Literacy Sharing -- Sharing Literacy Resources

Weather (Extra Credit)

2011-04-30T05:17:00.007-05:00

1. Weather Wiz Kids

Weatherwizkids.com is a site designed by a meteorologist (Crystal Wicker) with children’s learning in mind. Her site provides detailed information on many weather subjects ranging from severe weather to general weather phenomena such as wind and clouds. Severe weather dominates the side bar with hurricanes and tornadoes topping the list and continuing with rain and floors, thunderstorms, and lightning. She also includes wildfires, earthquakes and volcanoes, which may not seem related to weather from a child’s viewpoint, which is good. For each of the topics I just listed, she provides definitions and explanations and links to external sites if you want to know more about a particular topic. She also includes graphics and pictures that are easy to read and look at. Each of these pages also includes links at the bottom specifically for teachers. The links include several lesson plans (depending on the age of the students you are teaching, it generally ranges from K-5), one or two experiment ideas involving the topic that the page covers and then a link to science fair ideas (for grades 1-12, basically). Also part of her sidebar are topics like Climate (what it is), optical illusions (like rainbows), Weather forecasting (and how it works), weather experiments for kids, weather safety, games, flashcards, jokes, folklore, words (and their definitions), instruments (in order to measure the weather like a thermometer or barometer), photos, a career corner (if a child or teen is interested in becoming a meteorologist, she provides information on how you can do that), “Ask Crystal” (you can e-mail her any question that is not addressed on the site, links, and “kids questions” where she answers some questions from kids like “why is the sky blue?” She provides a lot of really useful information that can be used for a range of small children to pre-teens. The games, which I like to focus on with websites when wanting to teach elementary school students, are not the site’s strongest point, but she does link to some games on other sites (such as the “Wild Weather Adventure” provided by NASA), which I think is good. A way to use this in the classroom is definitely through the experiments she provides. Though if you are teaching a specific lesson on one of the topics, the lesson plan may help you jumpstart your ideas, but the experiments seem like more fun and she provides a good explanation of why the experiment works (like with the “make lightning” or “make a tornado” experiments). Overall, this site is really excellent, however it does lack in its ability to support a multi-literacy classroom. It is only available in English and of all the great resources she provides and links; I did not see anything applicable to English Language Learners. But, I think if you as the instructor take some of the basic ideas she provides for your classroom, it can be adapted for bilingual education as well. I really do recommend this site!

2. The Weather Channel Kids

The Weather Channel is a popular source for some people to receive their weather forecasts, so it’s not surprising they have a site that is geared toward kids. They provide a link to receive the forecast on the homepage, but it isn’t exactly younger kid friendly. The entire site seems to be geared toward older children except in the “seek and find” games they provide (where you find “hidden” objects in pictures that pertain to a particular subject, like weather safety). This site as a whole seems to be more concerned with weather safety than information about various forms of weather (at least, it appears so on the surface due to the nature of the games). There is a “Weather Encyclopedia” however it only provides information on El Nino & El Nina, Flooding, Global Warming, Heat Wave, Hurricanes (& Tropical Systems), Severe Thunderstorms, Tornadoes and Winter Storms. Basically, they only focus on severe weather in the encyclopedia. There is also a glossary of terms that expand past severe weather terms, however does not provide the connection of ideas needed in order to understand our atmosphere and weather. They also provide “online resources” and “teacher resources” which can take you to sites that better explain what weather is and in order to use the teacher resources, you must be a registered user. Though the site could be properly used to teach students, I really wouldn’t recommend it because of its primary focus being on severe weather. Yes, severe weather is typically more interesting but it’s important to know about the weather basics before jumping into sever weather and why it happens. I think if a teacher were planning on going over weather safety in severe weather situations, this site would be a good resource. It generally does not seem to really be a good resource in ELL situations because the site is only available in English and makes no effort, even in the other online resources it offers, to help students in multi-literacy classrooms. Overall, I am very unimpressed by the site, but I am sure it could be used well if need be.

3. EdHeads.Org

The edheads site provides activities for students to use on several topics, one of which is weather. The primary function of the site is the “activities” for weather, which, once you click on the link to them, include “predict the weather” (using the “Predict-o-matic!”) and “Forecast the weather.” I spent some time playing both games and they are probably the most fun games I have found thus far in searching weather sites. The forecast the weather game requires the student to know what the symbols on the map mean when they see a weather forecast (such as a red capital L means a low pressure system). They are given the forecast and they must match the forecast on the map. The predict the weather game requires a student to not only understand how to read a forecast map that we often see on the news but also be able to realize that the weather moves and we can predict, based on how fast it is going and what direction it moves in, what the weather will be like wherever it goes. Both games are entertaining and I believe would be a good use of computer time if you were doing a weather unit for class. The site is generally built for students around the 4^th grade age, not only due to the nature of the games but also due to the other resources the site provides. They provide a weather glossary, only containing a few, but important terms, a Fahrenheit to Celsius & Celsius to Fahrenheit converter, an “interesting people in weather” page and weather class lesson plans. The lesson plans for weather are suggested for 4-5^th graders and the glossary explains some of the more complicated things to understand like what a front is or how clouds are formed or what air pressure is and how it affects our weather. Though the site generally seems to be kind of lacking in multi-literacy availability, I think the temperature conversion portion of the site is very good since the U.S. is on the Fahrenheit scale while most everywhere else is on the Celsius scale. It allows you to put in a temperature on either scale and it will tell you what that temperature is on the opposite scale. It also provides the formula you would need to use in order to convert it manually. Overall the site is very good if you want to use technology in the classroom for games. There are only 4 or so lesson plans available that are submitted by teachers, which you can use if you want a more hands on approach as well, but I think this site’s strongest suit is in the games.

4. Anglomaniacy

The last site I found, I made an effort to try to find one that would cater to ELLs more. The anglomaniacy site provides a “weather picture dictionary” where it provides pictures of the more common phenomena of weather (cloud, cold, storm) and provides the word underneath. When you click on the picture, it has a voice that will say the word, which I think is a wonderful idea because often times hearing the word helps more than reading it. The site has several online resources teachers can use for students besides the Pictionary including hangman, a matching game, Simon says game, spelling game and word search. All of the games are very simple and mainly test to see if the vocabulary is learned. More abstract concepts are not addressed. A teacher may also use the site for offline activities because they provide bingo card templates, crossword puzzles, matching cards, word search puzzle, picture tests and a vocabulary quiz, which you may print. All of these resources revolve around the 10 weather words that are provided in the picture dictionary. I think if you have a classroom of very young learners, maybe in kindergarten, that are native speakers, this is a good site for them. However, very beginning ELLs are what the site is made for and I think it works well. The site also provides these resources for other topics. I think using the computer for learning the vocabulary is a good way to get the students to learn how to use the Internet as well. You can then follow up with in-class activities like bingo or the picture test on paper without the website to help them later on.

Evaluated by: Anne Pugh

Fruits & Vegetables

2011-04-30T00:00:00.001-05:00

http://www.foodchamps.org

by: Caroline Lamb

Food champs is a great website for fruit and vegetable units with children! They have a wide selection of games dealing not only with fruit and vegetable vocabulary, but also nutrition in general. The way the website is set up allows teachers to have students log in, and then click on the appropriate age level for the games (either 2-5, or 6-8). Students are given a variety of appropriate games to help them learn the vocabulary words in a written form. The downside, especially for ELL’s, is that the website does not make any noise or speak, so there is no vocabulary pronunciation modeling, or practice with phonemes while reading the word. So, while this website is ideal for students with an L1 of English, it may not be the best for students or are struggling learning English as their L2. Also, there are probably several other websites out there that offer a much more extensive selection of vocabulary intensive games, while out of the 6 available on the site, only 3 or 4 actually deal with this vocabulary reading and identification directly. Through all of that though, the website still offers a very entertaining and educational selection of games for learners between the ages of 2-8. But if you have a class with an ELL, or several ELL’s, it might be worth looking into a website that includes an auditory component.

http://bogglesworldesl.com/fruitsvegetablesbingo.htm
By: Michael Cousins
This is a great site that plays a bingo game with the learners about the specific topic: Fruits & Vegetables.
There are several aspects about this particular learning activity that makes it especially beneficial to the English language learners. Initially the learners will have the entertainment of participating in a competitive game with the other students. Games that are competitive and involve participation from several students are really educating to new language learners because they have the opportunity to learn from their peers. The great thing about this game is that bingo is really fun and forces you to pay attention. The educator will go to the site and download bingo play cards with either fruits, vegetables or a combination of the both. The kids each get a card and will play against each other to see who fills the bingo card or makes a bingo line first. The teacher will call out a fruit or vegetable and then show a picture of that food to the students. They will then write out the word and the students will match the target word with the same on on their bingo card. The student will learn to associate pictures with with words and learn the sound of the read words. This game could be altered even more specifically for ELLs where the teacher might only call out the word in the L1 or have the bingo cards written in the L1.

http://www.freshforkids.com.au/games/games.html
By: Krista Robinson

For Blog Two I evaluated Fresh for Kids which is a website dedicated to teaching healthy living choices to children and parents. It has a wide variety of games and activities for children too. My objective for this website was for a student to use it and be able to identify and correctly spell the names of different fruits and vegetables. Of the seventeen games only four of them could have possibly left a student with a better understanding of how to identify and spell the names of fruits and vegetables. These four games are Worm Game, Quiz Game, Word Guess, and Word Match. Since most children would prefer to play games rather than read, I feel that most of the games should have more emphasis on the variety of fruits and vegetables. The information in other areas of the website is geared towards parents and teachers and not children. The section about the different fruit and vegetables is far too long for any child to read through. For these reasons I don't believe this would be a good website for students and especially not English Language Learners. I would maybe use this website for research or activity ideas for my classes but, I would not send my students younger than third grade to use it on their own.

Cinco de Mayo

2011-04-29T22:07:00.000-05:00

http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/cinco-de-mayo/

This site is has a variety of activities that a student or child could do to help him or her learn about the Cinco de Mayo. On this site there is a list of different such as the history of Cinco de Mayo, crafts that you can do with your students. Then there are even some games that the teacher can hand out to his or her students, like the crossword puzzles that are given.

This is a good site for parents and teachers because of the ideas that are given to help a child understand what Cinco de Mayo is about. On tab that is good for the parents to use is the one that has to do with the different recipes that are given that are related to Cinco de Mayo and even the Mexican culture. One activity that is on here is one that has to do with crafts that are related to Cinco de Mayo. When you click on that tab some ideas that are given are making a sombrero, and making a fiesta puppet.

Another good tab on this site is the one toward the bottom, the tab teaches the student some Spanish words that are different parts of the face. There are also two other tabs that have to do with counting in Spanish, and there is another one that is about counting in Spanish backwards.

http://www.kiddyhouse.com/Holidays/Cinco/

This site is mainly about the history of Cinco de Mayo. It explains what the history is and what the celebration of Cinco de Mayo is about too. This site also has section that describes why the celebration of Cinco de Mayo is larger in the Unites States compared to Mexico.

The next section has six tabs, lesson plans, songs and finger plays, crafts, worksheets and coloring, and clipart and graphics. Under the lesson plans tab it gives suggestions like making a piñata, and when you click on it, it shows the literacy focus and science focus. It also tells you how to set up your classroom so that way the children know what they are making. There is even a section for English language learners. This section is really good for teachers because it already has lesson plans so if you are unsure of what you want to do for Cinco de mayo then this site will give you plenty ideas.

Another tab that is good to look at is the one with worksheets and coloring, because you have a choice of what you want to look for, either worksheets or coloring pages. At the bottom of that section if you click on Cinco de Mayo worksheets it will take you to another site that has a list of different worksheets and one that it has is a Cinco de Mayo acrostic poem.

At the very end of the site there is a box that has a list of more information that has to do with the Mexican culture. Below that there are two books that you could find or buy that have to do with Cinco de Mayo. This is a good site for teachers because it has lessons that you can use when teaching. This site is also good for kids that are trying to find out about Cinco de Mayo, the history and why the United States has a bigger celebration than Mexico.

http://kids.librarypoint.org/story_cinco_de_mayo

This site is an online library that is good for kids. When you get to this site it is colorful so it interests the web surfer. This site will take you directly to the story of Cinco de Mayo. It gives you a brief story about what the Cinco de Mayo day is about. It also tells the people reading this, that Cinco de Mayo is not a Mexican independence day, the very first sentence.

After the brief description of Cinco de Mayo it list books that are about Cinco de Mayo and books that have to do with the Mexican heritage. Off to the side are some pictures of the books may look like, so the person looking at this site can see if it is something that he or she may want to find in their own library and check out. There is even a video recording called Cinco de Mayo and in the video it shows the celebration of Mexico’s win over the French. One book has Mexican recipes, and another book has crafts, games, stories, and cultural activities. Below that are some sites that you can explore to find more information about Cinco de Mayo.

I think this site would be good for kids that are in the 3^rd grade and higher because the information that is given is more appealing to a kid than to an adult. The books and websites that are given are also more kid based. I would recommend this site to any kid that is doing a project on Cinco de Mayo or just wants to know more information about what Cinco de Mayo is.

http://holidays.kaboose.com/cinco-de-mayo/

This site is called Kaboose and it is a site that would be good for teachers. I think that this site would be good for teachers because it has coloring pages that you could give out to your students, it also has history lessons, and games that you can do with your students. This site would also be good for parents if they wanted to have a party for Cinco de Mayo because it gives party ideas and Mexican recipes, so you could cook with your child.

When you first open this page up, it has three pictures that you can click on that have to do with Cinco de Mayo. For example if you click on the picture with the Mexican flag it will take to different crafts that you could do with your students or with your children. A couple of the craft ideas that are given are a wearable sombrero, Mexican flag piñata, and maracas. A good craft that a teacher could do with her students is general Ignacio Zaragosa portrait, because he was in the battle between Mexico and the French, so it could be like a history lesson.

