Education Websites Archive
Below you will find a complete list of items that appeared in the magazine's NetWatch section, 1997-2012. All links were functional at time of posting, however, some sites may become obsolete over time.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A
A-Z Teacher Stuff
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
ABC Teach
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
ABC Teach is a simply designed, well-organized site that offers math worksheets, sudoku puzzles, shape books, clip art, fun activities, flash cards and more. You can customize these by clicking the blue "abctools" apple at the top of the page.
About.com - Behavior and Emotional Disabilities
Special Education (March 2006)
About Kids’ Health
The Hospital for Sick Children has a wonderful site filled with great information. Search through hundreds of child health articles, be sure to see the well-designed just-for-kids section and subscribe to the health newsletter.
Access Excellence @ The National Health Museum
Want to know about the functional divisions of the cerebral cortex or compare the brains of nine different species? This is the site.
The graphics load quickly, providing detailed photos and illustrations. The site also contains a wide array of resources and links to other science-related web sites. Everything from astronomy tomicroscopy to ethical issues in science can be found here.
It also hasa list of links to teachers' pages.
Action For Nature
Tools to Build a Better Planet: June 2008
Activ8
Activ8 program is a curriculum-based initiative designed to make physical activity fun and rewarding for students of all athletic ability.
After high school
Simple but well designed, the Ontario School Counsellors' Association site offers links under Student Resources to self-assessment tools, career resources and labour-market information. Students can walk through the steps needed to obtain employment.
ALFY
Every section of the site is worth visiting – either to stimulate children's creativity, help them acquire knowledge or just to entertain them in a safe web environment. Spelling, math, history, science, you name it,it's probably here. This is a site that is going to keep kids entertained and interested while they learn – and they will learn a lot.
Allergy Safe Communities
Safely back to school (September 2007)AltaVista Canada
Searching for Canadian Educational Content on the Internet
American Geological Institute
The Natural World (December 2006)An End to World Hunger: Hope for the Future
This simple to navigate site is good for information on historic famines, present circumstances and future options for dealing with hunger. It includes a map showing where world famine is taking place, along with detailed statistics for each highlighted country, and has a separate area featuring general world hunger facts and statistics.
Apprenticeship
Sections include skills and aptitudes, essential high school courses, an extensive list of trades, information on the Real Seal program, loan sources for buying tools and lists of high school courses to take for particular trades.
Art Gallery of Ontario
The AGO offers a dazzling interactive site. Some pages on this site require the Flash plug-in, software required to experience certain web-based animation. But it's free and easily installed, making your trip to the AGO a virtual pleasure.
Ask Jeeves Kids
A companion site to the regular Ask Jeeves web site, this one focuses specifically on kids' questions. It's fun and educational and provides a good start for school projects. All kids have to do is key in a question and follow the links to the answers. The ability to peek at what kids are asking right now is another neat feature. It allows you to see what kids are asking and follow the links they are given to answer their questions.
Atlapedia Online
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
This handy reference tool
lists every country of the world, including population, area, climate,
religion, trading partners, currency and modern history.
Atlas of Canada
There are more than 200 interactive maps available within a click – historical, reference and economic, maps on the environment, people and society, climate change, fresh water and health.
Visitors can see everything from distribution patterns (market share) of large cars and small vans and ratios of family doctors to Canadian residents to formations and ages of rocks. There are more than 40,000 place and physical feature names to search in the database.
Want to throw a pop quiz, including questions from categories such as the Land, the People, the Ecology and the Economy? Click on the selections and the questions shoot back.
Autism Society of Ontario
Special Education (March 2006)Awesome Library
You wouldn’t know it from looking at the home page, but the teacher section of this site leads you to hundreds of links by topic, each with short, clearly written descriptions and site provenance. Another nice point is that you can find research, practice and theoretical information. See School Improvement / Collaboratives.
B
Bartleby
Reference Sites (June 2006)
A virtual treasure trove, Bartleby.com
is home to Roget's thesauruses, multiple encyclopedias, fact books, quotation
sources and style guides. Do a simple word search or browse alphabetically.
The drop-down search option provides approximately 60 sources; navigation
is at the top of the page.
