Health Sites

1)The Game Closet
http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/closet/
This site has alot of activities for kids to learn about their bodies, good nutrition, illness and so much more! It has informative movies, experiments, quizzes and activities for even the most inquisitive minds.

2)Colgate Kids World
http://www.colgate.com/app/Kids-World/US/HomePage.cvsp
This site provides games for kids ages 4-6 and 7-9. The activities show kids about the importance of good dental care, brushing and flossing. It even has links for keeping pets teeth healthy!

3)Health-Kids.gov
http://www.kids.gov/k_health.htm
This site is full of information that will keep kids healthy. It has information on vaccines, what to do if you touch raw meat, how antihistamines work and much more.

4)Kids and Nutrition
http://www.ext.nodak.edu/food/kidsnutrition/kids-2.htm
This site has information about healthy eating: The food pyramid, grains, fruits, veggies, dairy, and meats. Each section has links to fun activities, games and quizzes.

P.E. Sites

1)Games Kids Play
http://www.gameskidsplay.net/
This site has a bunch of games for P.E. teachers or educators just wanting some fun movement activities for their own classrooms.

2)Daily Physical Activities
http://www.pedagonet.com/PhysEd/physed.htm
This site has activities from A-Z to get kids moving. It also allows teachers to send in new games, so the site is constantly expanding.

3)Games Worldwide
http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/games/worldwide/
For a multicultural P.E. experience this site is great! It has a ton of games and activities from around the world

4)P.E Activities
http://www.drwoolard.com/activities/index.htm
This site is a great resource for physical education activities. If you have any creative dances, elementary dances. secondary dances, or PE lessons, you can submit them to this web site.

Music Sites

1) Creating Music.com
http://www.creatingmusic.com/
Creatingmusic.com is a children's online creative music environment for children of all ages. It's a place for kids to compose music, play with musical performance, music games and music puzzles.

2) Music Lesson Plans
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/Music23.htm
This site has allows an educator to choose lesson plans by grade level. From there, there are lessons that can be selected on which type of lesson you want to teach. Some examples include: composition, dance & movement, instruments, and music components.

3) Teach-nology
http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/lesson_plans/music/
This site has lesson plans for a variety of subjects and occasions. Need a lesson plan for Columbus Day? This site has one. How about math and music lesson plan? You guessed it, right here!

4) Free Play Music
http://www.freeplaymusic.com/
This site is a mainstay for music online. It allows one to preview clips and songs from a wide variety of styles, feel, and volume. Then, people can actually download those clips and songs to their computers for free.

Art Sites

1) Artsology
http://www.artsology.com/games.php
This site is great exploring art and artists. It has links to art related games, lets students examine works of art and match artists and styles and works of art. The most empowering feature, however, is the link called "Your Art Gallery" that lets students post their own art to the web.

2) Incredible Art
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/artgames.html#Tutorials
This site has a plethora of online games for students. It also has lesson plan ideas for teachers. Students can also sign up for online art tutorials. Some tutorials allow students to post their work to online galleries.

3) Inside Art
http://www.eduweb.com/insideart/
If learning to conduct art criticism is your objective, this site is for you. It provides a fun, interactive tour that takes a student through the process of critical examination of art. Along the journey, students get to make decisions about why they think the artist did what they did and learn about a great work of art in the process.

4) Art Lesson Plans
http://syrylynrainbowdragon.tripod.com/home.html
This site is extremely useful for the would-be art teacher in elementary grades. It has lesson plans for hands-on and computer art projects. Each lesson comes complete with goals and objectives, vocabulary, and higher order thinking questions that make the student think deeper about their projects.

Math Sites

1) Fun Brain.com
http://www.funbrain.com/
This site is designed for grades K-8. It has grade level specific math games that are addicting. A student's math skills are put to the test as they play a series of ever-challenging games that pose different types of math problems.
2) A Plus Math
http://www.aplusmath.com/
This site was develop to help students improve their math skills through interactive learning. It offers flash cards, homework help, worksheets and a game room to help student achieve success in math.

3) Cool Math
http://www.coolmath4kids.com/
This site is the ultimate fun math site. It has a colorful display, and a series of engaging math games, logic puzzles, and brain benders that will keep even the brightest students involved. The site provides help on everything from addition to fractals to long division.

4) Gamequarium
http://www.gamequarium.com/math.htm
This site has a bunch of math games on it. The home page is kind of busy with flashy lights and things, but the content is pretty solid. Students really enjoy playing and learning about math with these interactive games.