You can click on the history lesson tab it will take you to another page that explains why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo and it even list some fun facts about the Cinco de Mayo like this holiday is mainly celebrated in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. This part of the site is good for students because it gives them information that they would want to know about when it comes to the Cinco de Mayo holiday and the Mexican culture.

By Blanca

Texas

2011-04-29T22:05:00.000-05:00

http://www.lsjunction.com/

This is a very simple website, with many links on the homepage, so students who are not exceptionally computer literate should not struggle with navigating to the different tools on the website. I like that it has a lot of information about Texas in an easy to access format, and the information in simple and not particularly wordy, so students who struggle with reading should not be intimidated by the website. However, we have learned a lot about how interactive learning should be and I think that is a flaw of this website. While it contains easily accessible information, I think an interactive worksheet or assignment would be necessary to make sure students are actually learning the information provided on the website. We could assign them certain aspects of Texas history to make presentations on, or provide them with worksheets which ask questions about information included in the website so that they will have to fill in the facts about Texas and through that they would learn the information. This website would be great if trying to learn little facts about Texas, but as far as learning stories about Texas, another method would be better.

By Lauren

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/texas/

This site that I found is about Texas and all of the facts, maps, and state symbols of Texas. On this site every main point is bold and in red. For example the first main point that is listed on this site is the state abbreviation. There aren’t any tabs that you can click on because all the information is listed down the page. The way this site organizes its information is by putting everything that has to do with the state first, and then abut the geography in another section.

Further down the page this site has pictures of some of the state symbols such as the flag, flower, and the state mammals. If you go even further down the page it has different worksheets that would be good for a teacher to use. It is good for teachers to use because it has some lessons that you could teach, like it has a page that is number to ten, and the student would have to write ten different things about their state. This site also gives ideas for younger age groups, because one activity they could do is connect the dots and at the end they will have made the shape of Texas. At the very bottom of the site it allows you to pick another state to find the same kind of information on the state of your choice.

This site would be good for kids because they could go to this site if they have a research project that has to do with finding information about Texas. I found something interesting on this site, it list the dinosaur fossils that have been found in Texas. So if the child has to find interesting facts about Texas then this site would be helpful.

When you first look at this site it is not that appealing to kids because it has some advertisement at the top and their aren’t any pretty colors or anything to make you want to explore the site. I would suggest making the site more appealing to kids so they will want to explore the site to read about all the information if has about Texas.

By Blanca

http://www.senate.state.tx.us/kids/

The home page for this site is simple and uncluttered. It has divisions of the site for kids in grades three and below or those not yet proficient in reading, kids in grades four and above and more advanced in reading, and for teachers and parents. Entering the sections of the site, the pages are neat, with a consistent theme throughout-large white borders on a shape similar to a long, yellow, green, or blue file folder.The site also offers a Spanish option as well as a help page, both buttons listed at the top of the pages.

The section for grades three and below is called Senate Jr. It has three activities for kids. One is a matching game using state symbols. Another is a story called "The Legend of Lone Star Bob". Last is a coloring activity. This may not be as freely available to everyone, as it requires a Shockwave plug in download.

For older children, there is more information available. Links include "Capital Tour", "Texas Trivia", "Senators", and a glossary. In the Texas Trivia, children can read facts about the state of Texas and then quiz themselves later. It includes the state symbols used in the matching game for younger children, but does not have as many pictures. The Capitol Tour gives information on the State Capitol and its history. I feel this section of the website is not that interesting and may not appeal to children unless they already have interest in Texas government and facts.

Overall, the site is aesthetically pleasing, neatly organized, and not too cluttered. The younger children's section is more "fun" while the older children's section seems more serious and full of facts to read and may not engage a child's interest for too long.

By Melissa

http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/kids/index.html

The website from the very beginning once the home page is accessed clearly appeals to a demographic of children from both stimulating ascetics and even in text with large bold and brightly colored print reading “Kids, only”. The options to maneuver throughout the site are also animated by categories for website navigation that rotate on the home screen inviting children to explore more. Not only is the site specific to children but it also targets residents and youths of Texas with the state outlining a clock in the background and with exciting and curiosity inspiring facts about Texas and adventures of exploration that wait a click away.

By Ryan

Animals (fish)

2011-04-29T19:59:00.005-05:00

Fish Tycoon 2

http://petgames.my-pet-care.com/fish-games/fish-tycoon-2.html

This game is geared towards older grades, perhaps 5th and up. In the game, you get a step-by-step tutorial on how to care for an aquarium of fish (each of which has a breed-name), much like owning a virtual pet. You begin by dropping eggs into the tank, which then produces multiple fish for you to begin caring for. The game allows you a bit of an expediting option by providing "growth hormone" for you to use so that you may quickly have adult-sized fish. After that, the game runs in real time so that your fish need food and care at regular intervals. You also have the option of breeding the fish to create unique, new babies. When you successfully feed, breed and otherwise care for the fish, you gain money that you can use to buy new fish and equipment. This acts as a reward-system and garners interest in the game and progress of the pet fish.

This game will need supplemental teaching to ensure that the student gets both content and language objective goals met. Perhaps a teacher could provide information beforehand or during the course of the game (since it is ongoing and requires time) that informs the student about appropriate terminology of lifeforms and living. The teacher could also ask for reports of the student's fish's progress, which would boost oral and/or written communication skills. This game could also work well with a science course so that the teacher can instruct students on the necessity of light, water, food, procreation to continue life.

Word-O-Rama: Fish

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/animal_and_nature_games/fish-games/fish-word-o-rama.html

This game content objective is the species of fish. The language objective is building vocabulary. The game is set up, sort of like jeopardy. It has a bird character that ask questions and the student answers. Some questions consists of figuring out what is the antonym or synonym of a word, fill in the blank, and which word that best fits with the definition. For each answer the student get correctly, they receive 20 points. But for each one they get wrong the game takes 5 points away. When the student finally chooses the correct answer, they will receive their full 20 points back. Taking score makes the game competitive and also builds their confidence. This game is especially helpful for an English language learner because it teaches the student different strategies of how to log a vocabulary word in their memory. When using those strategies it helps students long-term memory. Ultimately, when students are learning material for the long-term they are also learning to become autonomous. Which is main goal for all teachers.

Volcanoes

2011-04-29T19:42:00.003-05:00

The Magic School Bus Blows Its Top

The Magic School Bus Blows Its Top is an activity where children are suppose to find their way from the center of the earth to the volcanoes surface. This activity requires the navigation through a maze behind it there is a picture of a volcano with different levels of the center of the earth including the inner core, outer core, mantle, and the crust. While going through each area of earth’s crust is explained, this includes the temperature of the area of the center of the earth, what it is composed of and the state of matter. Then when the top of the volcano is reached there is an eruption and that is also explained. Lastly the activity finishes off with “Volcano Factoids” where the child is given different knowledge about volcanoes around the world and other facts in general such as where the name volcano originated from.

This activity is for students in second grade the knowledge gained is very basic but children need to have the ability to read in order to obtain knowledge. It is very easy for students to simply focus on the maze itself and not actually pay attention to the information that is being provided to them, I know this was my case when I first came across the activity. As a teacher it is necessary to make sure students focus on the information rather than the game itself. Another disadvantage of the activity is that there is no way to test the students’ comprehension on the material through this game. There is a pop quiz about the earth on the same site that includes material presented here but only 4 out of the 8 questions are related not making it very useful. This activity does present a different way of providing the information for the students that includes a visual and builds new knowledge that can be used before beginning a new lesson about volcanoes with the students.

(evaluated by Alejandra Santillanes)

Volcanoes

When it comes to learning valuable content in classrooms today, it?s important for the resources to be interactive and informative so that information is readily available for the students. For example, take the topic of volcanoes. How can educators provide information about this subject without making it seem dull and boring? Well, in this website called Discover Kids: Volcano Explorer, information about volcanoes is transformed from dull and boring to engaging and interactive.

Right off the bat, this website gives off an inviting stance by merely describing what volcanoes can be like with clever adjectives such as ?beautiful and powerful? and ?awe-inspiring and deadly? to draw the student in. The student must then click on the enter button in order to be taken into the main page where a world of information awaits. Upon clicking the button, a 3D figure of the planet Earth is seen rotating. While doing this, there is a key next to the rotating globe indicating what the marks on the planet?s surface mean such as the boundary lines of plate tectonics and active volcanoes today. A brief but right to the point paragraph is positioned below the rotating planet describing how plate tectonics work in relation to volcanoes. Just on the right side of this paragraph, the student also has several more topic options such as the layers within the earth and of the ring of fire. These topics all relate to volcanoes and how they work. Upon clicking either topic, the rotating sphere corresponds to the subject by highlighting/pointing it out through labeling and animations.

Another interesting find about this website is how the menu is placed on the left side of the page. This provides an organized manner in navigating through website with other links such as volcano types and what the inside of a volcano looks like. What?s really positive about each link here is how the information is presented. The display of information is similar as the first time the student clicked to enter and saw the 3D figure of the planet Earth which only shows just how user-friendly this website is. Little animations on the 3D figures presented also help tremendously in giving the student a feel for how volcanoes act and the language used to describe each topic are all in relation to what the student is visually seeing. This proves to be a great feature should an English language learner use the site to find information. Having the visuals also aligned next to the text also proves to be another positive aspect since the English language learner would have a much better chance at not getting confused on what is being discussed.

To further expand on the student?s interactive journey in acquiring more information about volcanoes, there is a virtual volcano activity. This activity has the student creating different types of volcanoes and their varied eruptions. Since this activity is a bit more complex by asking the student to set viscosity and gas levels, there are two links right next to those settings providing definitions of both levels in a simplified language. This is a positive feature here for the English language learner to click on should he/she not know exactly what the activity is asking. Once conditions have been set, the activity describes what kind of volcano the student has created and provides several characteristics. With this in mind, the student can then start the eruption by clicking the start button and a 3D figure of a volcano appears on the screen and starts erupting, sound effects included. As it is occurring, the animation begins labeling out specific parts of what is going on such as ?lava flows? and ?plume? and the student may click on those words to learn its definition. Labeling here works to help the student expand on his/hers vocabulary, which only makes this activity even more enriching.

Overall, this website is highly recommended for second language learners. It?s interactive, it?s visually appealing, and it?s incredibly easy to navigate through when it comes to learning more about volcanoes.

(evaluated by Michelle Lopez)

Photosynthesis

2011-04-29T19:39:00.001-05:00

Photosynthesis

http://www.realtrees4kids.org/sixeight/letseat.htm

This website has different parts that are for different grade levels such as K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and then 9-12. The page that I would specifically use is classified for grades 6-8. The website is really to inform the reader about tree farming but in doing so the photosynthesis process is described. Even though the entire website is not focused on photosynthesis I think that reading a little about tree farming helps the photosynthesis process make more sense. The students would actually learn about one of the many results that photosynthesis produces. I like that the site introduces different vocabulary words and on the side of the information it gives you a definition. This website could be used as an introduction to the photosynthesis unit. A worksheet can be provided with the bolded vocabulary words and from reading the site and the sites definitions the students can come up with their own definition. Even if they are not able to fully understand the photosynthesis process by reading the information from this site, they should be able to talk about some of the things it takes to make the photosynthesis process work.

Photosynthesis

http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_photosynthesis.html

This website could be used with middle school students. It explains the photosynthesis process and even has a diagram to demonstrate how it works using the highlighted vocabulary in the site. With this site students could have an activity where they just focus on the bolded words and their definition along with what role they play in the photosynthesis process. Another activity could be having the students look at the diagram after reading about the process and drawing a diagram that they can understand better. This is also a great site for students to see the results of photosynthesis, so during class time they can take time to explore the site and learn specifically about plants and how they go through the process. Even though they will be able to explore and learn about the effect on plants the students still need to primarily focus on the photosynthesis process.

Photosynthesis

http://www.wartgames.com/themes/plants/photosynthesis.html

This website is also geared towards middle school students. The great thing about this site is that it has multiple links for the students to go to in order to learn different things about photosynthesis. Each link pinpoints something different about the process. A weakness about this site is that kids could get easily confused going through all the links so a way to solve that problem is to have an activity like the following. If this is done in the classroom the students can be broken up into small groups and each explore one link or the teacher can give each student a specific link. After the students have researched and learned more they should write down a few facts about what they learned from their link. If the teacher gave each student their individual link, all the same links can come together and share what they got out of it. Sharing in a group shows the different things that popped out at each student and because everyone may be different that does not mean that they are wrong. This activity practices picking out important ideas and sharing them with their peers.

Photosynthesis

http://www.phschool.com/science/biology_place/biocoach/photosynth/intro.html

This website is geared towards middle and high school students. The website gives a lot of structure to the photosynthesis process and walks the students through it step by step. Using this site I would break my class into groups and have them specifically focus on one step. The wording on the site is very bland so I would encourage the students to rephrase the steps using vocabulary that all the students could easily learn. Once all the groups have completed their rephrasing they will present to the class. This presentation should consist of easy ways to help the students remember the order of the photosynthesis process and how each step works. This activity also helps with sequence words.

dinosaurs

2011-04-29T15:10:00.009-05:00

www.sdnhm.org/

This website starts off with a series of common questions and answers. The format is a benefit because students can get the answers to questions that they may have about dinosaurs without going through each page separately. Second language learners that may be exploring the idea of questions and answers can see this format in use. The type of activity that the teacher can do is provide a list of questions and students can then explore the websites and find the answers associated with them. Not only would students be practicing their skill to answer questions but they would also benefit by learning more about dinosaurs. The benefits of this website is the simple structure which makes it great for lower leveled students and the pictured time line which uses pictures of dinosaurs to outline the different periods in which they were alive. Because of these pictures and simple worded sentences, this website is great for both English language learners and English proficient learners. Another quality of the website is the easy to locate game associated with dinosaurs and fossils. Games of course bring a benefit of their own because they engage students while fostering learning. These games are even more beneficial for ELL because they are simple worded and involve language as well. In fact on game is a word search so students can learn the association of words with a dinosaur while learning spelling as well! Another aspect of the site is suggestion side bar which gives easy suggestive links to other more interesting subjects such as “fossil mysteries” which explains how fossil are found and where you can go to see them. More importantly, it offers many photos and diagrams for students. Overall, I enjoyed this website and feel it would be very beneficial in the classroom when teaching about dinosaurs.

