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Stellar Speller

Another CandleLight Stories favorite, this Stellar Speller game helps kids practice basic spelling words. An image is displayed in the astronaut's helmet, there are underscores to indicate the number of letters that make up the word, and the student types in using the on-screen keyboard.

Book Wizard

Check out the Teacher Book Wizard from Scholastic.com




Simply enter in the name of a book or an author and find out more information about the book/author, reading levels, lesson plans and discussion guides. Why don't you give it a try by entering in 'Corduroy' which is the book we are reading for 'Read for the Record'.

Stately Knowledge

The Stately Knowledge website was created by the Internet Public Library. Click on any of the fifty states to find pertinent facts and information for your research projects on the fifty American states. Students can create travel brochures, or a "Did You Know?" fact booklet to share with the class. You might want to try making a mix and match game to really test student knowledge, where certain vital facts are selected from a game card file (created by you or your students) and the student teams must match them up to the correct state within a set time.

Curious George

We all know and love the Curious George character. Now you can visit Curious George's website at PBS.com. Parents and Teachers should visit the link along the top and then click on the link 'Guide to Web Features for Kids' to find out more about each of the various games on the website. There are also printables that can be printed out and colored. The games and video clips focus on math and science.

Assessment Tools for Emergent Readers

The Los Angeles County Office of Education's 'Teams Educational Resources' has a website that has a host of assessment tools for emergent readers. You will find these assessment sheets extremely useful for ready-to-go tools on phonemes, with isolation and matching exercises for students. Included are beginning sounds, final sounds, blending, rhyme, phoneme segmentation, and more. Tests on spelling inventories monitor word knowledge, while learning records for both reading and writing K-3 are also included.

Scholastic's Teacher Book Wizard

Check out Scholastic's Teacher Book Wizard to help you find books for your students. If you choose the 'BookAlike' (yes, that is one word! LOL) option and pick a topic of interest to them, type it in the search field, select whether you want similar books to be below, at, or above a reading level, click search, and VOILA -- a list of books to choose from. Choose the 'Quick Search' option to find a specific book, an author's works, or book subject by keyword. Select the 'Leveled Search' and get even more specific. There is even an option to choose books by Lexile numbers.

Parents CAN Help!

Was just notified of a wonderful (read ***FREE***) resource for parents to use to help their child with school. It's the Thinkfinity Parent Resources, an exciting collection of online educational resources. Choose any of the subjects below to browse our resources to help students with their homework, provide opportunities for extra practice and skill-building, engage their creativity and much more! This collection will continue to grow, so check back often.

Free-Reading.net

Designed by a New York-based educational start-up, Wireless Generation, the reading program for kindergartners and first-graders allows teachers to post their own lessons, comments and modifications in what the company says is a “wiki” application. The site even looks like Wikipedia.

This is the same person who turned the DIBELS reading test into a money making venture.

Check it out at Free-Reading.net

Read the entire blurb at The Apple, a website I'll be posting about soon.

Snakes and Ladders

BBC.com out of the United Kingdom produces a number of wonderful online activities. My favorite is a game of ‘Snakes and Ladders’ which you can play with a friend or by yourself. Watch the die roll itself when you click on it, then move the red markers the correct number of squares (if you don’t, the marker goes back to the square it was on).

Video Interview with Robert Sabuda

Do you know Robert Sabuda? Sure you do! He's the author of those WONDERFUL pop-out books such as 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' and 'Cookie Count: A Tasty Pop-Up'. Well, the website, Reading Rockets has an 18 minutes video (broken into VERY short segments) in which Robert Sabuda discusses when he became fascinated with pop-up books, the challenges he faced with his first pop-up book, and how he makes those pop-up books. Check it out here. While you're on the website visit the page that links to other video interviews.

Did You Know? The New $5 Bill

There's a new $5 bill on the way! The $5 bill will look pretty much the same, except it will have shades of gray and a splash of purple (Mrs. Sharoff's favorite color!). The new bill will start being available on March 13, 2008. Read more about it here.

Follow You, Follow Me

That's the motto over at Wayfaring a website where you create you own personalized place-by-place map for others to follow. Once you create the map you can share it with your friends, family, and practically anyone you wish to. And if you're planning a group vacation where everyone wants to get their two-cents worth in, this is the perfect planning tool since it allows collaboration on building the map.

What's great about this map is that you can actually insert information about each stop, along with a description. If it's a restaurant think about including items you would recommend someone order. Distance between stops is also listed, which could provide helpful if you are designing a walking tour or even a cross-country trip.

