Category: Ideas

Posted in Ideas, Lessons, Links, Salem City Schools, templates

Resources for Integrating Technology with Marzano’s Instructional Stategies

Posted on by Tina Coffey


I have had the opportunity to attend some really great sessions in the last two days at VSTE, and I am trying to get around to posting what I’ve learned. This site, Putting the Pieces Together: Integrating Technology with Marzano’s Instructional Strategies, is at the top of my list because it matches so closely to some of our division’s goals…and it’s just an incredibly huge resource! It was put together by Sheri Miller, an ITRT for Gloucester County, VA. It contains resources to match the instructional strategies from the book, Classroom Instruction that Works by Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, Jane E. Pollock. Sheri has taken the researched-based strategies from the book and compiled ready-to-use resources that allow teachers to integrate technology with activities that match the strategies:

  • Similarities & Differences
  • Summarizing & Note-Taking
  • Effort & Recognition
  • Homework & Practice
  • Non-Linguistics Representations
  • Cooperative Learning
  • Objectives & Feedback, Hypotheses
  • Questions, Cutes, & Advanced Organizers.

The section on Summarizing and Note-Taking even includes strategies for integrating technology into Interactive Note-Taking (an upcoming in-service at our March 7 Professional Development Day)! And the best part? The activities are all ready-to-use in programs our schools already have: Kidspiration, Inspiration, Kidpix, Word, Excel, PowerPoint or on the web. It’s incredible!! Thanks Sheri, for a great session and an invaluable resource!

If that’s not enough, Gloucester County has also put together a great repository of websites matching the SOLs on their Elementary K-5 Resource page! I will definitely be spending some time looking through all these resources in the weeks after the conference!

Posted in Ideas, Laptops, Links, Salem City Schools

National Geographic Magazine Links

Posted on by Tina Coffey

ngexplorer.jpg
If your class receives one of the monthly editions of National Geographic Explorer, you might want to check out the website that goes with the magazine!

National Geographic Young Explorer (Grades K-1)
Even if you don’t subscribe to the magazine, you will love this site! Here you will find an interactive version of the magazine posted online. It will read the stories to the students and allow them to virtually “flip” through the pages.

Suggestions:
Talk about a great way to use the Smartboard! Have your students find and underline important words, sounds, or punctuation and/or write in the answers to the question with the Smartboard pens.

National Geographic Explorer (Pioneer Edition) (Grades 2-3)
National Geographic Explorer (Pathfinder Edition) (Grades 4-5)
Here you will find online activities (games, quizzes, videos, pictures) to go with each month’s topics. They also link to the full text of one of articles in the magazine.Suggestions:
Have the students individually complete the online activity with the laptops after reading the corresponding article. If time is limited, the class could also complete the activity together using the Smartboard. Also, use the Smartboard to read the online version of the article together. Use the Smartboard pens to find important context clues, vocabulary words, main ideas, facts, etc. directly on the online version of the article.

Also…while you are looking at National Geographic, make sure to check out the main kids site… National Geographic for Kids
I could get lost on this site for hours. It contains articles, games, pictures, videos, news, activities….all in a very interactive and kid-friendly way.

Suggestions:
Have students watch videos and play games that align with units in Science, Health, and Social Studies. Read the stories and complete activities and games in Language Arts (like Photo Fill-ins or the Cartoon Factory). Have students research animals for projects and find information in the form of pictures, words AND video. Check out the Young Explorer World Atlas in Social Studies. There are so many things to choose from…take a look and see what you find!

How Your Students Can Find These Links:
I’ve posted a link to the site on the SCS Links for Kids Page. To find it, go to your school’s website and click Students > Links for Kids, choose your grade level, and look under Science.

Posted in Ideas, Links, Salem City Schools

Color Coded Maps

Posted on by Tina Coffey

I thought this site (which lets you custom create a map of states) is pretty fun. Here are the places I traveled in 2007. I’ve have to do some research back into vacations during my childhood to figure out where I’ve been in my lifetime…we did a lot of driving when I was little.
create your own visited states map

There is also a site that will create a custom map of countries…here’s my very limited map of my lifetime…
create your own visited countries map

I could see uses for these sites in the classroom (beyond where you’ve traveled) like stories the class has read from around the world or correspondence with other classrooms or a Flat Stanley project. Do you have any ideas?

Posted in Fun, Ideas, Projects

Trip to NYC

Posted on by Tina Coffey

Last week I had a chance to go spend time in NYC. This was only my second time ever visiting, and really the first time I had a chance to check out some of the famous places there. Here’s a thirty second overview of what I saw:[kml_flashembed movie="http://widgets.clearspring.com/o/46928cc51133af17/4760bbef51b287d4" width="432" height="250" wmode="transparent" /]

I brought back some pics and short video clips of these places. I’d like to increase our collection of pictures and video clips for kids to use in digital projects without having to worry about copyright. Even though there are sites out there that allow you to download pics for educational uses, there are a number of reasons why doing this is difficult (or not safe) for younger students. Having a folder of pics that match SOLs that students can use freely would help. I’ll add the ones I brought back from NYC. If you have any other digital pics or short digital videos (especially ones that match SOLs) that you don’t mind sharing, please leave a comment here or drop me an email.

Posted in Ideas, Links, Salem City Schools

Tracking Santa and Other Fun Holiday Sites

Posted on by Tina Coffey

I’ve had a few requests for some fun sites to use with your students during the holiday time. Here’s some I’ve run across lately!

Norad Tracks Santa Want to track Santa as he makes his trip around the world? This site has games to play until Christmas Eve, when you can track Santa’s route on Google Earth.

Place the Penguins (Place Value)

Virtual Snowman (Practice click and drag–great for younger kids on the laptops!)

Christmas Music (Thanks Karen Travitz!)

Northpole.com (This site does promote some items from Amazon.com, but there are a lot of fun, free activities too!)

Make-a-Flake (Make a snow flake by clicking and dragging–another great site to practice laptop skills!)

For SCS teachers, I’ve posted these sites on the main Links for Kids Page. On the first page, they need to click “December Holiday Sites.”

If anyone has anymore great sites they are using with their students, please leave a comment. I’ll do my best to add the sites you suggest to the Links for Kids Page so that you can use them easily in your classrooms!