(evaluated by Jennifer Ramos)

www.sheppardsoftware.com

The website “DinoMight”, is an extremely effective website for second language learner children who are learning all about different dinosaurs. The first thing you see when you go to this website is a video called “Dino Movie”, which is a perfect introductory visual to spark children’s interest in learning more about dinosaurs. The video is shown with cartoon drawings and is narrated by the voice of young child, who does a wonderful job of giving a brief yet factual summary of what dinosaurs are and basic characteristics of them. I found that this would be a great resource for second language learners because it provides a simple visual aid that they could use to better understand the information. The website offers four different categories along the top which include timelines, fossils, dinos, and games. Timelines shows you the three periods of times that dinosaurs were on the Earth and gives you a short description of the different climates and different dinosaurs in each period. Fossils, provides another wonderful short video which provides a ton of helpful information about where fossils come from and how people are now able to find them. Dinos has eleven clickable pictures of the main types of dinosaurs and gives a physical description of each and what time period they lived in. These are great visual aids for children to begin recognizing the different types of dinosaurs. The last category provides several different games that are not only fun and entertaining for the children, but allows them to test their knowledge. One particular game that I like is called Name-A-Saurus, which has the child drag each type of dinosaur to their correct name. The first level provides black shadows of the dinosaurs so it’s fairly easy to match them but the next level takes away the shadows and increases the difficulty. This is perfect for challenging them to actually learn what their names are instead of just memorizing the different shapes. For second language learners the shadows can act as a form of scaffolding that provide the children a way to learn them but in a fun way. Overall I think that this is a wonderful website for children of all ages and provides a wide variety of options for learning. It has educational games, videos and visual clickable links that are perfect for engaging second language learner children and allowing them to learn during the process of playing games. Personally I would assign this as a website that the children would be able to explore on their own at school or at home, because it is so easily navigated and has content that is not too advanced for children while they are still learning a language.

(evaluated by Amy Sand)

www.kidsdinos.com

Kidsdinos.com is a low quality site that provides several resources for children learning about dinosaurs. The several resources that the site provides include a “Dino-Database,” where you can read about specific dinosaurs separated by type (example: “Early Dinosaurs”) and names within that type. Once you pick a dinosaur of your choice, the site provides you with a drawn picture of the dinosaur, where the dinosaur falls on the timeline (Triassic, Jurasic, Cretaceous periods, up until humans), where they would have lived in the world on the “dinosaur map,” a summary of the dinosaurs history and appearance, and then a list of “dinosaur facts” that include how to pronounce the name, what the name means, what did it eat, etc. The “Dino-Database” is quite informational and fairly easy to read and navigate, making it ideal for when students are looking up information.

There is also a section for Dinosaur Games which include the following: Make a Dinosaur; Dinosaur Match; Dinosaur Flashcards; Dinosaur Classification; Dinosaur Memory; Dinosaur Hangman; Dinosaur Mutation and Dinosaur Painter. The first game I investigated was the “make a dinosaur.” You were able as the player to give the dinosaur a name, body type head, back feet, front feet, and tail of your choosing. This game had a lot of potential to be fun and educational, however the graphics of the game were quite small and difficult to see and once you finished the game, nothing really happened so it was anti-climatic. The Dinosaur match game provided several “popular” types of dinosaurs (such as the T-Rex) and has you match the shadow with the dinosaur’s picture. This is most suitable for younger students but really holds very little educational value for older students besides teaching the physical appearance of these five dinosaurs. The dinosaur flashcards provide information on a dinosaur and you must select the correct dinosaur that corresponds with the information. These are handy because they require that students research the dinosaurs using the site’s Dino-Database. The Memory and Hangman games are just like the classic games where you must match pictures from memory and guess letters for a certain dinosaur to make its name. The Dinosaur Mutation game provides the picture of a random dinosaur and information on that dinosaur. You can then click on the dinosaur to “mutate” its appearance, which basically means you stretch the image.

Overall, the site is informational, but very low quality. Ads scatter the page and are placed in inconvenient places, especially in the Dino-Database where there is an ad below the picture of the dinosaur, which originally caused me to think that the database only provided pictures. It wasn’t until I scrolled down past the ad that I discovered all the useful information it had. These ads can be very distracting to students and are an eyesore. Also, many of the graphics in the games are very small and difficult to focus on. However, the graphics in the database where they place the dinosaur on the timeline and map make that information easy to read and process, so that is one of their strengths. It is primarily in the games they provide that their weakness exists.

As for use in the classroom, perhaps activities could be based in computer lab where students have to research dinosaurs and play the flashcards game. Or, perhaps they could each research one dinosaur of their choice and create a small presentation where they describe what era the dinosaur is from, where the dinosaur would have lived, how big the dinosaur was in comparison to humans, and 2-3 fun facts along with a picture (all of which could be found in the dino-database). They would become the “expert” on the dinosaur and they would teach it to the class essentially. Once they do that, they can maybe create their own dinosaur on the make a dinosaur and create information for the dinosaurs they make that are completely different so that it’s fun. For a multi-literacy classroom, this site is probably not preferable. It provides only information in English and the only language assistive thing they have is the phonetic pronunciation of every dinosaurs name in the Dino-Database. The site is definitely not equipped for English Language Learners unless they are at their grade-level of reading and writing (or close to native- speaking). Though this site does provide some good information in the Dino-Database, there are probably better sites out there to use when teaching a class.

(Evaluated by Anne Pugh)

teacher.scholastic.com

This website has many great dinosaur-related activities for students to complete with the help of their teacher. There are quizzes, fact pages, worksheets, and teacher suggestions to help students understand more about dinosaurs and test their knowledge. Much of the website is quite accessible to students in the higher elementary grades. This site benefits English Language Learners because of the pictures and the headings. The fact pages have quite a bit of text, but the way that it is organized allows ELLs to draw out the main points without necessarily understanding the entire body of text. Each page includes bold headings and main ideas that are in a different color from the other text. Simply reading the headings on most of the pages will allow students to complete most of the games and quizzes that the site contains. A game that is particularly good for English Language Learners is "Real or Make-Believe?" This game shows kids short statements relating to dinosaurs and the student answers whether the statement is real or make-believe. This is a variation of true/false that children will encounter in the classroom, and gives the ELL more vocabulary to express whether a statement is true or false. There is also a writing portion of the site that prompts the children to write what they know about dinosaurs. Because the prompt is not extremely specific, ELLs will be able to complete the writing activity using the vocabulary that they already know since the prompt is essentially must "write what you know."

Overall, the website is a good resource for teachers to use in classrooms with ELLs, but I believe that it is necessary for the instructor to guide the children through the information and activities.

(evaluated by Ashley Milliken)

www.planetdinosaur.com/

The website that I found has a lot of informational text about dinosaurs therefore I would use this site with middle school students who are learning how to write research papers. The website has different links to learn about classifications of the dinosaurs, cool facts, and much more which I find to be a strength because a teacher can give a free range assignment and allow the students to explore what they specifically like about the topic. For my class I would make this a research assignment. It would have little structure enabling the students to explore the site. They would have to pick a topic that they found interesting and find out more information about it by using only this websites. After researching using only this site, the students would write a paragraph if they are in the beginning stages of learning how to write papers or if capable they can write a full report on the topic they researched. Like a few activities that we have encountered throughout the semester, it is an important part of an ELL’s education to interact with their peers and for their peers to interact with them. So the conclusion of this activity could be a presentation about why they picked a specific topic and tell the class something interesting about it. This allows the students to use a few of the new vocabulary words they found through their research, forming grammatically correct sentences, it could also work on sequence words. An example of sequence would be: first I clicked on this link and found this, so next I continued to read, and afterwards I found another link, and so on. So with this site an assignment could work on the students writing as well as verbal communication.

(evaluated by Yasmin McKnight)

The Four Seasons

2011-04-29T13:23:00.004-05:00

We have collected and evaluated four different websites that we think would be useful in a classroom learning about the four seasons.

Teaching about the Four Seasons!

http://www.playkidsgames.com/games/seasons/seasons.htm

The concept we are teaching is learning about the four seasons. The game that I choose was a very simple game that I think is good for both younger children and ELL students. There are four different pictures that represent the different seasons. Then around each of the pictures there are the four season words; autumn, spring, winter and summer. The object of the game is to drag the correct word to the picture. The reason I think that this game is good for the students is because it shows the different pictures to represent the seasons, so the students can relate it to real life experiences or situations. Along with matching the picture and the word, if you get the correct answer it tells you how to say the word and it tells you “good job”. It reinforces the students by telling them they are doing well. If you get it wrong it doesn’t tell the students it is wrong it makes them figure it out for themselves since the word won’t stick to the word. I think this is good because it makes the students think about why isn’t it sticking and then they can change their answer. This game may be very simple but understanding the basics is important. If the student doesn’t understand the basics then they will not understand the later concepts that go along with the different seasons. This website is also very kid friendly and easy to navigate around, so the children and the parents or teacher can easily get to where they want to be.

Reviewed by Amanda Lisberger

The Seasons

http://www.wxdude.com/page19.html

This website can be used to teach students about the four seasons; spring, summer, fall, and winter. The website contains at least a page of information on each different seasons. The information ranges from teaching about the sun’s axis during each season to the different climate changes in each season. There is also information that helps teach students about weather and forecasting.This website can be useful in having students discover information on their own while exploring the website or the teacher can use it to guide the class while teaching.

One activity that can be used with this website to introduce students to the seasons would be to put the students in pairs and assign each pair a different season, so there will be groups with the same season. Have the pairs of students go on the website and research their particular season and have them write down important facts about each season that they can share with the class. This is an explorer activity that has several different benefits. Students will learn to work together in partners, students can practice finding information on the web and learning what is important to write down, and students will also be able to practice speaking in front of their peers when they have to share their findings with the class. This activity can be useful for ESL students because they will gain practice of reading English words when finding information on the web, and they will also gain practice speaking English words when they speaking in front of the class.

The website also contains lyrics and an audio recording of a song called “Circle of Our Four Seasons.” One activity that can be done with this song is by playing musical chairs with the students using this song. Label the chairs with the names of the different seasons and when the students scramble for a chair when the song stops have the students that are sitting in the chairs tell a fact about their season that is labeled on their chair. This is a good activity because it is fun for the students and gets them up and out of the desks and moving around the classroom.

Students can also use the website on their own by playing word search games and reading the “fun facts” that the website has to offer.

I think all of these activities can be geared towards first or second grade classes.

Reviewed by Rachel Roberts

The Seasons Activities

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/themes/seasons.shtml

This website provides a lot of fun activities for learning about the four seasons. These are simple activities and would probably work best for a younger age group of beginner level ESL learner.

On this website, there is a different page for each season. Since they all offer similar activities tailored to each particular season, I will just focus on the winter page. At the top of this page, there are several tabs that lead to instructions for many different classroom art activities. Since there are several pictures, the students might be able to look through the activities and decide what they would like to make. Or, this just might be useful for teachers to find craft ideas related to each season.

Next, there is a section with ‘Winter Words in Picture Dictionary Format.’ This tab leads to a link with many different pictures of winter related items, each with the word written in English and a short definition. The other tab I like is the ‘Winter Words in Spanish: Picture Dictionary Page.’ This link shows several winter related pictures with the Spanish word and English word. This could definitely be a helpful resource for students as they learn about winter. If they come across something they are not familiar with, or need a translation, they can quickly find what they are looking for. This feature, however, seems more appropriate for an older age group that can read Spanish and/or English.

The next section of the website offers several printable activities. These all have easy to read sentences accompanied by pictures that the students can color in. These would be fun for the students to pick out what they want to do and the teacher can print them out. Since there are so many options, students will be able to find something that interests them. And, by letting the students chose which activity they want to do, the students will feel more motivated to work on their individualized project. Also, many of these activities vary in difficulty level, so it would be easy to find something appropriate for a range of learners.

The following section offers a lot of concept organizers that the teacher can print out to accompany a lesson. There are four square, bubble, web, and matching organizers. These would be great to scaffold students as they read or learn about a certain topic, demonstrating useful ways to organize ideas. There are also several worksheets with simple drawing and comparison activities. These would be great for teaching about comparison words at the same time as teaching a seasonal objective.

This website really offers several activities for students and teachers to help bolster learning about seasons. With such a wide variety of games, resources, crafts, and activities, a teacher or student can find exactly what they need for teaching and learning about seasons.

Reviewed by Cami Kinley

Seasons Resources

http://www.primarygames.com/seasons/seasons.htm

This informative website full of season resources for early childhood students comes from the Primary Games website, which has many more creative teaching topics for children. The link provided directly links to the seasons portion of the website. Provided on the page are four separate links for each season: spring, summer, fall and winter. Provided for each season link are activities relating to that season. For example for the spring activity there is a link for a spring coloring page, spring crafts, spring games, spring stationary (two options for younger and older students) and a list of spring holidays and activities for each holiday. The activities from this website would best serve early childhood students ages Pre-Kindergarten to 1^st grade. Because the activities include such skills as coloring, hands-on arts and crafts and games, young students will benefit from these activities by learning about the concept of seasons without interference from complex skills.