BBC's words and pictures
Words and Pictures offers interactive games. Teaching materials are geared to a British audience, but offer a number of helpful resources.
The Behavior Page
Special Education (March 2006)
Big Chalk (now ProQuest)
Resources are categorized by audiences: teachers, librarians and media specialists, elementary school students, intermediate school students, high school students and parents.
Blackwell's Best Virtual Field Trips
Worlds at their fingertips (June 2007)
Bob's Place of Educational Links
Developed by Bob Steele, a computer consultant in elementary and highs chools in an English school board, this site has a large number of links on a broad range of topics for teachers. A rippling flag signifies Canadian sites.
Brainbashers
This site contains thousands of puzzles, brainteasers, games and optical illusions. New puzzles are posted weekly. Click on the Are You a Teacher? button. Material is fun, motivating and offers a challenge to your students.
BrainPOP
BrainPOP is a subscription-based web site that allows you to use a couple of items on the site per day. It is exceptionally well designed with kid friendly graphics and a wealth of solid, interactive information.Drop-down menus provide access to terrific Flash movies related to technology.
BrainPOP is also supported by a number of leaders in education, including the McGraw Hill Learning Network, National Geographic Kids, SchwabLearning.org (for children with learning disabilities) and SciLinks (created by science educators).
Brower Youth Award
Tools to build a better planet (June 2008)
Burlington Public Library kids
This site is wonderfully designed, with lots of kid-friendly colours and images. There are separate sections with booklists for older and younger kids. A Homework Help section, organized by topic, makes it easy to locate information for a class project. The Fun and Games section provides links to all kinds of interactive literature sites.
Bus Safety Colouring Pages
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Busy Bee
Maintained by Kevin Kearney and hosted by Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board, Busy Bee provides a great list of back-to-school ideas, from name review for remembering new students' names to a first-day kit. The site also includes classroom management tips, games, general activities and special education.
C
Cambridge Dictionaries Online
This site is simple to use with clear and concise definitions. Phonetics are neatly tucked under the Show Phonetics button. Spell a word incorrectly and you are given lots of options. Best alternate dictionary choices for quick lookups in the drop-down menu are Advanced Learners, Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
Campsite 24
Campsite 24 encourages field trips complementing the Ontario Parks school programs. Nature-interpretation programs for schools are offered by 38 parks. Information about lesser-known parks may elicit student curiosity and help you plan a visit.
Campusaccess.com
Campusaccess.com was designed to help Canadian students avoid the frustration of not being able to find Canadian content on the web. It offers more than 400 pages of information and resources compiled by Canadian students for Canadian students.
The site includes a roster of experts who answer students' questions and offer advice. The list includes former Olympic gold medallist Mark Tewkesbury, Marco Di Buono, a nutritionist and researcher at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and Karen Schaffer, author of The Job of Your Life and Hire Power.
Can Learn
The federal government's Can Learn site is chock full of excellent information about educational opportunities after high school. The Student Planne helps students identify skills, interests and goals, explore occupationsand fields of study, choose a learning institution and research financing options. Interactive tools compare colleges, universities and commercial institutions.
Canada in the Making
Crosswords and fun quizzes make this site worth checking out, as do a wealth of activities and lesson plans around three historical themes: Constitutional History, Aboriginals: Treaties and Relations, and Pioneers and Immigrants. Hopefully more themes will be added in the future.
Canadian War Museum
See, Hear, Remember (September 2008)
Type “Remembrance Day kit” in the search field. The Collections section includes letters, journals, postcards, photographs and audio clips. Activities are organized by grade level.
Canada Safety Council
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Easy to navigate, this
site includes playground safety, field trips, water safety, scooters, skates
and bicycles, sports and sun safety.
Canada Science and Technology Museum
The Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa helps the public understand the relationships between science, technology and Canadian society. The web site introduces the museum's exhibits. The School Zone section covers various topics - magnets, liquids and solids, simple machines, structures and shapes, objects and materials - with grade levels clearly indicated.
Canada's digital collection
This federal web site showcases hundreds of other sites and provides an extensive collection of online educational resources, including curriculum units, classroom activities, quizzes and games.