Science Sites

1) Science Sites
http://www.kidskonnect.com/ScienceSites/ScienceSitesHome.html
This site links to many other sites that have science related materials. From A-Z is has experiments, resources, projects and lesson plans for everything science!

2) A Science Odyssey
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/
This site is posted by PBS's "Odyssey" program. It has an overview of how far science has come in the last century, a game show still activity about scientists and scientific theory, resources for educators and a number of interactive gamess that demonstrate how things work.

3) Reeko's Mad Science Lab
http://www.spartechsoftware.com/reeko/
This site offers links to activities with varying levels of complexity. The engaging, and oftentimes humorous, projects and experiments provide intellectually stimulating insights into scientific principles and theory.

4) Enchanted Learning.com
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html
Tbis is the go-to site for science information. It has resources, web activities, projects, lesson plans-you name it! I think that the printouts and quizzes would be very helpful in a classroom.

Social Studies Sites

1) Social Studies for Kids
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com
This site's home page starts out with a "This Week in History" article that is updated weekly. It also lets students research any topic any period of history they want. In addition, it has links to current events, games, maps, cultural and religious observances and much more.

2) Social Studies Sources
http://education.indiana.edu/~socialst/
This site is designed for K-12 teachers and students, but it can also be used by preservice teachers as well. This has links to subjects such as governments, history, global studies, geography and news. The site also links to other and recommends other sites. It is definitely a valuable tool for teaching social studies.

3) Gheos World Travel Guide
http://gheos.com/atlas/
Though not an "educational" site in the traditional sense, this site highlights a specific country each week and gives information about it's history, capital city, food, travel, religion and the best times to travel there. Clicking on images will open an interactive travel map that provides even more information about the locations on the map. It also has a "Question of the Day" feature that asks a trivia question about a country.

4) Social Studies Lessons
http://www.csun.edu/~hcedu013/
This site is a collection of social studies lesson plans, resources and online activities. It links to lesson plans, online activities, has advice on how to teach current events, and links to educational standards and curruculum frameworks.

Reading Sites

1) Starfall.com
http://www.starfall.com/
This site is amazing! It has TONS of fun activities for kids that teach everything from letter recognition to learning to read, fiction and nonfiction books...the list goes on. It has resources for virtually all primary and secondary elementary reading teachers.

2) Kaboose Reading Games
http://resources.kaboose.com/games/read1.html
This site has a bunch of reading games for a variety of curriculum topics. Examples include letters and sounds, geography, spelling, antonyms, synonyms, even French vocabulary words.

3) Learning Planet.com
http://www.learningplanet.com/index.asp
This site has a variety of resources, games and activities for not only reading but many other subjects as well. A teacher can search by grade level, subject or category to find exactly what he/she may be looking for. It also has links to different products, resources and articles.

4) Reading A-Z
http://www.readinga-z.com/
This site is a pay-site, but has many, many downloadable books for use by educators. You can find books in exactly the difficulty you are looking for, select the language you want them to publish in, and get lesson plans too.

Primary Source Sites

1) Our Documents.gov
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/
This site has a lot of great information, but it's greatest resource (for my purposes) is it's link to the Top 100 most influencial documents of our nations history called the "100 Milestone Documents".

2) The National Archives
http://www.archives.gov/
This site includes links to many primary source documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, the supply list for the Lewis and Clark expedition and more!!!

3) Archiving Early America
http://www.earlyamerica.com/
This site allows students to play an online game about Early America, watch movie clips, join online discussions, download music from Early America, and of course preview the documents that our country was founded upon.

4) The Constitution Center
http://www.constitutioncenter.org/explore/TheU.S.Constitution/index.shtml
This site has a link to a picture of the real Constitution. Students can also see how the Constitution has changed over the years using the "Constitutional Timeline". It also contains an "Interactive Constitution" where kids search the Constitution for specific language, topics, or by Supreme Court Cases.

Online Safety Sites

1.) Surf Swell Island
http://disney.go.com/surfswell/index.html
I had to add this site after seeing it in class the other day. It is a fun, interactive game that teaches kids about online safety. After completing all the levels, kids can print of a safety certificate and becomes eligible for another game.

2) Internet Super Heroes
http://www.internetsuperheroes.org/
This site has a lot of good information about internet safety and alot of information about cyberbullying specifically. It provides the information in a fun, engaging format that kids, teens, tween, educators and parents alike could find very appealing.