The seasonal activities implement visual stimulation in order to teach ideas about seasons. For example, the summer coloring sheets are pictures of children playing at a beach, sunshine, flowers, strawberries, watermelon and summer vacation. The teacher has the option of discussing events, foods, insects, weather, etc. that take place or live in the summer. If the teacher does not discuss these “summer happenings” the students will make an internal connection of what summer means to them. Another visual stimulation is the seasonal stationary, which would be appropriate for students who are capable of writing. Printed on the stationary is a boarder of the suitable season (spring- bright flowers, summer-sun, fall- leaves and winter- snowflakes). The teacher is able to create an original writing activity to produce on the stationary. For example: “Explain what winter means to you”, or “Describe your favorite summer memory”. Through this writing activity students are able to create their own definition of summer according to past experiences.

One of the many strengths of this seasonal activity website is that students are able to channel into prior knowledge and experience in order to learn about seasons. This stimulation helps the learning become meaningful to the students. Seasons is a very concrete topics in which all students should learn about; however, it is very likely that the students have prior knowledge of the subject without being aware of the previous familiarity. This is a great activity for multiliteracy classrooms because the English learners are able to visualize what each season means to them rather than struggle with language understanding and comprehension through lecturing or reading. Because the students are provided with visual examples of the seasons, possible misunderstanding and confusion that an English learner might experience will be eliminated. An idea from the reading that can be implemented in these activities is sharing time. The teacher could instruct the students to complete a coloring season activity and complete a writing assignment on the seasonal stationary explaining what that season means to them. After the activity is completed the students could share the writing activity with the class. By doing this the students will gain a broad knowledge of what seasons are and mean to others. During the sharing time the teacher would interact and use questions and comments to help children speak in a literate style. For English language learners the teacher could even implement the scaffolding practice during the share time. This activity would be extremely useful in a multiliteracy classroom, and I hope to someday have the opportunity to implement this activity in my classroom.

Reviewed by Claire Cumbie

Cultural Dance-Extra Credit

2011-04-28T23:14:00.004-05:00

Cultural Dance

http://fitforafeast.com/dance_cultural.htm

The website “Fit for a Feast” provides a great amount of information pertaining to different cultural dance styles across the world. On the home page there is a link provided for twenty-three different countries, descriptions of that region’s dancing styles and videos of people performing that specific dance. For example, if you were to click on the first link for Africa, it brings you to a page with a colorful map of the continent and links to each specific country. When you click on one of the countries, it takes you to a page that discusses what kind of dancing is culturally relevant to that area and provides a video of either children or adults performing. One of the main strengths that I could see in this website for English language learners, was that every single dance had a video link to show physically what the dance looked like. For the most part this website is meant for older children or younger children who have adult supervision, but the videos could be used for any age group. The videos provide the students a way to understand different cultural aspects of countries without necessarily having to understand the text explanations of each dance. This could also be something that any of the children could relate to and share more about dances from their own cultures or countries. This would be a great tool for teachers to use in multi-literacy classrooms because the videos could inspire some dancing time of their own and by participating in this they are actively learning about cultural subjects. One of the limitations of the website that I found was that although it provides wonderful videos, some of the text explanations are much stronger than others. Some of them go into great depth and speak of the reasoning’s and uses of the different dances while others give one or two sentences telling what the name is. Overall I would definitely use this as a teaching tool in my own classroom because it provides an array of information in a way that is not intimidating to children.

http://library.thinkquest.org/3081/

The website “Southern Pow Wows” discusses the many different forms of dance that are used as a part of Native American traditional ceremonies. The website provides different links to information about the different dance styles, proper etiquette, terminology, what kinds of people participate, and background knowledge of the reasoning behind this type of dancing. For example the website provides a great amount of terminology such as the word bustle, which refers to the arrangements of traditional feathers worn by the dancers. This website would be of most use to older children, because of the large amount of text for each description. One of the main weaknesses of this website would be that English language learners would most likely find difficulty in understanding some of the descriptions if they are struggling with their reading skills. There are a few pictures provided for each page, but not enough to supplement what they would be reading. I think that this website would be much more useful and effective to English language learners if the teacher were to navigate it for all of the students during class. There are many activities that could be branched off of this website and could act as the base for their knowledge on the Native American dances. Another disadvantage that I saw with this website, is that it doesn’t provide any form of educational games or activities that would interest many children. I think that this would make it a much more friendly and entertaining website that the students would want to explore outside of class. Overall this website could be a good tool for teachers to use to further knowledge on a different form of cultural dance but it’s success depends how the teacher presents it to the students.

http://www.dance-kids.org/main.html

The website “Dance Kids Club”, is a wonderful website that incorporates many children friendly aspects. When you are on the home page of the website it shows you a room with two children standing in it and many objects around them. When you move the cursor across some of the objects they activate sound effects and tell you what that section will be about if you click on it. One of the first sections that I clicked on was “Dancing Globe”, which brings you to a page explaining that the children are going to explore different countries. The choices for countries to explore include Poland, Greece, Austria, and Sweden. Each different section gives you a very detailed description of the types of dances in that region as well as descriptions of the costumes, customs, and music that are associated with that style of dance. One of the weaknesses I found for this website was that although they provide very helpful and educational information for learning about different cultural dances, there are only four possible choices to look at. If this website provided several more options of countries to examine, then I think it would be much more useful. English language learners would easily be able to navigate and use this website due to the clarity and welcoming nature. There are many pictures and easy to understand explanations that any young children would be able to understand. One aspect that I found as a strength for using this in a multi-literacy classroom, was that the section “Lucky Dip” provides a list of words and dances associated with the alphabet. It goes through each letter and finds an easily understood dance term such as ‘C is for Cha Cha Cha’, and explains in simple language what each means. Another strength that is provides for understanding these terms is a picture gallery that shows clears pictures of each style of dance. Personally I would use this in my own classroom by assigning two or three students to a letter and having them navigate the website and come up with their own dance related word to use. This is something practical to use in a multi-literacy classroom because the majority of the children will not know many of these dance terms or styles of dance and by having the children work together to explore this, they would all be on a level playing field. Overall I found this a very interactive and educationally helpful website that would be wonderful to use either in the classroom or have the children explore on their own time at home.

http://www.knowitall.org/artopia/dance/index.html

The website “Artopia: Dance” is a wonderful resource for teachers and students to use when focusing on the topic of dance. The website it set up so that the viewer is in the dance lobby and there are five different places that they can “go”. One of the best attributes that I found on this website was the one minute movie that is found at the top of the screen. This short video discusses how dance can be used in different cultures and how diverse it can be. This video has been created using cartoon figures that are very kid-friendly and is narrated by a young child. This would a good tool for children who are learning a new language because everything that the narrator speaks of has a supplemental picture or action that reinforces what they are speaking about. The one down side that I saw of this video for English language learners was that the narrator speaks very quickly. I had to pay very close attention to catch everything that she was saying and if a child doesn’t understand a vocabulary word, then the video will move on before they have a chance to reflect or realize what it means. Another aspect of this website that I found very helpful for English language learners was the entire section called The Studio. In this section there is a link to a subsection called The Language of Dance, which discusses how dancers use their bodies to represent different symbols. These symbols are universal pictures that any of the children can learn how to represent with their bodies and does not have a language limitation. It then provides a short matching game for the students to match the dance symbols with a stick figure’s movements. One last part that I thought would be perfect to use in a classroom when discussing dance would be the Meet an Artist section. This section has six different dancer or chorographers that have 4-5 videos discussing different aspects of dancing. By showing the children an actual dancer speaking about various subjects, they can feel more connected and are able to relate to them on a better level.

(Evaluated by Amy Sand)

Chinese New Year (extra credit)

2011-04-28T23:13:00.000-05:00

1) History
http://www.history.com/topics/chinese-new-year

In this website students can learn history information about the Chinese New Year. It will help students understand that during the Chinese New Year, different families will honor their ancestors and this day will help them to bring their families together. In this website students will understand when the Chinese New Year is. Videos and pictures are provided for ELL Students and younger students. Videos will help them understand who celebrates Chinese New Year and how people celebrate it.

2)Tradition

http://www.china-family-adventure.com/chinese-new-year-celebrations.html

In this website students will learn about Chinese traditions during the Chinese New Year. During the Chinese New Year, younger kids will receive lucky money. There are also different dances. The dragon dance is important because they believe that this will bring them luck. The lion dance is important as well. People believe that this dance will let evil go away. During the Chinese New Year people will use firecrackers because they believe that loud sounds will let evil run away. This website will help students understand what they do and what their traditions are. The pictures are next to the descriptions of each tradition. This will help ELL and younger students.

3)12 zodiac signs

http://china.mrdonn.org/zodiac.html

When you go to a Chinese restaurant you will see zodiac signs. A lot of students would not know what zodiac signs mean and where they came from. In this website students will learn 12 different zodiac signs and how the animals are selected. There are 12 different animals and every year, the animal signs change. This website will help students figure out the zodiac signs and the history background information about the signs. During the Chinese New year, Zodiac signs are very important. This website will explain how zodiac signs are selected by telling a story. This will be a engaging activity that teachers can do to help students understand what zodiac signs are.

4) food

http://www.chiff.com/a/chinese-new-year-foods.htm

This website is going to be for order students. In this website it will explain what people eat and what each food means. For Chinese New Year, people avoid foods that represent misfortune. This website will help students know that Chinese New Year is a 15 day celebration. This website will explain what people eat each day. This will help Students understand how food will play an important role in Chinese New Year. This website has pictures of a fish and an orange. This is because fishes and oranges represent good fortune. This is going to be for order students because it does not have many pictures. It explains the meanings of different foods but it does not have a lot of pictures. For ELL students, what teacher can do is ask them to write foods that represent good luck or the meanings of each food.

Physical Fitness--Extra Credit

2011-04-28T16:38:00.004-05:00

kidshealth.org

This is a great website for students who want to learn more about staying healthy. One of the advantages about this site is the large array of topics that it has from ways to stay healthy to ways to avoid injury during physical activity. Students can go here to find a plethora of information about physical activity. However, I would recommend this for students who are closer to English proficiency because it lacks the basic simple sentence structures that many early English Learners depend on. Though it has a unique concept! It as a button which allows you to switch the website to Spanish! This is great for parents who want to get information along with students who can use the Spanish website to compare to the English in order to learn concept and terms that may be unknown. Another great quality of the website is the “play it safe” tab which allows for students to get specific instructions on how to keep safe during physical activity. I think this is very helpful for younger students and especially teachers who want to emphasize the importance of staying safe during physical activity.

studentstakingcharge.org/

This website is great for older children who want to explore the reasons of staying physically fit. In fact, students can read about ideas they can enforce in order to get their school to become proactive. More importantly, the website emphasizes the importance of communication and social interaction when undergoing physical activity. This is great for second language learners because they are encouraged to use language in order to create relationships with others while staying physically active. The website even has downloadable “fact sheets” which give statistics about reasons for physical activity. The teacher can make a list of true and false questions that students can use this website to find the answers. The negative to this website is that it focus mostly on staying healthy and less emphasis on physical activity although there is some good advice concerning that issue.

getkidsinaction.org

This website is wonderful because it is simple and concise which is great for second language learners and younger children. The navigation allows for easy links and clearly defined “kids” and “parents” sections. Kids can read about what BMI is and even tips for staying physically fit along with suggestions on how to stay active on a rainy day. More importantly, it offers facts about why staying physically fit is important and definitions of terms that are often used when describing fitness. Therefore, teachers can use this site to teach students about definitions such as BMI and Calorie intake. The only negative is the lack of pictures and/or diagrams. I feel that those are beneficial to students and second language learners. Otherwise, there is a lot of good information on the site to guide students towards a better understanding of physically fit lives.

exploratorium.edu/

This site is great for science teachers or physical education teachers who want to explain the science behind being fit. I like this site because it gives a whole new outlook on staying physically fit. In fact, it is great for students of all ages and also for SLL because the information is shown through videos. More importantly, it dissects the different aspects of certain sports and helps students learn more about them. With such a large array of videos on different sports, students could use this site to figure out what sport they are most interested in. Teachers could ask students to pick a sport and later to research on how this sport keeps them physically fit. Doing this would allow students to research something they feel connected to along with allowing them to flourish under their own decision making. The limitation of this site is that it does not offer many facts about staying physically fit, however it does allow for students to make an informed decision on a sport they’d like to try.