Under Educational Resources, select a subject area, a province, grade level, language (French or English) or any combination offered and receive an extensive list of links to sites and materials for use in the classroom.
Canada's physical activity guide
Health Canada's site provides a series of good activity guides for children and youth. The Teacher's Guide to Physical Activity for Children includes tips on how to motivate behaviour change, ideas for fun class activities, plus stories of how other educators built physical activity into their lesson plans.
Two interactive magazines - Gotta Move for children and Let's Get Active! for youth - are filled with tips, tricks, quizzes and games, making them excellent companion resources for the teacher guide.
Canadian Atlases
Reference Sites (June 2006)
Where in Canada is Waldo? Track
him down with this atlas from Canadian Geographic. Go to Maps – tucked
away on the right side. This leads to a database of interactive atlases
and lesson plans (see Learning Centre). CG Kids Atlas, from the home page
is filled with fun information for younger kids.
Canadian
A federal government initiative, this web-based project is designed by students and teachers. It allows individual schools to create an atlas of their community with physical, economic, human and historical geographic themes.
The Canadian Encyclopedia
Reference Sites (June 2006)
Find the Canadian Encyclopedia,
Junior Encyclopedia of Canada, articles, games and a timeline of Canadian
and world events. The search feature and subject index – top right
of the home page – are most useful, with front-page and left navigation
links to general information.
Canadian Teachers.net
Teacher chat, distance learning, live meetings and free print materials are just a few of the many materials offered for teachers on this site. Under lesson plans, I entered the Ontario keyword search and received a fair number of Ontario-based information pages. Subscribe to the Canadian Teacher's mail ring, which allows you to receive e-mail from colleagues across the country.
Canadian tools
This quick information site offers links to activity cards, forms and letters, weekly assignment and worksheet generators.
Canadian writing resources
An extensive list of resources, this site has links to writing contests, how-to info, book resources, tapes and CDs.
Canadian Youth Business Foundation
The Canadian Youth Business Foundation is a non-profit, private sector initiative that mentors, supports and loans money to entrepreneurs aged 19 to 29 who are starting new businesses.
Well-designed and graphically rich, this site offers a range of services, ideas and tips for young people. Audio clips provide advice on hiring, attracting media attention and advertising from Canadian business owners.
CanTeach
CanTeach is a non-commercial site for teachers that focuses on lesson plans, resources and links.
Care Virtual Field Trips
Worlds at their finger tips (June 2007)
Cantrek
Search engine for Canadian educational content on the Internet.
CBC archives
This site houses hundreds of sound clips and articles from CBC radio and television. Click on any item for a brief synopsis of the topic or to play clips from a choice of up to 10. Use the For Teachers link to find an extensive list of assignments and projects for Grades 6 to 12.
Chalkface
Special Education (March 2006)
CHICO Instrument Encyclopedia
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
Childnet International
Safely back to school (September 2007)
UK-based Childnet International
offers award-winning web sites like Blog Safety, Chat Danger and Know It
All, where you'll find numerous teacher resources, strangely enough, under
Know It All for Parents. This section includes Flash videos and cartoons
and real people introducing you to applicable resources.
Class to Careers.com
Created by The Learning Partnership, a non-profit organization, this site helps students search for co-operative education opportunities that provide them with real-world work experience.
Classroom clip art
Classroom Clipart has a huge selection of free images for Kindergarten to Grade 12. (All images have a site-identifying watermark in the lower right-hand side.)
College university transfer guide
To assist students who attend both university and college, the College University Consortium Council has created a searchable database of collaborative programs and transfer agreements among Ontario's colleges and universities.
Color, Contrast & Dimension in News Design
For those who would like a site that focuses on design theory, Color, Contrast and Dimension in News Design provides the answer. The site is sophisticated and easy to navigate.
Exercises build on each other, change image colour to evoke different moods, experiment with contrast or saturation at a click of the button and create a sense of depth by altering colour percentages.
Sections of the site deal specifically with newspaper design. Overall, the site gives a good introduction to basic design concepts.
Count Us In
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
Cultural Profiles Project
The Cultural Profiles Project is part of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's host program, which funds non-profit organizations to recruit Canadian volunteer hosts and match them with new immigrants.
