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This is a very cool tool that could be used for students to creatively apply writing strategies or show understanding of literary elements. The finished products look awesome and would definitely encourage student engagement and effort. There is also the option to share or email stories. The site could be used for varying purposes, subjects, and grade levels.

This website uses a twist to storytelling and sums it up best in their own description: "Storybird reverses the process of visual storytelling by starting with the image and "unlocking" the story inside. Choose an artist or a theme, get inspired, and start writing." It might be just the spark some writers need. I noticed a link to Mother's Day stories. It might be fun to have students write Mother's Day stories and send them via e-mail.

Looking for a synonym to jazz up a piece of writing? You, and students, can use visual thesaurus to find that word. The "visual" part of this online thesaurus stems from the web of words that results from a search. For example, if I was looking for a synonym for cool, I'd type the word in the search bar, and a web would be created with "cool" in the center. Stemming off the center is a color coded assortment of alternatives for "cool", and the colors are based on the meaning of "cool". What a fast and fun way to search for words!

What I really enjoyed about this website was the opportunity for incidental learning -- unexpected learning on the way. As I child, I always enjoyed the encyclopedia. As I paged to my favorite section "dogs" I would find other articles I never would searched before. With this visual thesaurus, the user can search for one word and find herself learning others.

Great way to create visual projects!!

This site can be used make a visual representation of text. You could also use it to help kids evaluate a writing piece's word choice, for words that are used most often are displayed the largest in a wordle. Students could then revise their writing and show word choice changes by creating a second wordle from their modified writing piece.

A great place for students to practice spelling words, adjectives, nouns, etc by creating a word cloud. When you type the words, they only appears as plain type in a word processing format but once you click "go", Wordle does it's magic and creates the cloud. Word clouds are words scattered all over the page in all different ways. The more a certain word is typed, the larger it appears in the word cloud. You can also change background and font once the word cloud is made. This is a great website! So much fun and so many possibilites!

This is the computer resource specifically for 1st graders. Students are directed to this site and then roam the activities they like the best or the ones I feel they need the most practice on. The Everyday Math website has games specific for each grade level.

Treasures has some really good graphic organizers to help students reinforce strategies and skills. The organizers can be found on the Treasures link under the start menu on any computer from school. The Treasures website also has extra information to help teachers organize their lessons.

I clicked on the oral language link and found resources for "advance organizers". Now I won't have to always create my own. Thank you for sharing.

The Treasures website has some fun games that reinforce skills/concepts that are taught. We find the book we are working in, and then work on the skills specific to that week. (language arts, phonics, etc)

This site allows students to design a bridge based on various distances. students get to choose ideal bridge design for most economical results. students are judge on solving the problem for the least amount of money.

Photo Course is a great resource for photography. It covers many subjects and has interactive images and examples for beggining photography units. shows good examples and helps with understanding how a camera works before the student uses the camera.

This site hosts contests for users in various catagories. We utilize the photoshop contests to challenge the students on new creative projects. The site has many different catagories so it allows students many choices and options so they can choose something they are interested in. I mostly utilize this with independant study students; have them choose a catagory and it has a deadline to submit final work, and then i evaluate based on the tools and techniques they utilized.

Finale Notepad will allow students to actually put their music theory notes to use. Students can put their notes from class on a music staff that they can read and play on their instrument. They can even hear how things will sound before they play it themselves. This very simple demo version won't allow you to do anything extravagant, but will allow students to see the basics of music theory on a music staff instead of a notebook.

A great web site to help students learn musical theory.

This site rocks! I can't believe I've never known about it! There were great programs and activities for teaching and practicing intervals which was the unit I just finished with my students.

Edhelper.com has a lot of very good literature units for almost any popular novel that is studied in school. Earlier in the year in reading my students read The City of Ember and I was able to find the literature unit on Edhelper. Within the unit you can customize pretty much everything from vocabulary lists to crossword puzzles to even quizzes. You can also choose how much or how little you want to include in the unit. I find that these worksheets make nice comprehension reviews for students. One downfall to Edhelper is that you do need a membership but I do find that it is worth it.

I tried the simple version of this game and I though it was so fun. One of the reasons I sometimes don't like simulations is that they can be too easy for students to manipulate and "win" without actually learning what is happening. With this game, you need to understand vocabulary (or learn as you go, so it could be good practice as well) to figure out what you are doing, and actually use your brain to change your outcomes. Thumbs up from me.

Using Quia, you can create your own or use other teacher's activities to provide students extra practice and extended learning time! There are activities in all subjects and levels and you can browse by category, activity type, or most popular activities. I found numerous Java games that were created to reinforce music skills. For example, my students could use the site to study for our upcoming terms, signs, and symbols quiz. There were free, online flashcards, matching, concentration, and word search games that reviewed all the terms I've been teaching. You can share all activities you create with other teachers and you can copy and modify other teacher's activities and contact them if you have a question. If you create a quiz in Quia, it will automatically grade it for you and track student's test scores throughout the year. You can also track how long a student spends on Quia activities. The site offers online surveys, activities in 100 languages and a calendar feature for communicating deadlines and assignments to students and parents.

This site has pretty much anything you could want to help students practice or review content. I checked out the math, biology, and art sections and found literally all kinds of interactive games, flashcards, and quizzes on a variety of topics. The site is very easy to use and find the topic you need; the search function allows you to search by category or textbook. If you make an account, you are able to create your own activities and quizzes and also view your students' results for the activities they have completed. I will definitely come back here.

Dictionary. com is the largest and most trusted free, online dictionary. The site features a dictionary resource, thesaurus, flashcards, crosswords, and word games for homework practice and has an easy- to-use translator feature. When you look up a word, it not only gives you the definition but also an audio pronounciation, related searches, synonyms, nearby words, and information regarding the word's origin and history. As I approach my songwriting unit, I'm excited to have my students use this feature to find descriptive words as they write lyrics.

At jiskha.com, a student can get homework help in any subject area and grade level. You can view recent questions that have been asked and either post an answer yourself or view other's answers. For the music section, there were quality, complex questions regarding composers, instruments, styles of music, music history, and more! Students can also chat with live on-line tutors. The site features a homework help reference page which includes links to dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, almanacs, etc. I think it might be a fun assignment to have my students develop a question regarding a topic we are studying, post-it, and report back to the class with answers they received.

With Smartmusic software, I can create and send customized assignments to my students' home computer. Students play or sing exercises into a microphone and receive instant feedback on note and rhythm reading accuracy! Because it is a lot like Guitar Hero, kids find it extremely fun and are motivated to practice and improve! The software also allows students to record and listen to themselves. I can track students' progress, grade assignments and compile portfolios of student work with the software.

This site is suitable for students in elementary and middle school for practicing their math skills. Students can work in areas such as measurement, data, and algebraic concepts. One of the best things about this site is the illustrated math dictionary. The dictionary provides students with visual representations and examples for hundred of terms. Many of these are similar to examples a textbook might give for introducing a concept. The site also provides worksheets, games, and a wide variety of different puzzles.

This website offers math practice with fractions, money, geometric shapes, algebra, order of operations and a variety of other topics. Students can access flashcards and simply practice doing many types of math. There are some pretty nice games as well.

I will use this website. My students will appreciate watching kids making yummy recipies that they will be preparing too. Cute projects if you need a quick activity.

Within the Child Development Unit, we discuss babysitting and list fun, educational activities that they can do with children when they are caring for them. Go under adventure in the interests coloumn; this is a good website For fun activities for kids.