(evaluated by Jennifer Ramos)

Rainforest

2011-04-28T13:01:00.011-05:00

http://www.kidsknowit.com/interactive-educational-movies/free-online-movies.php?movie=biomes
I was really looking for a website that would touch on the differences between biomes. I thought that this video was very good for both ELL’s and native English speakers. There are vocabulary words thrown into the video and also defined, which is great because all students would benefit from the vocabulary definitions for newly introduced science words. Because there are so many vocabulary words and the video is dense with content, it would help ELL’s who have developed pretty good English skills. There are subtitles and pictures for students, which could aid ELL’s, but does not have a pause button for students who read more slowly.
The video touched on many differences between biomes, with a good introduction to biomes and then segues into the rainforest, telling students what to look for in the rainforest biome specifically.
There is a fill in the blank test at the end testing both spelling and content retention, making sure they were paying attention, saw words on screen, now spell them. The questions were VERY specific, I’m not sure that I caught all the answers, but you can go back and watch the video again until you collect all the correct answers. I think this is good because then students can watch the video the second time knowing what to look out for. Overall, a great website for students and teachers because it will surely stimulate some classroom discussion!
By: Elyse Prevot

www.rainforest-alliance.org/kids
This website is helpful and entertaining for children learning about the rainforest. It is a website for all ages of people dedicated to saving and learning about the rainforest. The part that will be focused on is the “Kid’s Corner” of the website. Once you get to the “Kid’s Corner,” children are directed to a set of 6 pictures describing what each link goes to. Once they click the “Plant and Animal” link with a monkey on it, they are directed to a long list of many animals that live in the rainforest and break them up into their species profile. I think this is helpful because it also helps children learn what animals belong in what species. It shows the Red Eye Tree Frog under Amphibians, a Bird species list, an Insect species list, and a mammal species list. Once they click on the animal they want to learn about, for instance, the Capuchin Monkey, they are directed to the Species Profile page. Here they are given a picture of the animal and a long list of interesting facts such as their anatomy, habitat, diet and threats. After the children study up on their animals of choice, there is a link easily identifiable on the left labeled “online games”. There is a game called, “Jewels of the Earth,” which takes the child on a tour of the rainforest and it’s canopies where the child can run into a large variety of animals to learn more about. Through the “Kids Corner” page, children can also be directed to an activities page where they can print out coloring pages of animals to color and also some links to some hands on activities to teach about the rainforest through experiments, crafts and quizzes.
I like how the language is used through out the “Kid’s Corner” of the website. It is not too heavy of language so that an English Language Learner is not completely lost. The photo galleries are very engaging as well which give the children a better idea of what they are studying. I also like how the online games section is not just games; they apply information for children to learn from. I really like the activities page because it gives the children hands on experiments to grow plants in similar environments as those in the rainforest, such as the bromeliad experiment. I think this website is a fun and interactive way for children of all ages to learn about animals of the rainforest.
By: Cecily Augustine

http://kids.mongabay.com/elementary/002.html
This website will explain everything about rainforests. For example, it will explain what rainforest is, where a rainforest is found, what makes a rainforest, and the different types of rainforest animals, plants, and even people. This website has videos and pictures so that it can help ELL students. The topic that I picked was rainforest locations. In this website, there is a picture of the world and the locations that have rainforests are marked green. This visual representation is going to help ELL students understand where rainforests are located in the world. In this website, it even has pictures of different country flags explaining which countries have largest amount of rainforests. This will help students understand that not only one country has rainforests. This will help them understand that rainforests are located in different countries. In the picture, students will notice that almost all the rainforests are located between the tropic of Capricorn and tropic of Cancer. (Capricorn and Cancer are marked on the map). If students do not know what these are, teachers can show it to them by pointing. In this website it explains why most rainforest are located between the tropic of Capricorn and tropic of Cancer. This is because this region is the warmest. This way, student can learn that rainforest are located only in warm places, not everywhere.
By: Soo Yoon

http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/Kids
This website is very useful for kids to gain some knowledge about rainforests. Some topics that this site covers are rainforest people, plants and animals, threats to rainforests, as well as activity sheets and information on how to save the rainforest. The topic that I am focusing on is rainforest people. This website is easy to follow and when you get to the main page it says "What do you want to do," click on the first section that says "meet some of the people who live in the rainforest and find out how they live." It takes you to trail 1. There is a total of 7 trails. In trail 1 you meet Mirim who is part of a tribe who lives in the amazon rainforest. He acts as a guide that will assist you through each trail. The topics that Mirim covers about rainforest people are hunting, farming, medicine from plants, clothes and jewelry, homes, and daily life in the rainforest. This website is excellent for kids as well as ESL learners. The information given is short and simple. Each section also provides bold words through out the passage. This would be very beneficial for ESL learners so they can focus and the bold words and get the main idea out of the passage. There are also pictures provided for each trail that coordinates to the topic. This would be another resource for ESL learners to make the connection of the picture to the word. What I really liked about this site is that Mirim who is the guide, asks questions to engage the students and to check for clarification.
By: Aprial Guerra

http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/rnfrst_plant_page.htm
The website that I found was a place called blueplanetbiomes. I found the website to be very beneficial to those children who are trying to learn about the the rainforest. I really liked it because I find it was something that will help out all ages. It is a website that helps children of every age to be able to learn and navigate around the website. When you first get to the website you will find pictures and information on the rainforest biome.I think this is good for ELL students because they are able to look at a map and know where the rainforest is located. There are many tabs along the left side that help you learn a little about what is involved in the areas. The tabs include ?Plants? ?Animals? ?Climate? These tabs are really big and when you click on them they allow you to go to other sites to learn about what they choose. I am focusing on the different plants that are included in the the rainforest. When you click on the tab it takes you to another page where there is a list of different plants that are in the area. There are again tabs along the left side of the page when you click on one of the plants such as the Jambu you get a picture and information on what it is. This is something I think that ELL students would also benefit from they can know where the location is and even know the different plats that are located here. The teacher could even do different games with the different plants like identifying which plant is what and they can even take turns spelling it. These are different things that could allow the ELL students to get a better grasp on the material. I think that overall this site is a good one for both students and teachers.
By: Gabriel Gonzalez

Colors of the Rainbow (extra credit)- Shaheen Lakhani

2011-04-28T12:39:00.006-05:00

Shaheen Lakhani

Extra Credit Blog Post- Colors of the Rainbow

1) http://www.teachingheart.net/rainbows.html

This website consists of numerous hands on activities that students could do both at home and in class. The website provides teachers with resources to help make this a great lesson when teaching students about the colors of the rainbow.

Strength of the website is that it consist of many activities to help students better understand the concept. It includes lots of hands-on activities like, making a milk rainbow, rainbow cake, and rainbow Jello. There are also printable games/worksheets. Also, it has videos which could benefit ELLs as well as any other student. Through all of these interactive activities, the students would be able to enjoy learning about the colors of the rainbow.

On the other hand, there are some limitations to the website. Though I really enjoy the hands on activities listed, the website should have more activities pinpointing at the various learning styles. For example, it could be a little more geared toward the audio learners or the learners who really learn by reading, not by activities. Having a variety of these is always the best.

The website has a lot of room for critical thinking. It allows the students to learn about the rainbows, and then actually apply the colors to their daily life. For example, one activity has them sort out their goldfish and fruit loops into the different colors. When these students learn through activities relevant to them, it is more beneficial.

There are different ways in which this website could be helpful both in the classroom and at home. For the classroom, the teacher could have a rainbow activity during lunch time. The students could divide up into different groups and each group could make a different rainbow food (Jello, cake, milk). Since this concept is geared more toward younger kids, a parent could volunteer to help out each group. At home, the kids could search for something they have that represents the rainbow, or has the colors of the rainbow, and then they could bring it to school for show and tell.

Overall, this website has room for improvement; however, it provides teachers with plenty of activities to help teach the lesson better

2) http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/rainbows/index.htm

This website is so useful! If I were to create a lesson on rainbows for my students, I would definitely use this website.

The website is geared toward all the learning styles. It includes hands on activities, as well as, books about rainbows at the end. It is not limited to just worksheets, but includes science experiments as well. The only limitation I can see in this website is that it could inform teachers more about how to come about teaching the lesson. Yes, it provides for after the teacher has introduced the lesson, but does not have activities to start the lesson.

It would allow students to think critically when they do the science experiment. Now, they are not only seeing colors of the rainbow, but they see them mixed up, and what they cool aspects it has to it. The video would help students, including ELLs, to visualize the experiment and colors before performing the activity themselves.

The activities could be used in the classroom. For example, the teacher could mix the concept of rainbows with their science lesson by doing the experiment. At home, the kids could find objects with different colors and see what they can make/build out of it. This would also lead to their creativity and critical thinking.

Overall, this website is a great basis for a teacher when teaching his/her students about the colors of the rainbow.

3) http://foodandspirit.com/the-rainbow-of-phytonutrients-teaching-kids-to-be-food-artists/

This website is geared toward using the colors of the rainbow considering food. It is actually useful because everyone eats food, so it is something that everyone can relate to.

The website has strengths when looking into colors of different foods; however, it does not include any pictures or videos. Having pictures and videos attracts and helps students understand the concept better.

The students use their critical thinking skills when doing the activities on this website. An activity listed is for them to pack their own lunch with specific colors. For example, it could be red day, so they pack foods that are red, like ketchup, an apple, and fruit punch. At home, the students could tell their parents the colors of the foods they have in their fridge.

All in all, this website is great for teaching kids about the colors through food, but it could include more activities the teachers could do in the classroom to further the children’s knowledge about the topic.

4) http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/rainbow /

This website is great as it combines previous learned material with the new material of colors of the rainbow. The teachers and students would both benefit from this website.

A great strength of this website is that it includes activities that students could make, and then display around the classroom. For example, it teaches students how to make streamers, handprints, and a rainbow mobile. However, the website has a limitation. It does not have material which could benefit audio learners, or students who like to read.

A great asset to this website is its linking to previous knowledge. An activity on the website re-itterates the letter rainbow starts with, “r,” and the sound the letter makes. Now, the students have to use their critical thinking skills to combine what they previously learned when learning the alphabet, to what they are learning in the present, the colors of the rainbow.

The activites could be used at both home and the classroom. In the classroom, the students could divide up into groups or stations, and make cool things to display around the classroom. In the end, the classroom would be very colorful and would be filled with things the students made themselves. At home, the students could work on the printable worksheets to further their knowledge and summarize what they have learned.

Thanksgiving

2011-04-27T11:00:00.002-05:00

apples4teacher.com

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and though I thought I would have great activities planned to teach this already, this website proved me wrong. This website has many useful resources which allow a teacher to go above and beyond when teaching a lesson on Thanksgiving.

This website has much strength as it is geared toward all types of learning styles. The crafts and printable activities are more hands-on, while the readings can be more of an auditory style as they read the text aloud. The website informs the viewers what Thanksgiving is all about, and when it is celebrated each year. Also, this website provides tons of activities which the students and teacher would both enjoy. It also leaves room for higher order thinking; the website shows pictures of two different turkeys, and asks the viewer to find the differences between each turkey. On the other hand, this website has some limitations which could be improved. The website would be more useful if it had some more visuals on the website. This would definitely be more useful to EELs. For example, the website could have some videos and games. These interactive activities would be helpful to the students learning.

The resources provided would be great to use in the classroom and at home. One activity mentioned on the website is the “Thankful Paper Chain” activity. In this activity, the students make a regular paper chain, however they write something they are thankful for on each piece of the chain. This paper chain could be a decoration for the Thanksgiving party in the classroom. Also, another activity mentioned is the Thanksgiving tree. In this activity, the children make hand cut-outs, write something or someone they are thankful for, and then place it as a leaf on the big class tree. If the class had a Thanksgiving party, the students could cook some of the foods listed on the website at home. The class could have a potluck party. Also, the students could read the story listed on the website with their family at home.

Evaluated by: Shaheen Lakhani

holidays.kaboose.com

The Thanksgiving holidays are times for us to reflect and be thankful for the food nature has provided us with. This website is for kids in grades K-6, and it is also very beneficial for the teacher. This website enables kids to explore the history of Thanksgiving, and it also has many games available. However, I don’t think I would use these games in class because they are kind of difficult to get to. With this website, I would put the history section up on the projector and read it out loud using the popcorn method with my students. Then I would have the kids write a summary of what they believe Thanksgiving is and draw a picture, if appropriate for their age level. Obviously if they are younger I might have them draw a picture of the Pilgrims and Indians feasting and tell me what they drew. I like that this website has a list of books teachers can purchase depending on the children’s age level. This makes the teacher’s task really easy if he/she were looking to find an appropriate level book. However, I feel like there are many limitations to this website. The first thing that really bothered me was this annoying ad that pops up every time you click on the page or go into another part of the site. Because of this, I would not have the kids searching the site on their own. The site is also not very appealing to the eye. I don’t think children would really want to read the information, which is why I would choose to do an interactive activity. I think that this website would be good for ELL’s if the activity is interactive because it helps the kids to have a thorough understanding of the reading material before they try and do the lesson part. Overall, I think that this website is okay, but I am sure there are better ones out there.

Evaluated by: Tori Lackey

scholastic.com

This website is an amazing resource for teachers who are working on a Thanksgiving unit and moves beyond the pilgrim and Indians that is typical of most Thanksgiving units. From the main page the teacher is able to direct students to different navigation tabs, including a home tab, voyage of the mayflower, daily life and a teacher resource tab. This website is best for older elementary students, probably grades 3-5.

One thing that is very impressive about this website is that it uses many different modes to display information. Each text also has a speaker, so that the student can listen to the text if they are not able to read or are not proficient in reading. Hearing the information orally might help the student to better process the academic content of the lesson rather than focusing on the correctly reading the text. This will also help ELL students complete homework assignments because they can listen to the text when looking for information. This website is a great resource for the classroom and for homework assignments because they are follow good principles of effective teaching methods. The website displays the information in a variety of ways, including videos, interactive maps and diagrams and photos.

One of the things this website does that is very interesting is allow the students to take a virtual field trip to historic Plymouth. This is a great way to allow the students to feel more connected with the academic content and help them imagine what life was really like for the Pilgrims. These videos will also help scaffold or provide some background knowledge for students who are not used to the American Thanksgiving traditions.

If I were using this resource in my classroom, I would probably start with the link to the voyage of the mayflower. I think I would take the time to also have the students work on a personal narrative where they researched where their family came from and allow them to explore their own immigrant story. I think this would be a great exercise because it would allow students to explore their family past and would allow recently immigrant students to wire about their personal immigration story. This exercise would help the class realize they have something in common with each other.

Evaluated by: Sarah Roddy

You are the Historian: Investigating the First Thanksgiving

This is a great website for teaching children about the first Thanksgiving. The student becomes a historian and investigates the first Thanksgiving. The website features two children that walk the student through the investigation. One is a descendant of the Wampanoag people and the other is a descendant of an English colonist. They both have a relative in their family that was at the First Thanksgiving Feast in 1621. The children direct the student through six steps to investigate the First Thanksgiving. There is also a glossary and “Visit the Expert” feature the student can go to at any time to help them with words they do not understand or historical references that are unfamiliar to them. These two resources would be helpful for ELLs who may not be familiar with the Thanksgiving celebration. The resources will give them the support they need for vocabulary and background knowledge they do not know.