Because the site provides volunteers with information about the country the new immigrant is coming from, it includes a wealth of cultural information for approximately 104 countries.
Curriculum Canada
Curriculum Services Canada works closely with the Ministry of Education to provide teachers with education resources. The site includes teacher webcasts, web conferences, web meetings and a number of classroom resources. Mini-sites like CultureSource, Leading and Learning, Leading Student Achievement and Coaching Institute also provide really good information.
Curriki
Created by the Global Education and Learning Community, Curriki is dedicated to creating free, world-class educational materials. It is extraordinarily well designed with eye-catching graphics under Browse Subjects and has 16,000+ resources with subject area and grade clearly indicated. Easy-to-understand icons flag lesson plans, graphics, exercises and worksheets. Rollovers provide good, quick content overviews. Highly recommended.
Crayola lesson plans
Special Education (March 2006)
You must sign up to access the
lesson plans but it's worth it because there are hundreds of free ones
to choose from. I did a search for special needs and received a list
of 392 different lessons. Instructions are well organized and easy to follow
with lovely images of the finished project, plus they provide safety guidelines
for each one. An easy-to-understand chart indicates the appropriate grade
level.
Crossword Puzzles
ESL Tools for the Classroom. Approximately 215 puzzles cover nouns, verbs, opposites and so on. They are well designed and provide good visual feedback. See an image associated with the word you’re trying to solve, get one letter and check for errors.
Cyberbullying.org
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Cyberbullying.org gives
a basic introduction to bash boards and other media. Related Resources
offers lesson plans plus a glossary of web/instant messaging terms and
links to other cyberbullying sites. Some important links on the site don't
work.
CyberPatrol
Similar to Net Nanny and other web-filtering software products, CyberPatrol prohibits access to sites determined by you. It can also limit the amount of time spent online and features "ChatGard," which prevents children from divulging real names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
Various versions are available, both for in-home and networked PCs. A monthly update for subscribers notes sites thatare inappropriate for children and those that are kid friendly.
D
Dairy Education Program
Dairy Education Program provides educational support to elementary schools in Ontario, including classroom presentations and resources for teachers and students.
Dairy Farmers of Ontario
Under Teachers in the left navigation bar, you’ll find information on World School Milk Day, a list of free publications, posters and recipes – plus you can book five free presentations, including: Dairy Farming, Dairy Goodness and Careers in the Dairy Industry. Other links provide industry details that could be good for projects with older students.
Diary project
For children 13 and older, the Diary Project is an international forum. There are thousands of entries in 24 categories, including: body image, ramblings, poetry and point of view. The site's privacy policy addresses confidentiality issues and cautions against sharing personal information online.
Dictionary of Canadian Biography
For senior students or teachers, this U of T / Université Laval project provides a fully vetted, in-depth resource. Hosted by Library and Archives Canada, it’s easy to navigate and the search mechanism works well. It is limited to people who died before 1930.
Digital Archive
See, Hear, Remember (September 2008)
At the memory project site, click on Digital Archive to hear a poignant introduction by a Canadian veteran on the Flash version of the home page.
This site features the memories and memorabilia of more than 1,000 Canadian veterans. I particularly like the
pages with audio and transcripts.
Digital History
This US site is rich in interactive modules, handouts, fact sheets and lesson plans on American and world history. One highlight is the Interactive Timeline, accessible through the navigational mosaic on the site’s home page. It presents major historical happenings graphically on a map, in the US and elsewhere from 1550 to the present.
Directory of Open Access Journals
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
DiscoverTeenergy.com
DiscoverTeenergy.com features a collection of links specifically for Canadian teens in categories such as Leadership, Never Be Bored, PartyTime and Volunteering.
Discovery School
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
The Discovery School
home page includes a link to Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators with back-to-school
activity sheets, checklists, first-day activities, icebreakers and 101
things for the first three weeks. You'll also find links to numerous lesson
plans and other helpful information.
Disney’s Adventures
in Internet Safety
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Dive and Discover
The Natural World (December 2006)
Doucette index
Hosted by the University of Calgary's Doucette Library of Teaching Resources, the Doucette Index is a searchable database of materials related to books for children and young adults. The search works by title or author, not by topic. Anne of Green Gables turned up eight resources, including two fact sheets.
