Saturday, January 15, 2011

Weekly Core Subjects Resources

January is off to a great start.  Hard to believe that it is January.  In case you missed the news, there is a new Zodiac sign.  So all those horoscopes people have been following for years are worthless now if you no longer have the same Zodiac, like me.  I went from a Pisces to Aquarius.  But enough about horoscopes, although something tells me I can predict that you will like these resources...no matter what your Zodiac sign is.

English
1.) WordNet is a large lexical database of English.  Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms, each expressing a distinct concept.  WordNet's structure makes it a useful tool for computational linguistics and natural language processing.

2.) NounProject is a site dedicated to creating images for every noun in the English dictionary.  A great resource for ESL and Special Education students, as well as other learners who struggle with the English language. 

3.) The English Room: 30 Days of Poetry is a collection of lessons and student activities creating a great unit on Poetry.  A great resource for English teachers.

4.) Biblio Bouts is a resource I did a blog post about recently.  The idea is to create a competition between students to find the best possible resources through research. 

Mathematics
1.) Archimy is a service for drawing graphs of all types of functions.  With Archimy, you will draw the graph of any function and form.  There is a text-box to input the fuction.  The graphs can be both 2D and 3D.

2.) XtraMath is another option for learning basic mathematics.  The site is designed to help students, teachers, and parents.  There are six videos on the front page that will help you learn how to utilize the service.  XtraMath is for non-profit and completely free to use. 

Science
1.) The Surfing Scientist is site by Ruben Meerman and he travels to different schools in Australia sharing different science experiments with students.  Through his site you can access several lesson plans and tricks that he uses in his travels. 

2.) I am a weather buff and am constantly checking NOAA for upcoming weather.  Recently I noticed that NOAA has a great Education Resources section for helping teach about earth and weather.  It is worth checking out. 

3.) MEDtropolis is another site option for studying a virtual body.  It is available in both English and Spanish.  It is broken down into four sections: The Human Brain, Skeleton, Human Heart, and Digestive Track. 

4.) If you are not wanting a skeleton of the human body, then I recommend checking out Eskeletons which offers virtual animal skeletons.  There are about a dozen based animal skeletons from the monkey family that you can examine.

5.) Going around the Twitterverse is the Google Global Science Fair where students and teachers can get involved in sharing science experiments and other projects.  I suggest following the links and reading more about it to learn if it is something you want to get your classroom involved with. 

Social Studies
1.) Howard Zinn was a popular historian who also wrote the book "A People's History of the United States," which has become one of my most favorite books for reading about history.  The Zinn Education Project is dedicated to sharing his vision and providing resources to educators.

2.)  Not Even Past provides dynamic, accessible, short articles on every field of History.  The site is for everyone interested in the past and in the ways the past lives on in the present. 

3.) Primary Access is a great site for learning about using Primary Documents in the classroom by providing three resources to create activities using those primary documents.  I recommend viewing a previous post about it to learn more. 

4.) Here is a great slide show presentation with links to TED Talks for Social Studies Teachers. 

5.) Our Changing World is a great interactive for showcasing various data for every country around the world.  The physical aspect of all the countries change as the data changes. 

Bonus Sites
1.) Top Documentary Films is a great site for finding films across the curriculum.  All the films are free and available online.

2.) Education Podcast from Podcast.com is a great way to find audio clips to use in the classroom through a simple search.

3.) I always liked watching Jeopardy, and there are tons of options out there on the web.  Custom Flash Jeopardy Maker allows you to create a Flash based version of a Jeopardy game which is great for review.