E. Rafferty
Top Ten Educational
Sites
1. Scholastic, http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/index.jsp.
Scholastic is an awesome resource, as it includes lesson plans along with the
necessary resources and worksheets. In addition to having these activities,
they also provide student resources. They have an awesome write and publish
section, which takes students through the writing process with different styles
of writing. They also have a great read and response section, where students
can read and write book reviews. Also, they have a lot of samples of real
student work, which is helpful for first year teachers to use in the
classroom.
2. Primary Games, http://www.primarygames.com/. This
website provides games for all content areas, including language arts, math,
and science. They have a cool language arts game called “Writer’s Block,” where
you make words out of a letter cube. It also includes a worksheet maker and a
certificate maker, which includes perfect attendance and fantastic work. The
games are definitely the best feature on this site.
3. Tools for Educators, http://www.toolsforeducators.com/.
This website is another awesome resource, offering its visitors games, custom
worksheets including an elaborate certificate-maker, and many other
time-savers. The features that I find most useful are the worksheet wizard, where
you can create your own worksheets and the board game-maker, where they provide
a template for you (or your students) to create your own customized board game.
The feature that I find the most interesting and innovating is the listening
section, which includes free listening quiz makers, a
listening activity wizard, listening lesson plan materials and printable
listening activities.
4. Internet for Classrooms, www.internet4classrooms.com. This
website is a great resource for all K-12 teachers and students. Features are
broken down into subject and grade level with assessment practice, lists of
resources for instruction and subject areas, step-by-step tutorials for
technology programs, daily activities, and academic search engines. The
features that I find most helpful are the instructional activities and the
content area resources – which include the writing activities (everything from
writing prompts to graphic organizers to writing tips) and the differentiated
instruction resources and activities.
5. Freeology, http://freeology.com/.
This resource provides every graphic organizer that you could ever want,
including a triple venn diagram, a cornell note taker, and the
hamburger diagram (to understand the “meat” of a piece). This website also
offers games for students, printable worksheets, journal topics, and teacher
forms. The teacher forms include hall passes, a borrowed items log, calendars,
bookmarks, teacher/parent contact forms, and the best template I’ve seen for the classic “I am” poem. The aspect of
this site that I like the most is its organization. The website is very clean,
easy-to-navigate, and has plenty of great features. Last, there is a teacher
humor section, which includes several uplifting classics.
6. Education.com, www.education.com. Education.com provides
another good resource, with a lot of creative activities and resources, like a
secret code Valentine’s Day card and writing your own “I have a dream” speech.
Their printable worksheets are organized by topic and grade, making it easy to
find what you are looking for. A lot of their worksheets and activities are
good for choiceboards, where students can pick their
own activities and work individually. You can also sign up for their
newsletters to receive a weekly e-mail full of educational tips.
7. Pro Teacher, www.proteacher.com. The Pro Teacher
Collection is one of the most helpful sites as it is a forum for teachers,
where ideas are shared and developed. Topics include everything you can think
of – classroom management, managing your time, teaching main idea, how to
introduce classroom rules, first day of school activities, and homework packets
and ideas. Each topic has pages and pages of posts on it from real life
teachers, willing to share their ideas and looking for more ideas. I can not
emphasize just how helpful it is, but I can tell you that everything you have questions
about, from general teacher information to lesson plans, is covered here.
8. The Teacher’s Corner, www.teacherscorner.net. This website
offers lesson plans, unit activities, daily writing prompts, message boards,
printable worksheets, and bulletin board resources. The features that I find
most helpful are their writing prompts, as they offer a different writing
prompt for each day of the year relative to the date, and their printable
worksheets, which include template and custom worksheets.
9. Teachers Pay Teachers, http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/.
This website is like amazon or ebay
for teachers. Teachers can sell their original worksheets, lesson plans, and
ideas, while others teachers can buy these successful classroom resources. Most
items are either free or very cheap, and they are of high quality, as these are
things you find at Becker’s or in a bookstore, rather than the usual items you
can find on the Internet. Also, there are a lot of very specific items on here.
For example, it is easy to find numerous lessons and worksheets on stories you
read with your class such as “The Tell-Tale Heart.” I have been in a bind quite
a few times and have found what I’ve needed on here.
10.