The first step is determining which information are facts and which are myths about the first Thanksgiving. The next step shows a letter written by Edward Winslow, a Plymouth colonist who was at the feast, describing the first Thanksgiving. It is written in Old English, but the student can click on a magnifying glass that will translate each line into Modern English for him to read. The website will also read the letter to the student. This feature would be helpful for ELLs.

The next two steps teach the student about the Wampanoag people and then the English Colonists. It teaches the student about the importance of knowing the different cultures and their perspective on a historical event. It also points out the Wampanoag people use Oral History passed down through the generations. A teacher could discuss the differences between the two cultures and what they each brought to the Thanksgiving feast.

The next step is “The Path to 1621” which highlights the events leading up to the first Thanksgiving celebration. It asks the student to be a historian and explore how the Wampanoag and the colonists felt about each other in 1621 by listening to several accounts given by colonists and Wampanoag people. The student learns that history should not be told from the historian’s perspective, but from the perspectives of the people who were part of the event.

The final step is to “Share What You’ve Discovered”. It shows the students different ways that historians share what they have discovered through books, movies, exhibits and demonstrations. It then directs the students to make a presentation of what they have discovered about the First Thanksgiving through their investigation. There are options for the presentations so ELLs can choose the option that they feel most comfortable with.

There is a teacher guide on the website which gives great ideas for classroom activities. It suggests a previewing activity of making a large chart about Thanksgiving with three columns, “What I Think I Know”, “What I Want to Know”, “What I Have Learned”. The students can work in groups to come up with the first two columns. The class then gets together and adds their ideas to one large class chart. The same thing can be done to fill in the “What I Have Learned” column after they have completed the website activities.

This website brings history alive! It allows the student to feel like they are at the first Thanksgiving celebration. The student explores the facts to draw their own conclusions by viewing the event from both the perspective of the Wampanoag people and the English colonists.

Evaluated by: Angie Jones

everythingesl.net

This website was designed to help teachers prepare lesson plans and receives tips on teaching English Language Learners in a classroom. This website was started by Dr. Debbie Zacarian who also has a book on teaching ELLs. She has many lessons for different topics that would help aide an ELL in content-based learning.

The website breaks the lesson plan down to the main points like what the lesson topic is, the proficiency/grade level, the content concepts and skills, the vocabulary needed, and the instructional sequence for different level of ESL students. Although there are different instructional sequences for the two levels, they both start off with reading a book with pictures of the pilgrims and the mayflower. The website even gives suggestions on which book you should read to help with the lesson. The website gives an arts and craft activity that can go along with the Thanksgiving lesson about the Mayflower. For older students and students that are more advanced in English there is a downloadable mini booklet where students can fill in blank spaces about the Mayflower as they are learning the information. There are many different downloadable links to different crafts ideas.

I think this website is very helpful in general not just for the topic of Thanksgiving, but for various topics as well. The website is really helpful in which is not only gives you the instructional sequence for grades 1-4 beginners, but also for advanced ESL students. There are instructions for differentiating instruction for different students, which is highly probable in a general education classroom. I also caught onto the fact that many of the activities in the lesson plan dealt with arts and crafts which is helpful to ELLs. English Language Learners seem to learn best with working with pictures and images along with the content. I think this lesson plan illustrates principles of good teaching because it is pertaining to all students as it gives different ideas you can do for ELLs. The content that is being learned is the same, just the way it is being taught differs.

Evaluated by: Diana Chong

Deserts

2011-04-26T17:44:00.002-05:00

Deserts

http://www.neok12.com/Deserts.htm

Deserts aren’t always the easiest lessons, but this website makes it fun and easy for teachers to involve kids in learning. This website can be used by teachers of K-12 grade levels, depending on how you choose to apply the information. This website has a lot of information, games, and puzzles on Deserts, but it also has information on Math, English, Social Studies, and more! I think this is a great website for all teachers, because it enables kids to learn in a fun way and goes over many of the different deserts in the world. My favorite feature of this website is the detailed information it gives in the beginning. It has a short paragraph that informs you on what a desert is and what kind of climate it has etc. Then as you scroll down it gives you a list of several short videos that you can play for your class on deserts. It goes through desert wildlife, cactuses, and animals. I also like the games it has available for the kids. I played the first game, Label the Major Deserts of the World, and I found it to be fun and good for students who learn through visual images and repetition. The online games are easy for ELL’s to play without feeling the pressure of the class, and the aid of images is very helpful. The instructions are very simple, and the ELL would have no trouble understanding what to do even if they could not fully understand the instructions. In class I might show the students a few videos on the different deserts, then have them play some of the games. I didn’t really think there were any limitations on this source.

http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/desert.html

While this website is not a good as the first one, it is good for children who like to explore on their own. I think this website is good for grade levels 5-7, and teachers who enjoy an explorer type classroom. This website gives you multiple options in which you can click. Some of the options are about specific deserts that you can learn about through a few pictures and a large description, and others are about desert survival and the geology. In my class I would strategically place the kids in groups of 4-5 and enable them thirty minutes to surf this page and pick out what they find interesting. Then I would have the kids create a poster with the facts that they thought most important about a desert written on it. I like that this website has many options to choose from and many different deserts they can learn about. I think this website is good for teachers who want to create a community of ELL and native speaking learners where they can work together to learn. I think that collaborative work is good when you have the right resources and time. However, there are a few down sides to this website including the time to enable kids to surf and then present, and the chance that some kids might want to play the Jigsaw game, which is not exactly educational. If they spend all their time on the game they would not be learning any of the content. If the teacher wanted she could go to more of a builder set up where she tells the kids which desert they will need to find information on and then regulate them as the thirty minutes go by.

http://www.tooter4kids.com/Desert/index.htm

This website is great for kids in fourth and fifth grades, and is very visually appealing. I love that this website is really easy to work with and it kind of works like a book, you just press the next button when you are done with the page you are on. It starts with a very nice introduction and then goes on to explain the vocabulary and some fun facts about deserts. It also has a lot of pictures of the desert and it’s wildlife, which is always good for children who learn best through images. There is also a map with the placement of different deserts and some information on them. Once you start nearing the end there is a “cyberhunt”, which is a crossword puzzle using the information the kids would have learned about the desert. The website says that the child can find the answers if they do not know it by pressing on a button, but I could not get it to work. In general, I think that this website is fun and engaging to all students. However, if an ELL is struggling with reading, he/she might not enjoy this site that much. It requires the kids to read quickly and have a good understanding of the vocabulary before hand. Some limitations include the time it would take to finish going through the entire website, and the chance of the students actually retaining the information. If I were to use this website in my classroom I might just pick one page of it to have the students work with. For example, I could use the vocabulary page and have the students draw a picture of what a desert might look like from the words describing it. I really liked this website, but I just don’t know that it can be used in a classroom where time is limited, however, I think the kids would really enjoy it.

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/desert-profile/

This national geographic site is helpful for students in the upper grade levels 7-10 because it has a lot of really dense readings that younger kids might not be able to handle. In comparison to the other sites it isn’t really that good for a teacher looking for a good lesson. I like that the website has a lot of different topics available so the students can search a lot of different things, but it would not be good for students who have research projects. The pros of this website include a detailed description of a desert and the photo gallery available. I don’t really think I would want to use this website for teaching purposes because it doesn’t go into depth on deserts. The dense material might also be difficult for ELL’s. The teacher would need to go over difficult words prior to the reading if he/she decided to use this site for their students. Unlike the other websites, this one talks about factors that may pose as a threat to the desert, which is a good quality. I like the small amount of material that it provides, but I don’t really think it is a sufficient amount for the grade level it appeals to. I think the main purpose of this site is to give readers a brief summary of what a desert is.

Evaluated by: Tori Lackey

Recycling

2011-04-25T20:38:00.002-05:00

Recyclezone.org

I think this website provides some great age appropriate information about waste, recycling and landfills. This website would be great for the middle grades, probably 2-4. I think the website has some great information, but this information is not presented in a verity of ways, making its text inaccessible for some ELL students.

The text is broken up into different sections, including “what is waste,” “where do we put it” and “we’ve got to do it…or else.” I think it is good that the text is broken up into different sections with bold headings. This will help ELLs know when they are moving to a different main idea. I do think the website could use bold words within the text to help ELLs see main points or help them identify the information that is the most important.

I think this website would not be good for ELLs with limited English because there are no graphs or graphic organizers as to the different types of recyclable material, or even what can and can’t be recycled.

I do like the actual material that is covered in the text. For example the text talks about how recycling is more than just reusing something. The text explains how the process to make something new uses more energy than using recycled material to make something new. I like that it explains that there is more to recycling than just saving raw materials, such as tress, it is also about saving energy.

If I were to use this website as a resource in my classroom I would probably use it as an option for the kids to explore but not make the kids use it. For example I would provide them with a list of links with information about recycling. I would have them work in groups and then have them make a list of the environmental benefits to recycling or maybe a pro/con list for recycling.

childrenoftheearth.com

This is a great website that provides animation, text and oral reading for each slide that is played. The website is very informative and helps students learn where aluminum used in soda cans comes from, how it is made and how students can help conserve energy and resources by recycling. The paper link also uses animation, text and readings to help the students learn what items are made of paper and why recycling paper is important for tree conservation. There is then a link that offers an interactive quiz type game that allows the students to test the recycling knowledge.

I think this is a great website for ELLs because the slide shows are narrated so the student can use their oral language comprehension. Then the most important ideas are then reinforced with text so the students know which information in the presentation to attend to. I also think the animations will keep the students focused on the slide show. The game is also a great way to test the students knowledge of what was presented in the slide shows but in a low stress way. The game also has links to back to the slide show if the answer to the question was incorrect.

I think if I were to use this link in my class I would divide the class into two groups. I would have one group work on a presentation about where aluminum comes from and have the other group work a presentation about where paper products come from. I would then have the two groups teach each other about the topic they did not cover. I would then have all the students work together to make a list about why recycling is important. Then as a class project we would work on increasing the frequency that the schools recycle rate and reduce the amount of trash the school produces.

EEK

This website offers a variety of links to environmental facts and information. There are links called critter corner, nature notes, our earth, cool stuff, get a job and teacher pages. One of the cool things about this website is there is also a link to the environmental education for kids in Spanish.

I think the fact that this website offers a Spanish link is great and would be really helpful in developing literacy for ELL students who’s first language is Spanish. The down side to the Spanish link is that the information in each of the six previously listed links are not the same as the English pages.

Although the information in the Spanish and English pages is not the same, this might be a great way for students to work with partners to help translate for the other student. For example, you could pair and English speaker with a Spanish speaker and have the Spanish speaking student translate and help teach the English speaking student and like wise the other way. This activity could help the English speaking student see how hard it is when the teacher is speaking a different language and might foster a since of understanding and patients between the students.

nationalgeographic.co.uk

This is a fun game link, where the students have to sort as much trash as possible in two minutes. The students have to decide if the items are recyclables, compostable or trash. I think this is a fun way for students to practice putting different items in different bins. This really makes students think about if something can be recycled or composted.

This website would be great for ELLs because it is a game and uses pictures of everyday items. The students would not need to have advanced English language skills to learn the concept that some items can be recycled and composted.

This website is not good for academic content because it does not really teach anything. The teacher would have to first cover the concept of recycling, composting as well as what items can be placed in each of these categories. If I were using this link in my class I would use it as an option during free time. If we had a class computer I would leave this link open during free time so the students could practice the academic concept or recycling in a no pressure, fun, and relaxing way.

Evaluated by: Sarah Roddy

Space

2011-04-18T16:23:00.001-05:00

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/

The website that I found for space is called space place. This website is part of the NASA website. On this website the child that comes to this site has a variety of choices to choose from when it comes to what they want to do. The choices that this site lists are games, projects, animations, cool subjects, amazing facts, and friends share.

Under the games section there are different games for the child to play. There is one game where you can choose a picture or words and they will be put into a puzzle and you have to solve it.

I like the tab that they have called cool subjects. Under this tab you have five choices to choose from. One of the choices is planets and the solar system. Once you click on it the next site that comes up will show you a variety of choices from the site that have to do with the planet and the solar system.

I think that this site would be good for kids that are in 3^rd grade till about 7^th grade in middle school. I came up with those grades based on the projects that are listed under one of the tabs. I could see the older children using this site because it gives them ideas of what they can do for a science project if they need help coming up with a project to do for science class.

I think that this would be a good site to use as a teacher because it can give you ideas about what kinds of projects you can do that have to do with space. The site also gives you fun facts that could be interesting for your student to know about. As a teacher you could have children explore this site and they can look at the different tabs under friends share. This tab has to do with space but it lists recipes that they might be fun for them to do and if they do that at home they can tell their parents about space and what they have learned so far.

By Blanca

kidsatronomy.com/index.htm

Aesthetically, this website is not very attractive. There does not appear to be a specific color scheme, more like random, bright colors thrown together on a whim. However, the bright background colors make the text easy to see. The typeface is a sans-serif font, easy to read and distinguish letters. On some pages, there is a distinguishable space theme, evident from the starry background.

Content-wise, there is a plethora for children to choose from. The site includes, the sun, the planets, their moons, asteroids, and comets, as well as deep space, space exploration, and observation. This site may be oriented towards older children, as the amount of information for each celestial body is lengthy. In addition, it discusses such topics like black holes, quasars, and nebulae. However, younger children can benefit from other features of the site. There are a few interactive flash animations on the site that may also benefit those that are visual learners. Also, on a few pages, there are links that lead one to a song about the topic of the page.