3) Safe Kids. com
www.safekids.com/
This site speaks to a multitude of online safety topics such as blogging, computer security, how to eliminate spam, chat room safety and cell phone safety. My favorite part is "Daffy Dave Sings the Safe Kids online song. Great stuff!!!

4) Online Safety
http://www.fema.gov/kids/on_safety.htm
This site is put out by FEMA and has 6 tips on how to keep safe online. It addresses topics like not giving out one's name and number to people online, setting up rules for online use, and talking with one's parents about things viewed online. Though not as interactive as other sites, it provides good information.

Constructivist Sites

1) National Geographic Kids
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/west/
This site provides an interactive activity about the Lewis and Clark expedition. Students go with Lewis and Clark on their journey, making important decisions as they go, such as navigating rivers and deciding what to bring with them on their journey. It asks questions about those decisions, and students click on the answer they chose. One important aspect about this site is the feedback provided about their choices. This teaches students to discover on their own, and provides them with information so they learn from their choices.

2) BrainPop
http://www.brainpop.com/
This site contains hundreds of animated shorts that explains content from all areas. Children take quizzes and perform various activities to apply what they have learned.

3) Hands on Plastics Jr.
http://www.handsonplastics.com/hop_jr/activities/index.html
This is a great site because it has different interactive games that student can play. It also quizzes students when they are done with then ganme on what they learned. The plastic and saftety quiz is very fun and informative.

4) Chocolate Chip Cookies: To Eat or Not to Eat
http://collier.k12.fl.us/weblessons/cookiewq/index.htm
This site is very interactive and would be easy for students to use. It would work great with a health unit.

Digital Camera/Book Sites

1) http://www.edzone.net/~mwestern/pix.html

Click! Using a Digital Camera in the Elementary Classroom

1) This site has a ton of information about using digital cameras in elementary classrooms. It has tips about proper camera usage and activities that can be used for kindergarten to fifth grade and beyond.

2) http://teachers.net/gazette/APR02/camera.html

Creative Uses for Digital Cameras in the Classroom

As the name suggests, this site has a wealth of creative uses for digital cameras and digital book in the classroom. It suggests using cameras to create centers, projects, special events, and personal activities.

3) http://www.childrenssoftware.com/workshop.html

Workshops and Presentations…

This site has a list of workshops and presentations for teachers that are interested in incorporating technology in their classrooms. Teachers are encouraged to be inventive with their ideas and stretch their imaginations to make technology education as viable as possible.

4) http://www.wacona.com/digicam/digicam.html

Using Digital Cameras in the Classroom

This site seeks to answer the questions of why a teacher would want to use digital camera in their classrooms, addresses concerns, has practical tips for teachers who are just beginning to use technology, lesson ideas and links to other helpful resources.

Legal Sites

Legal/Ethical Issues Websites

1) http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/framewk/pro/issues/proiss.htm

Indicator: Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues

This website discusses the social, ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of technology in the classroom. It talks about why students must know these, a strategy for teaching ethical issues in the classroom and even has an adaptation of the Ten Commandments for Computer Ethics. It also has links to other helpful resources.

2) http://www.openc.k12.or.us/jitt/class/issues.html

Technology in the Classroom

This site offers links to the practical benefits and challenges of integrating technology into regular classroom instruction, and a discussion of the accompanying legal issues. It has links to a variety of beneficial articles, websites and other resources.

3) http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te600.htm

Technology: A Catalyst for Teaching and Learning in the Classroom

This site provides helpful tips for teachers that are interested in incorporating technology in their schools. It not only gives tips on navigating the social, legal and ethical issues surrounding technology integration, but also offers advice on how to get additional funding, how to promote technology, and how to support professional and curriculum development.

4) http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=11

Navigating the Legal maze.

This site is a good resource with helpful advice on how to navigate through the legal maze of district policies and legal issues dealing with technology in school. It also discusses licensing, acceptable use of networks, and permissions.

Philosophy of technology in the K-12 Curriculum

My technological educational philosophy is simple: students should be exposed to technology in a way that sparks their interests, challenges them to try new things and allows them to develop a feeling of self efficacy with technology. If students are not engaged in their learning, teaching merely becomes a series of drills and repetitive exercises in which students are made to perform. Children should be encouraged to try new things without fear of failure. When things do not go as planned, I believe that those times have the potential to become some of the richest teachable moments in education. If students are engaged in the learning process and become explorers of their world, their confidence levels will increase and they will begin to see themselves as technology competent.