Time for Bed

Not sure what to title this post yet, so I'll wait until I'm done writing. As I was looking through my Bloglines.com I came across this post from Connect With Kids entitled 'No Sleep After Gaming'. Basically, studies are showing that teens who spend two to three hours watching tv, playing video/computer games, or playing music will find it more difficult to fall asleep. I thought this article was timely for me since I tend to spend a lot of time on the computer after dinner, though I have to say I don't seem to be having any trouble falling asleep! LOL The article went on to provide the following tips for parents:

Studies in children have shown that playing interactive video games can lead to significant increases in heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate, "and thus a higher arousal state of the central nervous system.” (National Institutes of Health, NIH)

A new study shows that the bright light of a screen may alter the body's biological clock and suppress the natural production of melatonin that's critical to the normal sleep-wake cycle. (WebMD)

In the hour before bedtime, which experts say should be a time to relax and prepare for sleep, the majority of adolescents watch TV or surf the Internet. (National Sleep Foundation)

Sleep requirements: (National Sleep Foundation)
18 months to 3 years should get 12 to14 hours/night
3 to 5 years should get 11 to13 hours/night
5 to12 years old should get 10 to11 hours/night
Teens should get 9.25 hours/night

Create a bedtime routine. Bedtime routines are important, regardless of a child's age. It should include at least 15 to 30 minutes of calm, soothing activities. Discourage television, exercise, computer and telephone use, and avoid caffeine (found in many beverages, chocolate and other products). (National Sleep Foundation)

Track Santa -- the Tech Way!

I just got the latest Google Earth Sightseer e-mail and I needed to share the following with you:

It's that time of year again - the time for good food, good cheer, and, if you've been good, presents! NORAD ( North American Aerospace Defense Command) has been tracking Santa for over 50 years through their NORAD Tracks Santa program. This year NORAD Tracks Santa has partnered with Google to track Santa's trip. The countdown begins on December 1st, on http://www.noradsanta.org/, where children and families can find a new kid-friendly game or activity every day until December 24th. You can also countdown the days and hours until Santa's flight and track his real-time location on December 24th by adding the NORAD Tracks Santa iGoogle gadget.

On December 24th starting at 1:00 am PST users will be able to track Santa's trip in real-time on http://www.noradsanta.org/ or download Google Earth and the special Santa Tracking file from the website for an enhanced, 3D Santa tracking experience.

Robert Munsch's Website

One of my favorite children's authors, Robert Munsch, has an ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS website. Some of my favorite books are available in audio format on the website. My favorite, 'Stephanie's Ponytail' is available in audio format. In fact, it's even READ by Robert Munsch! Now how cool is that?!? What's your favorite Robert Munsch story?

Tech Toys for 2007 - #1

First a disclaimer: The order of the 'Tech Toys' you will see appear in this blog are in no particular order. HOWEVER, they are ALL in my Top 10 Picks for 2007.

Today's Pick:

That's right folks -- get your very own 'Ellenville Central Schools' flash drive. It's a 1 GB flash drive so you can hold over 200 images or 200 music files and all for JUST $20. Get your flash drive now by contacting Hillary Smith at extension 414 or Phil Althouse at extension 407. Oh, and did I happen to mention that your purchase will help benefit the Senior class?

Save the Date! December 6th

Thursday, December 6th, the Ellenville Elementary School will proudly host its Winter Concert. The event will be held at 7 p.m. in the High School Auditorium. Join us for what is sure to be a fun-filled musical evening featuring the 4th grade band playing 'Merrily We Roll Along' among tunes and the 4th grade chorus singing 'Sleigh Ride' and other foot-tapping melodies.

Do a Little Dance...

A 'Snow Dance' that is! Heard on the radio driving in this a.m. that there's a good chance of snow on Sunday, possibly extending into Monday. Whether this will actually happen is anyone's guess, but it's that time of year again, so as a reminder -- please listen to the local radio station or you can call 647-0121 to hear about school delays and cancelations.

When I taught 2nd grade if there was a possibility of snow I would tell my class to sleep with their PJs inside-out if they wanted a snow day. And you know what? It worked! How are you going to sleep Sunday night?

Proof, Proof, Proof

That was my mantra for when I taught the writing process in my class. You didn't just give your written work a quick glance and call it 'proofing'. OH NO!!! You had to get three different people to look at your work before it could be considered 'proofed'. I ran across this activity the other day and the results had me chuckling. I mean, I'm considered by most to be the 'final eye'...and you might consider yourself the same. So take this short test and see how well you 'proof'. Three times may NOT be enough! LOL

Read the following sentence:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-
IC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.

Now, quietly count the F's in that sentence. Count them ONLY ONCE. Do NOT go back and count them again (that would be cheating).

Click HERE to go to the website for the answer (you'll have to click on the 'click here for the answer')