E
E-Field Trips
Worlds at their fingertips (June 2007)
EarthSave International
Tools to build a better planet (June 2008)
Earth & Sky
The Natural World (December 2006)
This information-packed fun
site includes an extensive list of radio broadcasts covering approximately
200 science topics. Read the transcript or listen to the interview. Click
Skywatching for each night's sky chart and links to interviews with respected
scientists. There are separate sections for teachers and kids.
Earth Science World Image Bank
The Natural World (December 2006)
Earth Science World Image
Bank is a perfect resource for students doing science projects. It has
more than 6,000 earth science images.
Earth System Education
The Natural World (December 2006)
Teachers come first on this
well-designed site full of in-depth information. Select from primary through
grad school levels. Resource Type lets you choose lab, field, classroom
and computer options plus audio and video files.
EcoHouse Virtual Tours
Worlds at their fingertips (June 2007)
Ecokids Canada
This is one of my favourite sites because it’s easy to navigate, the graphics are great and it offers a lot of solid information. Games like Fishing Frenzy are fun and lead to additional detailed information, including curriculum connections for teachers and homework help for kids.
Ed select
EdSelect offers teacher and student-selected links for web sites that match Ontario's curriculum. It provides grade-level ratingsby subject and web addresses.
Education Canada Network
Education Canada' Network is a one-stop teacher recruitment site. Columbus Communications operates the B.C.-based site with the Canadian Association of School Administrators as a partner.
Education Network of Ontario
The Education Network provides teachers with Internet access, e-mail accounts, education projects and online conferences and newsgroups. A section of the site is dedicated to professional development, while two other sections offer curriculum support and discussion forums.
EducationWorld
Based in Connecticut, Education World is the most comprehensive education resource on the web.
The left-hand side of the home page changes theme daily while main sections are broken into lesson planning (although American based, there are some materials that could be adapted by Ontario teachers), an administrator's area, technology integration and more.
A reference centre covers topics ranging from parents to fundraising.
Education World
Special Education (March 2006)
EduHound
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
EduHound professes to
track it down so you don't have to. The back-to-school section includes
activities, bulletin-board ideas, clip art and worksheets. Two things about the site, however, are extremely irritating: advertising
overshadows content and pages open with flashy special effects that slow
down access.
EduNET Connect
This site is geared specifically toward the Ontario curriculum and is licensed by the Ministry of Education. It groups topics by learning categories – Language Arts, Society and Culture, Math and Science and Technology – and offers a range of links, as well as some specifically for teachers in the Teachers Only section.
It also features Choice Awards, great web sites to visit -- including school sites - and the Time Machine, providing information on important events in the last 10,000 years.
Elements of Style
The Elements of Style by William Strunk is now online courtesy of New York's Columbia University. Arguments about "which" and "that," the use of semicolons and how to avoid the passive voice are each addressed here.
Elmer The Safety Elephant School Bus Safety
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Encyclopedia Mythica
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
Enviro Link
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
Enviro Link provides comprehensive, international environmental information.It
covers 30 environmental topics and includes layers of information.Each
of the 30 topic categories includes a section dedicated to educational
resources.
For example, under Air Quality, you will find 194 air pollution and 28 educational links. Consisting mainly of a well-organized, easy-to-navigate compilation of links, the site also contains a news section and discussion forum.
Environment Canada's Green Lane
Environment Canada's Green Lane is a basic site with a ton of information on environmental issues. This is an excellent place to begin if you are looking for Canadian-specific charts, facts or statistics on air pollution, climate change, ecosystems, relevant legislation, nature and wildlife and waste management.
ERIC
Special Education (March 2006)
Special The US Department of
Education's Educational Resources Information Center database (ERIC) covers
all aspects of education-related issues through journal articles, conference
proceedings, papers, speeches, research reports, teaching guides, books
and curriculum. Type learning disabilities, gifted or any other Special
Education search parameter in the search field and you'll receive hundreds
of sources of information.
