Saturday, November 26, 2011

Math Cats!

This is a fun site with lots of interactive lessons and activities that you could combine with your own lessons. Many of them engage the students in higher level thinking, sometimes up to analyzing on Bloom's scale. Here's the link!

Math Baseball...

This is just a "kill and drill" type of activity, never reaching above "remembering" on Bloom's scale, but I think your students would enjoy it. It would be a great "free time" type of activity to use as a class reward. Just split them up into teams and let them play math baseball! Here's the link!

Take a Math Challenge!

This site would be perfect to use as "bell work." Just put one of the challenges up on the interactive whiteboard and let the students go to work on it. The challenges are fun and would give the students something to look forward to every day. Some of them will push the level of thinking up to analyzing and maybe evaluating on Bloom's scale. Here's the link!

AAA Math

There's a ton of lessons and activities here to reinforce your math lessons. Most of it is "kill and drill" type of activities so it doesn't really engage the student at a higher level of thinking. It stays down around remembering and understanding on Bloom's taxonomy. Here's a link!

Cool Math!

This site has a bunch of lessons, activities, and games for a wide range of ages and abilities. Some of the activities and games engage the student on a higher level of thinking than just memorizing facts. Many of the reach up to "anlyizing" on Bloom's taxonomy. Here's the link!

Booktalks!

This website is full of everything you ever wanted to know about booktalks. It would be a great resource for students who are creating a booktalk. It will move students up to "applying" on Bloom's taxonomy. Here's a link!

Bio-Cube

Bio-Cube is a useful summarizing tool that helps students identify and list key elements about a person for a biography or autobiography. It reaches up to applying, and perhaps analyzing on Blooms scale. Here's a link!

Author Pages...

This is a great site for students who are doing an author inquiry project. There are bios on hundreds of authors who are all listed in alphabetical order. Not a lot of higher level thinking here, just a lot of information. It's probably about at "understanding" on Bloom's taxonomy. Here's a link!

Doodle Splash...

This is a really cool website that allows the student to doodle, illustrate, and make graphic connections to stories as they read them. They can them write about their doodles and illustrations. This pushes their level of thinking up to "creating" on Bloom's taxonomy. Here's a link!

Essay Map

This is a great link to an interactive graphic organizer that will help students organize and outline their ideas for an informational, definitional, or descriptive essay. It reaches up to "applying" on Bloom's taxonomy. Here's the link!

The Space Place!

This is a really cool site with a ton of information about the earth, sun, solar system, and more. It has a lot games and activities as well as information. Some of the activities will really move students to a higher level of thinking, clear up to "creating" on Bloom's taxonomy. Here's a link!

Cool Science!

Cool science for curious kids is a fun site with activities that really make student's think. Activities like Dive Into a Miniature World Without a Microscope get students up to evaluating and maybe creating on Bloom's taxonomy. Here's a link!

The Dynamic Earth!

This is a very cool website with a lot of earth science type of information. It is an interactive, multimedia site with information on gems and minerals, plate tectonics, rocks and mining, and the solar system. Some of the interaactive aspects of the website nudge it up to applying, and maybe analyzing on Bloom's taxonomy. Here is a link!

Comets!

This website would be a good source of information for a student who was researching comets. It contains everything from comet myths and legends to comet facts. It doesn't get above the lower two levels of Bloom's taxonomy, but it's good information! Here's a link!

Science Link...

This website is a wealth of information about energy. There is information on everything from what energy is, to the history of energy, to the ways we use energy today. There are several resources that could be used on this site but I think the most useful resource would be the science fair experiments. Most of these experiments are at least at the analyzing and evaluating level of Bloom's taxonomy, and many of them make it up to the top level of creating. Here is a link to the website!

Solving proportions!

I found this fun video on YouTube. I would use this video as an intro to a lesson on solving proprtions. I think it would get the students attention and start the lesson on a fun note.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Water Cycle

I thought this picture of mist rising off of a pond early in the morning was a perfect exqmple of evaporation, which is part of the water cycle.

6.2E.1 Explain the water cycle and the relationship to landforms and weather.


Sunday, October 23, 2011

Scavenger Hunt

I enjoyed the scavenger hunt. I learned that school is the cause of some stress in my life, no real shocker there! I also learned that I'm a reactor and I like to jump in and fix problems, again, not a real shocker. I call it fixing problems my wife calls it being a bit of a control freak! I liked the "how many years/months/weeks/days, etc old are you" site. I think kids would get a kick out of the countdown to their birthday.
The obvious things students would learn is how to navigate the internet, but I suspect many of them already know how to do that better than I do. They would also learn that there is a wealth of information on the internet if they know how to do the research to find it. This would be a good tool to use when teaching writing. You could have the students do a similar scavenger hunt and then write an "all about me" type of essay.