The website provides a page dedicated to space observation. It helps children interested in observing the sky by provided a star map, data about the phases of the moon that one can see on that particular night (for example, the moon at 00:02:13 on the night of 14 April 2011 is waxing gibbous and 77% visible), and other information.

On this website, there are also astronomy and outer space games. These games include crossword puzzles, hangman, a quiz, and a word search, but there are also noneducational space games. On the same page there are also coloring activities-pages can be printed out or colored on the computer like with MS Paint. There are also "make your own" games with planets or a solar system.

I think this site is a good site for more advanced children. Younger children or less advanced children may have fun playing the activities provided on the games page, but may become frustrated with the length of text in the information section for the planets.

By Melissa

http://library.thinkquest.org/5014/

This website could be informative for younger kids that are in 2nd-8th grade. This site gives all kinds of information about outer space that all people need to know. It has a glossary that gives facts about outer space; it has games that people could play to learn more about space. It lists the order of the planets it defines what stars, eclipse, and moons are. This is a good source for teachers to use if they wanted to teach their students about space.

This site could have been designed much better than what it is. The words are directly in the middle of the screen and there is a lot of space that is left out that could have been used to make the website standout even more.

By Ryan

www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/index.html

The NASA for kid’s site has a lot of different games that kids can play and learn from at the same time. Obviously its focus is on space and different things. Like it also has a lot of different history lessons about NASA that the kids can participate in. Its aimed toward kids that are around the ages of 5-8 simply because there is reading and comprehension involved but it could be a little to "kiddy" for children ages 9 and above.

I feel it would be great for teachers to use thin in the classroom because if for no other reason its an easy way to educate the young students while holding their interest and them having a little fun.

By Jeremy

www.windows2universe.org/our_solar_system/solar_system.html

This website is easy to use and is filled with tons of information. It is extremely easy to navigate in between planets and gives short, informative explanations of the meanings of the planets' names. The fact that the website is easy to navigate makes it more accessible top a wide variety of students. It is not intimidating for those students who are not completely computer literate. The website also provides a lot of games that combine learning with fun in interactive ways. One drawback to this website is the limited amount of information provided on the individual planet websites. However, I was impressed by the wide variety of pages the website provided. It includes many moons, asteroids, comets, and even the sun! Overall, I think this website is very useful for students.

By Lauren

Music

2011-04-15T23:37:00.002-05:00

Worldwide's Bear Band

http://pbskids.org/wordworld/index_flash.html?jumpToAdv=Band&seenIntro=yes

The main concept of this activity is centered around spelling. It consists of a game where the characters take the student on a bus ride searching for musical instruments. Some of the words are in the shape of instruments. So the students has to identify the word, in order to find the instrument. This is helping the children in word recognition.

In another segment of the game, the bear character will ask the student to help him identify the sound of the instrument. The student will have to choose from 3 boxes with only one box making the correct sound of the instrument. Once the student chooses the right box, the word of the instrument will appear in all capital letters across the screen. Also, some letters that are scrambled will appear at the bottom. In order for the student to move on they will have to search for the correct letters that make up the word. Once they identify a letter that makes up the word, they will click on the letter and drag it to the big letters in the word. The student will keep doing this until they drag all the letterrs that make completes the word. This activity is helpful because students are identifying a sound to a word. They are also searching for the letters that make up that word. So the kids are learning more than one way of identifying with words.

Both of these activities are geared toward students in kindergarten to first grade. Since they have learned their alphabets and are beginning to put letters together to make words. These games could be useful to beginner ELL's because the characters are helping spell out and pronounce the words. The topic is interesting because most kids love music. Which makes for an easier environment for learning. On the other hand, since the games are on a computer it could have an issue with assessibility. A lot of homes may not have a computer on hand and classrooms may only have one computer. So the students would have to take turns on the computer which could cause disciplinary problems. The children could become impatient by having to wait, which would cause a problem especially in dealing with kindergarten to 1st grade students.

Match'Em

http://funschool.kaboose.com/fun-blaster/games/game_music_matchem.html

In this musical game, the student have to match the picture with the sound. If the sound doesn't match up with the picture, the student will then continue to search for the correct match between the sound and picture. For every correct match the student will receive 5 points. So this activity has a competitive factor. This activity helps the student by connecting pictures with a musical sound. For instance, a student is looking at the picture of a whistle and matching up what sound it makes. This could be helpful in real-life situations because someone could be telling the kid to "look out" by using a whistle. If this is the case, the student that played this game will have some type of experience with the sound of a whistle. This game is suited for pre-k to 1st grade students because they are in the phase of learning by identifying with pictures.

This game could be helpful for ELL's because they can now put a face to the sounds some things make. For instance, they will be able to look at a whistle in real-life and know exactly what type of noise it makes. This is helping them recognize sounds that they hear day-to-day.

Toopy and Binoo's World (Sleep Baby Monster Music Game)

http://pbskids.org/toopyandbinoo/index.php?ID=MAGC2JEU3

In this website, the activity purpose is recognizing patterns of sound. The activity is in form of a game to where the student has to be able to perform back the patterns of sounds the mouse come up with. For instance, the mouse clicks on a planet and the planet makes a certain sound. Then, the mouse ask the student to click on the planet or planets that made up those sounds.

This game is good for concentration and memory purposes. If the student does not concentrate, they will not remember which planet produced the sound. The student also has to memorize which particular pattern the sounds were in. This game could also be incorporated into a classroom. The teachers could keep score of the number of times the students get the patterns right. Whoever link the sounds and planets together the most will advance to the next game. If the student gets it wrong they will have to sit out. The teacher could have some type of prize at the end to where everyone wins.

Kazounds

http://funschool.kaboose.com/fun-blaster/games/game_kazounds.html

This is another game where you have to try to keep up with the sound patterns. Again, it is good for memorization and concentration purposes. This game keeps score and every time you mess up the pattern, you have to start over. It is competitive and challenging because each time you beat a stage, the pattern of sounds will become more difficult the next stage. Also, this activity is good for color purposes because the sounds go with a certain color. For instance, if a sound is made by the red button, you can remember the patterns by the color of the buttons. This could give students more than one way out think the game. This will help the studens in life because there is always more than one way to think about a situation.

This game could be helpful in the household because the kids could learn at an early age about different colors and sounds. Also, they will become more familiar on how to use a computer. They will learn that by pressing a button, something on the screen will change. This gives them a sense of power because they feel they are in control of the game.

Entire contribution by Tim Crowder

Reptiles

2011-04-15T20:49:00.002-05:00

Reptiles Word-O-Rama

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/animal_and_nature_games/reptile_games/reptile-word-o-rama.html

Reptiles Word-O-Rama helps students build their vocabulary and spelling. The activity is in the form of a trivia question game. It has a bird character, as the game show host, that ask the questions. It has a total of 11 questions. The bird character may ask the student to choose the word that best fits the definition showing. Another question consists of finding the antonym of a word. One last question may be a fill in the blank. To where the student has to choose the word that fits best with the sentence.The game also has a scoring system. When a student picks the correct answer on the first try, they receive 20 points. Each time they choose the incorrect answer they get deducted 5 points. Although the game gives the student many chances to pick the correct answer. Once he chooses the correct answer they will give him the full 20 points. So it makes the game competive but also offers a chance for redemption.

All in all, the game is geared more towards 3rd to 5th graders. Some of the words such as poisonous and prehistoric, could be a good challenge for children of those grades. It may be too difficult for children under those ages. The game is not really concerned about the score but is more concerned about the student learning the word and definition. A game such as this makes the learning process easier, since it is both competitive and interesting. Students can compete by trying to beat each other scores. Lastly, the topic is interesting because what student or adult for the matter, is not intrigued by reptiles.

Contributed by Tim Crowder

Label the diagram (Identify and Label the reptiles)

http://www.neok12.com/diagram/Reptiles-01.htm

This particular game is simple in nature: Move each identifying word (such as "rattlesnake, tortoise, etc.") to the picture of the correct reptile it describes in order to gain a point. Only the correct answers achieved on the first attempt are rewarded by the point. However, with similar creatures such as "Iguana" vs. "Lizard," and "King Cobra" vs. "Python," the student must actually have beforehand knowledge of these particular reptiles. Therefore, this game is best suited as a supplemental activity for a lesson in which information and identifying features are shared about the specific reptiles.

Since the student is required to actually know what all the reptiles are to be successful in the game, this game is surprisingly suited for older grades such as 3rd-5th. I particularly like this game in that it goes beyond the basic labels of "lizard," "snake," etc. and encourages the student to actually learn the differences between popular species of reptiles. However, students who might be experiencing difficulty learning English as a second language would not be left behind. Why? Because this game also utilizes the simplest and easiest method of picture/word association. An instructor could expand upon this game and encourage deductive reasoning skills within the student as well. An example would be asking/showing why the sea turtle's fins are better suited for water, therefore concluding that they MUST belong in the sea! In conclusion: although this game is rather simple, I maintain that it can be a valuable learning tool when encouraging students to learn about reptiles.

Contributed by Liza McBay

Halloween

2011-04-15T20:35:00.006-05:00

Halloween
1) History
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/holidays/halloweenhistory.htm
This article explains the history of Halloween for kids in the elementary level. The article is easy to read and understand for second language learners. It explains how Halloween changed over the years and how we adopted the name Halloween.
Aprial Guerra

2) Safety
http://www.halloweenmagazine.com/play2.html
This website is very helpful for teaching children about trick or treating safety etiquette in a fun and interactive way. The home page is decorated accordingly for Halloween. There is a black background with orange text. At the top of the page there is a sign that looks like a yield sign maybe that says, “The Official Halloween Safety Game,” in fun and spooky font. Then it gives the instructions for the game. The instructions are short and to the point to limit confusion. It tells the child to first read the safety guidelines and rules for Halloween and then they will be directed to the game where they will be given a situation and then presented with two choices of what they should do. They can only move on to the next scenario if they answer the question correctly. Under the directions there is a link in big font that says, “Click here to play NOW!” Next the child is directed to a page of about 20 rules for Halloween trick or treating. The rules are once again short and to the point so that they are not too hard to read but they still get the point across clearly. At the bottom in large orange font, there is a link that says, “Play the Official Halloween Safety Game.” The child is then directed to a page similar to the homepage with the yield sign again and underneath another link that says, “Click here to play.” Once the child clicks to play, the scenarios begin. For instance, the first scenario is a picture of a flashlight and in the light it says to always use a flashlight and it tells the child to click on the flashlight. Once they click the flashlight a street with houses on it pops up and only one has the porch light on and it asks the child to click on the house that is safe to trick or treat at. If they choose incorrectly, they are directed to a page with a skull with a funny face on it and he makes a spooky and funny laugh and gives the correct rule, “only go to houses with a porch light on!” The child is then given the chance to try again. At the end of the game the child is given an award where they can enter their name and it says “Congratulations! Cecily has demonstrated knowledge of Halloween safety and common sense by successfully completing the official Halloween safety game.”
The website makes learning these safety rules in a fun and interactive way by creating a game to test their knowledge. By giving them a reward at the end, it makes the child feel accomplished. This website can be used by children of all ages because the vocabulary is not difficult and there isn’t an overwhelming amount of text to read. The pictures make the child excited to move on to the next scenario. I like how when the child is wrong, the website will tell the child the rule for that scenario and then let them go back and choose the right answer to reinforce the rule and make sure they don’t forget it.
Cecily Augustine

3)Typical Halloween Characters
http://www.apples4theteacher.com/coloring-pages/halloween/cat-on-pumpkin.html
Halloween is a holiday celebrated in many countries across the world, but customs vary by country. Because of the differences in traditions between cultures, it would be an introduction for many ELL’s to some of the typical characters of Halloween’s haunted houses, decorations, and stories. Seeing images together, such as in this picture of a cat and pumpkin, students can relate all of these things to the holiday they are learning about, Halloween. There are many pictures for students to “color” online and hear the sentence on their computer.
The website suggests some great activities for different purposes, making this one activity meaningful in many ways!! For beginning reading ELL’s, the can read the simple words in the sentences below and also have the computer read the words aloud, one by one, highlight each word the student presses. It also suggests for students to print out their colored work and then the teacher or a parents can do a comprehension check asking the student to read the sentence aloud without the help of the computer. Another activity is to print out all of the pictures and then cut off the bottom sentence and have the student match them, along these same lines, students of a higher competency could also look at each picture and identify the nouns in the picture or create a sentence about what is going on in the picture, at an even more advanced level, students can explain how each sentence fits the picture. My favorite idea that this website suggests is using it as a following directions activity. In this activity, students would each have the picture up on their page with the color palate in front of them, some of the sentences mention colors and the students would have to read the sentence (students who are having trouble reading can click the audio to hear the name of the color) and then color according the sentence. Teachers could also tell students to color a certain object one color, showing that they knew the word for each object, matching it to the picture, and the word for each color, again, matching it to the picture.
Elyse Prevot

4) Traditions
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/bitesizeprimary/
The website that I found was called Bitesize. This website was created for the younger children. It is fun and interactive for the children. The website starts off with many pictures of different cartoon people that are different colors. I really liked this site because it really goes out to the children. There are many tabs that you can click on that will take you to different areas of learning. It has one link where it talks about the school and different things going on. When you get more into the site it starts to talk about Halloween, which is one of the events that takes place during the school year. Many people celebrate it, but they don't know what it is. This has a lot of information on the many traditions that could be involved in Halloween. There are tabs you can click on that explain the different traditions that may be going on during Halloween and what it means. It explains of a tradition such as apple bobbing and the Jack O'Lantern. It is explained in detail of it is and where it really derived from. There are pictures of different pumpkins that have been carved and some ideas that could be used. There are even tabs where the student can find different activities that they could do for Halloween. It has things where the children are able to learn. Things like fill in the blanks and mask cut outs where they can draw and color. One of the other tabs that is on the side allows the children to find links where they can also have access to other games, and jokes, and things teaching them about Halloween. Even a cookbook is available for the children that they can go through many of the dishes.
Gabriel Gonzalez

5) Halloween Origins, How Halloween came to American, Today’s traditions and Superstitions
http://www.history.com/topics/halloween
When October comes, kids think about Halloween. They want to dress up as their favorite characters so that they can walk around their neighborhoods to receive candies. When they are about to receive candy they have to say the special words “trick or treat”. Most kids don’t know why they are saying trick or treat, why they are receiving candy, how Halloween started and how traditions are changing. In this website it explains how Halloween started in America, how traditions are now, and how it was long time ago. This will help students see how traditions changed. In this website, there are videos to explain Halloween’s origin and more. This will be a good website for English as a second language and younger students because they can see the videos to understand and make connections. These videos and different pictures will let students understand what Halloween is.
Soo Yoon

The Human Body

2011-04-15T18:47:00.002-05:00

These websites explore biology related facts of the Human Body. They are for a variety of ages and grade levels.

www.kidsbiology.com/

This website is a great tool for many biology related topics. It includes human and animal biology which makes for a large arrangement of information. What I like the most about the website is that it is easy to navigate with simple and neat links on the left hand side. This quality makes for a great resource to have for young students who may more may not be familiar with website usage

Aside from navigation, the website has many other kid friendly features such as bright colors, large fonts, and plenty of pictures. This creates a colorful and friendly atmosphere in which learning is encouraged instead of being alienated by large chunks of information and lack-luster presentation. Therefore, students will feel comfortable navigating the websites and searching through the links on their own.