Evergreen
Evergreen’s Learning Grounds, in the left navigation bar, has support and resources for creating outdoor classrooms, while Resource – Project Registry lets you share information about community environmental projects.
Everything ESL
ESL Tools for the Classroom. Created by 27-year veteran ESL teacher/author Judie Haynes, this site offers tips, lesson plans, discussion topics, answers to your ESL questions and an extensive list of web sites specifically for elementary students.
Exploratorium
Best bets for field-trip fun are the links in the right-hand greenish-yellow box. I even came across a slightly gross dissection of a cow's eye that kids will either love or hate. (If you really want to see it, enter cow eye dissection in the search box.) Lots and lots of cool information.
Exploring the World of Optics and Microscopy
From looking outward into space to inward to DNA, this site is an excellent resource for exploring the world of optics and microscopy.
It offers information on microscope basics, an explanation concerning how digital imaging has changed the way information is gathered (a neon image of mouse intestines effectively shows how digital photography works) and an extensive gallery of photos taken through microscopes and telescopes.
F
Family
Education – School Safety
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Field Trip Planner
Click education in the Attractions Ontario top navigation bar and you will find the best resource available for planning school trips to our province’s top attractions. The downloadable guide tells you which curriculum areas and grades are covered at each attraction and provides details and contact information for more than 60 organizations. A nice touch is the clickable attraction web address embedded in the PDF document.
Framing Canada
This collection of historical photographs from Library and Archives Canada allows students to interpret history through images. The Educational Resources section provides teachers with a tool kit on decoding pictures for historical information and meaning. Use the robust search engine to find photographs on your topic of choice.
Free Flash Cards
ESL Tools for the Classroom
Nicely designed flash cards cover a broad range of topics and are available in three sizes. Choose the ESL Flashcards link at the top of the page, scroll down and click again to download and save the PDF file. Additional links lead to Google directories.
The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis
Network
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Food Allergy Initiative
Safely back to school (September 2007)
The New-York-based
Food Allergy Initiative offers a good introduction to food allergies.
Skip directly to Food Allergy Information and Living with Food Allergies
at the top of each page. I like the by-allergy, image-based navigation beneath
the top navigation. You'll also find downloadable posters and a comprehensive
links page on the site.
Food-Force
Tools to build a better planet (June 2008)
Forces of Nature
The Natural World (December 2006)
Create your own earthquake,
hurricane, tornado or volcanic eruption. Choose the variables that affect
the end result, then set the phenomena in play. Maps show hotspots, case
studies provide detail and supplementary info includes film footage of
natural disasters. Load times require patience.
The Free Dictionary
Reference Sites (June 2006)
Access almost everything reference-based:
dictionaries, encyclopedias, a thesaurus, acronyms, idioms and a literature
reference library. Key a word into the search field for its definition,
along with literary and web references.
Free stuff for Canadian teachers
This site offers a one-stop source for free classroom materials. There are more than 25 categories to choose from, including audio-video materials, teacher guides, kits and worksheets. Click the By Province link for free stuff in Ontario.
Free tools
Need help pulling together an exam or quiz? Try the exam builders found here. The site also offers calendars, grade books, a teacher template gallery and more.
Fun connection
Discover Ontario has compiled a number of interesting web pages about Underground Railroad tours, birding and butterfly tours, historical, theatrical and agricultural tours. While the focus is mainly on family/individual adult tours, the information is still relevant for setting up tours for students.
G
Geological Society of America
The Natural World (December 2006)
Geology
The Natural World (December 2006)
This site is US-focused but
jam-packed with geological information. It includes tsunamis, plate tectonics,
satellite and topographical maps. The Teacher Resources section (lower
right) has useful classroom materials.
GetTech.org
GetTech helps students plan for careers in technology, engineering, manufacturing and science. Teacher lesson guides and career information is American but may be useful.
Gifted Education and Special Education Lesson Plans and Resources
Special Education (March 2006)
Global Oneness Project
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
GrievingChild.org
The kids' section is divided into two more sections: for children 12 and under or children 13 and older. These areas have activitiesto assist children and a list of books and resources.
The adult section includes some good articles that may be helpful, such as "A Dozen Lessons I've Learned from Grieving Children and Adolescents" and "How to Help a Grieving Child/Teen".
