, printing sheets)Math (numbers, patterning, shapes, colors, sorting, 1-1 correspondence)CentersClassroom (curriculum, daily schedule?, school supplies, etc)

designed to help students practice recognizing scams and dangers online. That game is appropriate for elementary school students. 

"When working with K-2nd grades, it's often the case that students are able to verbally communicate their ideas, but typing those out is another matter.  Using Present.me, we solved this issue for a second grade class that was creating slideshow presentations.Present.me is a web service that lets you create effective presentations through your PowerPoint files.  What makes this site unique, is it lets you add a narrative to the presentation. Once you upload your PowerPoint, you can record a narrative through your webcam and microphone as if you were presenting the slideshow. The final presentation then appears with your webcam recording on the right and slides on the left. A filmstrip view of the slides is also given on the bottom of the presentation. The elementary school I was working with used Google Docs, then converted the presentation to a .PPT file, which Present.Me only accepts.  After the presentation is uploaded, it is queued for the students to record their own words to describe each slide, and time when they want each slide to advance. Once they are finished recording, they have the option to record the presentation again if not satisfied with what they did.  Otherwise, you can then publish the presentation, giving it a unique URL that can be shared with anyone. The free plan of Present.me only lets you publish up to 10 recordings per month; each of these presentations can be 15 minutes long. Having the students work in groups allowed the class to stay under the ten recordings limit. " Richard Byrne

How to integrate Tiki-Toki into the classroom: Tiki-Toki is a fabulous new way for your students to create and share online.  Timelines are an obvious choice for history projects but can be used throughout the year for a variety of subjects and learning focuses.  Students can reflect on and share learning using a Tiki-Toki timeline.  Students can begin a timeline at the beginning of the year sharing videos, links, pictures and reflections each unit, week, month, or semester until the end of the school year.  This is a nice way to encourage students to reflect on learning while providing them with a record of what has been accomplished throughout the year.Students can create timelines based on books or literature they are reading.  Young students can create a timeline with information about beginning, middle and end while older students can add supporting details, action, climax and concluding thoughts.  A timeline book report is a welcome change for your logical/analytical thinkers- seriously, offer it as an option!Timelines can also be used as KWL charts (Know, Want to Know, Learned).  At the beginning of any learning, students can list the facts that they know about the topic. Next, they can brainstorm and write about what they want to know about a topic.  At the end of the unit or semester, students can detail what they have learned including any relevant videos or images.iLearn Technology

" What it is: Books Should Be Free is a fantastic collection of audio books that students can download and listen to for free from the public domain.  Books are easily searchable by genre, keyword, title or author.  Books can be downloaded as MP3 files, iPod or iTunes format.  Each book includes a description of the book, full text from Project Gutenberg, a Wikipedia link, and the audio download.  Students can play a snippet of the audio before deciding to download.  The collection is pretty impressive, including my favorite classics.How to integrate Books Should Be Free into the classroom: Not every child has an extensive collection of books at home, or parents who model a love of reading.  Books Should Be Free expands every classroom and home library by giving students access to some of the most loved books of all time.  Students can download both the audio and accompanying text for a read along or simply listen to the audio file.  Audio books help students build comprehension, fluency and help students develop a love for story.  Books Should Be Free is a great way to start a Reading Buddies program at your school with some MP3 players or iPods that can go home with students loaded up with good books" iLearnTechnology