The human body aspect of the website is under the “human biology” link on the left hand side. Once you are on the page, a picture of a young boy laid out is shown. A list of body systems are on the left side of the boy; muscles, bones, digestive, circulatory, respiratory, excretory, endocrine, and nervous. When you hover your mouse of over one of these systems, the picture is changed to give a visual of that system. For example, when you hover over the “muscles” link the young boys muscles are exposed. This is a great way for students to check their comprehension of the system they would like to explore.

When you click on one of the systems (muscles, bones, digestive, circulatory, respiratory, excretory, endocrine, or nervous) you are taken to a page describing the specific jobs they explore. Most importantly, this explanations come with pictures which aid the learning process by giving a visual of what is being explained. This is great for Second Language Learners who may not know the English terms associated with system groups.

By clicking the “next” button, there is more information given about the topics. When the information is finished it brings you back to the page that has the rest of the systems so the student can explore more of the human body without having to figure out how to get back to that page.

The aspects that I think best helps with Second language learners include the hover-over body systems which show pictures before you can click on the link. This allows for students to see what the body function is that way, if they know what it is in Spanish, they can figure out the English term. Secondly, the many pictures would aid second language learners because pictures are universal and sometimes seeing a picture is just as much as helpful as reading words.

(Evaluated by: Jennifer Ramos)

www.bam.gov/

“Bam! Body and Mind”, is a wonderful website that provides accurate and factual information about the human body while making it interesting and eye catching to English speaking children as well as second language learners. The top of the home screen has six different categories, which include diseases, nutrition and food, physical activity, your safety, your life, and your body. Each section provides factual information, which would usually be boring to children, but shows it in a way that appeals to their interests. For example, under the diseases category there is a comic book that you can flip through that portrays diseases as evil villains and your immune system as super heroes. So by putting information like this in a fun and relatable form, it can be extremely effective in engaging children. Each category provides links to games, interactive tools, and links to messages from an “Xpert” on the human body and what affects it. The color scheme of the entire website is extremely bright and cheerful and has friendly children characters throughout all of the different pages. The only obvious downside that I could see in this website was that it is mainly targeted at older children. Younger children can definitely still use the website but they will need some extra assistance for the types of games that are shown and knowing how to navigate the site. It can also be a little bit overwhelming because it provides a large amount of information, but overall this website is a wonderful resource for kids to learn many different things about the body and also things that they can do to help their own bodies.

For second language learners, this is a wonderful website that will allow them to explore and learn without necessarily having to understand all of the written words. The visual aids that are provided are a perfect teaching tool for teachers to use either in their actual classrooms or as a fun homework assignment. Personally, I would provide a worksheet for the children so that exploring this website would become a scavenger hunt and they would have to search through the different categories and find certain information or play certain games. This would definitely be something that would engage children and for second language learners there are enough visual aids and spoken sound effects, that it would be very helpful. Also, the information provided is always related back to children’s actual lives so I think second language learners may find the relate- ability very beneficial to their learning. Overall this website is not really designed with second language learners in mind, but I think that the way it has been constructed can help emphasize the content information about the human body to any child.

(Evaluated by: Amy Sand)

www.sciencekids.co.nz/

Science Kids is a site that provides information on about 30 various science topics (such as biology, weather, etc.) from which you can choose. Since our topic was the human body, I followed the human body topic button. The site itself provides games, experiments, quizzes, images, facts, project ideas (pertaining to the human body), and videos for students to explore. I checked out the various areas the site supplies, beginning with the games section. They offer four games pertaining to human body: Health and Growth, Teeth and Eating, Heart Rate Exercises, and Skeletons and Bones. Each game provides a cute animation that is fun and entertaining for children. The teeth and eating asks you to place the correct teeth with the correct being (human, tiger, sheep, duck are some), while the Health and Growth requires you to keep water, food, exercise and sleep levels up as an animated child goes through his day. The games are short, but informational on the subjects they cover and I think kids would like to play those instead of being told directly what the body requires or how our heart rate works when we do various activities. The images provided show certain parts of the body (the brain, the heart, etc.) and are clearly labeled which I think is good for students to look at when they’re learning about those various parts of the body. The site’s videos are kind of old and could be confusing to the younger viewer, but I think the way they visualize certain topics (such as the circulation and how the ear works videos). Combined, the videos and images could provide a good resource to the students. The quizzes provided (a short answer and a word scramble) are kind of wordy and I didn’t think the way they were worded was a particularly good way of communicating to students, but they are there if need be. I just personally would maybe steer clear of that portion of the site. They also have fun facts, which could be useful, but they are sometimes quite wordy and not listed in a very fun way, so that may just be a teacher-only resource. Lastly, the experiments seemed really cool and like a good thing to do with students in the classroom, such as making a model hand (to go over how muscles work), and making (fake) snot (as a way to learn why it is important to our body).

For these activities, I would maybe use the games during a computer lab time to ensure they utilize the entirety of the game, since the games can end up being quite short if you don’t properly follow the directions. The videos and images could be helpful if explaining a concept to the class and you need an accurate visual representation, but the videos are kind of old, so maybe finding an updated version would be nice. Since the site gives a long list of research questions pertaining to the human body for project ideas, maybe as a class activity, a teacher could direct the students to this portion of the site and tell them to pick out the question that intrigued them the most. Then maybe somehow make it to where throughout the year, the class works together to research and answer the questions. As for a multi-literacy classroom, I don’t think this site is very applicable. It only had information in English and within the videos and facts and such, there were often words used that only fluent English language users could maybe know. It’s too complex for English Language Learners and I think it is up to the teacher’s discretion on deciding whether or not it would be appropriate to use the site if they had any ELL students in their class. Since some of the information is complex on the site, I would suggest that it maybe be used in older classrooms, like third grade and up. Some of the information is simplified like the skeleton and bones game, but I think in order to get some of the more difficult subjects (such as how the ear works video), the students need to be a little bit more advanced in their learning. Overall, I think the site is pretty good. It could use some updating, but it does what it needs to in order to educate children in a fun and entertaining way.

(Evaluated by: Anne Pugh)

library.thinkquest.org

This website is called Surfing the Human Body and includes tabs that describe individual organs and their function as well as a "tour" that the child can participate in that goes through the human body and highlights the main functions of the various organs. Each page contains a picture of the organ as well as a basic description of shape, location, and function. The site includes quizzes and games as well for the students after studying the various pages.

This website is very text-based and would definitely be geared more towards older students with fairly high English literacy. The material is organized in a simple manner and is divided into sections that enable the students learning about topic to have a very focused and concise resource. The graphics are simple and are labeled with the key words that a child should have pulled from the describing text about the particular body parts. The actual text of the website is beneficial to ELLs because it utilizes repetition of the key organ in nearly every sentence. The language is academic but fairly basic and would be a useful resource to use for a research project on the human body. The "interactive tour" section of the website takes the student through the various systems and body parts and is helpful to ELLs in that the information is divided into very short paragraphs that are direct and to the point. The student can easily navigate the website and find basic information without being weighed down by large amounts of text.

The idea of "surfing the human body" makes the information a bit more fun and kid-friendly. For in-class use , this website could enable research to be done outside of complicated textbooks. Worksheets could be made using the information in a fill-in-the blank format that enables students to use the academic language that is repeated throughout the website pages. While very kid-friendly and full of useful information, the website is a bit lacking in the entertainment area. For classroom use, this website would be better serving as a go-to for information to fuel class activities rather that being an activity itself. The games that are on the site are extremely basic and would serve ELLs well because of their basic vocabulary and the use of graphics to help match the vocabulary words.

(evaluated by: Ashley Milliken)

www.anatomyarcade.com/

The website I found is called Anatomy Arcade and it has numerous activities for students who are learning about the human body and its functions. It breaks down the human body into different sections that most curriculums would have. The website has different areas that focus on specific parts of the body such as the heart and bones. Instead of doing worksheets that ask the students to label the body and etc., this is a great website to substitute that with or add into the lesson. It allows the students to enter into a new environment outside of worksheets and notes, and they are able to explore and learn on their own. I would use this website as practice for my students as we learn about the human body. This website could also be used as a pre activity before we dive into a lesson. I could direct them to a certain activity on the website about the circulatory system that helps them explore common vocabulary about it and they can also see what the body parts look like. For every section there is a crossword, word search, a jigsaw and then other games depending on the subject. I find the jigsaw puzzle to be the most difficult activity but it is fun and educational. After going through the other activities on the website, I think that this is a nice activity that puts together all of the student’s knowledge about the vocabulary and how the different human body parts of that section look like. A limitation may be that the students may become so caught up in the games that they will not learn as much as they should. Because most of the learning is done through gaming that also makes the website and its activities more appealing to the students. So the websites strength is also its greatest weakness. The website would be best suited for middle and high school students because of the vocabulary that used and it would be hard for elementary kids to figure out how to play some of the games as well. The website would be very applicable in a classroom setting because it would allow students to discover things on their own as well as find out what is interesting to them about a certain area. By having the students explore before the teacher teaches, helps the students get an idea about what they are about to get into and they can also come into the lessons with questions and hopefully they will receive the answer through the lesson. For more advanced students, the website also has additional links about anatomy, if the students want to research more.

(Evaluated by: Yasmin McKnight)

Ancient Egypt

2011-04-15T13:56:00.005-05:00

Egyptian Realm
Discovery.com

Egyptian Realms gives students the ability to practice previously learned material on Ancient Egypt. The activity is formatted like a game with three different rounds. The first round allows students to enhance their memory skills with a simple game of matching, it makes the activity not only entertaining but also educational. The second round requires students to place the pharaohs in a time line based on order or rule. This material would have to be covered in class since the activity itself does not have any review of the information. Like round two, the third round would also require previous preparing since the task is to put the god correctly in place in their family tree. For this round students would have to know the name or the symbol that represent the god and of course which place they belong in the family tree. Between each round students are able to gain extra points by having about five knowledge questions.

This activity should be used with older students, like fifth or sixth grade, the questions between the rounds are at an upper level. This is great to allow students to review the knowledge they have gained in class, with the first round allowing them to enhance their memory. The down side to this would be that you can guess to finish the game, since you are given unlimited tries and once u reach below zero you may still continue. Also when going through the knowledge questions if you get one wrong you don’t have the opportunity to see which is the correct answer. Overall, it is a great way to have interaction with the material in a new more exciting way.

(Evaluated by Alejandra Santillanes)

Ancient Egypt
Historyforkids.org

With the 21st century in full swing, it’s of no surprise that technology has had an influence in redefining how learning occurs with students. Utilizing the Internet has become more frequent and with it comes more insightful websites to help expand one’s knowledge on a variety of subjects. With students, this is no different. The particular subject of Ancient Egypt is an example of this, especially when it comes to the website, Ancient Egypt for Kids. This particular website is excellent for satisfying the many curiosities students have about the past. Upon clicking the link, the student is automatically taken to the main menu where he/she can choose what he/she would like to learn more about. These subjects are organized in a precise manner so as to not confuse the student. Whether it’d be about Egyptian clothing or Egyptian government, there is an abundant amount of information available. What’s really excellent about this website is how the information is presented. The language used to describe Ancient Egypt is not overly complicated to understand, which proves to be a positive should an English language learner use the site to find information. Certain words are hyperlinked so if the student would like to learn even more information about a particular object, they are redirected to another page where it can be explained further. In other words, this site is extremely user-friendly especially with the pictures and photographs also provided. Having visuals is an important aspect in this website or otherwise the subject could easily appear dull. Not only that, but they would clearly help an English language learner understand what the text is talking about too. The visuals are clearly present and are often aligned to the text so the student will not get confused on what is being described or discussed this is another positive aspect about the website. Another interesting find about this site ishow it can make connections to stories/objects students are more than likely familiar with today. For example, take the story of Cinderella, which can be found under Egyptian Literature. This site provides one of Ancient Egypt’s earliest versions of Cinderella, providing the inference that such a story is timeless to tell. Overall, this website is highly recommended for second language learners to use if they ever find themselves researching the subject of Ancient Egypt. It is easily accessible and not difficult at all to navigate through as well.

(Evaluated by: Michelle Lopez)