Resources specifically for teachers include the book excerpts "Helping the Grieving Student: A Guide for Teachers" and "When Death Impacts Your School: A Guide for School Administrators".
H
Have Fun Teaching
Easy-to-access materials on this site include worksheets, songs and movies on topics including simile, volume (math) and respect (movies are a little syrupy) plus educational games like the Spider-Man Vocabulary Word Game and the Penguin Diner Money Game.
Healthfinder
It's rare to find an online resource that provides so much useful information. Created by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Healthfinder has an easy-to-use searchable database with comprehensive information on asthma, allergies, deafness, diabetes, abuse and other health issues that affect students.
Health Info Source.com - Allergies
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Historica Minutes
See, Hear, Remember (September 2008)
Choose Historica Minutes – Military to see short re-enactments of Canadian war moments. You may recognize some of these from television. Viewed together they have a strong emotional impact. Lesson Plans, at the top of the page, leads to a searchable database.
Historical Atlas
Explore interactive maps from various periods of Canadian history with this cache of cartographic data. The sophisticated software features data-layering capabilities that allow students to overlay information of their choice. To maps covering the Age of Exploration, for instance, users can add locations of French and English trading posts as well as modern geographical information for a sense of how yesterday relates to today.
History Lands
The site features images which, when expanded, have well-researched information about the historical location. The QuickTime movies offer actual video of the locations. Four activity areas allow students to meet curriculum expectations through a web-based approach.
Students can learn about the changes to flora and fauna through history, how an archeological dig is carried out and how to keep a log bookof their adventures – all without a textbook!
The Horizon Solutions Site
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
howstuffworks
This information-packed site shows how things work and is a great resource for teachers. Topics range from simple to complex. More interesting offerings include: black boxes, GPS tracking systems, NASCAR racing safety, hybrid cars, microprocessors, plasma cutters and ejection seats.
Scroll down the home page and, in the left-hand column, click on Big List of Articles for a comprehensive list of topics.
HTML Tutorials by John C. Gilson
John Gilson, a teacher at Pauline Johnson Collegiate in Brantford, has developed this remarkable HTML primer for the web site beginner.
Human Rights Watch
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
I
I Education Apps Review
The veteran teachers running this simple, effective site have done all the work for you – pulling together more than 200 educational mobile apps. Focused on iPhone/iPod Touch, the site offers well-written image-and-video-enhanced reviews of hundreds of applications. Look under Lockers in the left-hand navigation bar for more teacher-submitted items. You can also join the Twitter feed, which rotates at the top of the page. Large, nicely designed buttons allow you to share with others.
I Love That Teaching Idea
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
Founded by two elementary
school teachers, this site is terrific if you are looking for teacher-supplied
ideas for your classroom. There are 20 different categories, including
First Day, Classroom Management, Substitutes and Learning Centers. You
can also submit your own ideas for other teachers to use.
IBM Canada Scitechmatics
Scitechmatics provides brief descriptions of IT and engineering career options. Women who work in technology at IBM say how they ended up in their professions, what they do at work, their hobbies, passions and dreams.
In Search of the Knowing Ways
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
International Kids Space
Of kids, by kids, for kids - budding young authors from around the world can publish their work in the Storybook section of Kids Space. A area titled class work features school projects, some of which have come from India, Italy, Germany, Japan, the US and Korea. The one concern that I have with the site is the disclaimer at the bottom of the page, which says that works may be published in a variety of media styles (CDs, books) and that submissions become the property of Kids Space.
Internet for Classrooms Virtual Field Trips
Worlds at their fingertips (June 2007)
Internet History Sourcebooks Project
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
Internet Public Library
Reference Sites (June 2006)
At the Internet Public Library,
click on Ready Reference for almanacs, calculation and conversion tools,
census and demographic information, grammars, periodical directories, style
guides and much more.
Internet Special Education Resources (formerly: Internet Resources for Special Children)
Special Education (March 2006)
iTools
A dictionary, thesaurus, translator and currency converter. This nifty amalgam of search engines will also pluck rhyming words (still nothing for "orange"), pronunciations anagrams and acronyms.
It also provides biographical data on "notable citizens," Bartlett's quotations and a host of geographical tools, including maps, facts and telephone directories.
Ivy's Colouring Page
This site offers hundreds of colouring pages at the click of a button. Just type a word (cat, house) into the search box to find a page that you want and you have a printable page in seconds.
K
KidKanuck
Proudly Canadian, KidKanuck offers a well-organized list of links to resources for kids and devotes an area to special needs. This area includes links to sites that focus on: AIDS, Attention Deficit Disorder, Autism,Cerebral Palsy, Diabetes, Learning Disabilities, and Vision, Hearing and Speech.
As a bonus, KidKanuck's education section has information and links organized under headings including: educational software, K-12, pre-school, public schools and teaching resources.
Kids and Cars
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Kids Domain
If you are looking for a quick, simple list of craft projects and clipart for kids, you might want to visit Kids Domain. This Ontario-based web site has crafts for Scouts, teens, gift-making and holidays plus lots more. Projects range from simple to complex. Skill ratings come with instructions.
KidsHealth
KidsHealth is a great site for both young children and teenagers and includes information on complex and difficult topics, such as cheating, parents fighting, running away, hazing, self-cutting, tattooing and plastic surgery.
The site is beautifully designed and makes good use of age-specific, kid-friendly colours and graphics. It also includes a number of interactive features such as the Daily Brain Buzz, memory games and quizzes.
Kids' Planet
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
Kinder Art
Special Education (March 2006)
L
Language Arts Sites for Students
This bare-bones site consists of links to language arts resources created by teachers for teachers.
LD online
Special Education (March 2006)
A smiley face with arms raised
high provides a positive first image on this site, leading to a wide range
of information on learning disabilities. The Forums section lets you talk
to other teachers under a variety of categories. You'll also find links
to Canadian web sites.
Learning to Give
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
This site helps children and teens develop a sense of philanthropy globally and within their communities. Under “teachers,” you’ll find approximately 1,200 lesson plans listed by grade. Many references are to American states, but move deeper and you’ll discover fully developed, detailed lesson plans that are not geographically restricted.
Learn through art
This site offers an extensive list of lesson plans – many presented from an unexpected musical/arts perspective. For example, geometry is taught through dance. It also provides more traditional lesson plans, such as landscape through the camera, pioneer poems and many native education resources. Created by the Royal Conservatory of Music, you can search the database by subject, grade, province and language.
Learning Disabilities Association of Canada
Special Education (March 2006)
This site is nicely designed,
provides specific information on AD/HD and resources for other learning
disabilities. Spotting the Signs helps teachers to recognize symptom changes
as a child ages, plus there is a comprehensive section on assistive devices,
helpful books and links to related web sites.
Letters and Images
See, Hear, Remember (September 2008)
The Canadian Letters and Images Project is an online archive of the Canadian war experience. The Collections section lists soldiers by name, with the number and type of documents they created, and provides brief biographies.
Librarians' Internet Index
Reference Sites (June 2006)
The Librarians' Internet Index contains
tens of thousands of vetted entries maintained by librarians and organized
into 14 main topics and nearly 300 related topics. You can subscribe to
a free weekly newsletter featuring dozens of high-quality web sites, carefully
selected by a team of librarians.
Little Five Star
Little Five Star is a division of Five Star Publications, publishing books exclusively for children.
Living arts
Specific program information is found at this museum site. Students from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 10 can participate in artist-run workshops linked to the Ontario curriculum. Special programs can be created for Grades 11 and 12. Workshops include textiles and fibre arts, sculpture and ceramics, printmaking and drawing, drama, dance and music.
Living traditions
This attractive, easy to navigate site honours the North American Indigenous Games. Presented by Virtual Museum Canada, the site includes detailed information on the Sacred Run, lacrosse, canoeing and kayaking, Métis and Inuit games, archery, Coast Salish canoe racing and Woodland games and sports. Flash quizzes and games test your knowledge and skills.
Teacher's Corner provides a complete listing of web and print resources divided into elementary and secondary categories. Instructions for various games such as Long Ball and wolf-or-hunter-tag are also provided, with indications regarding the appropriate grade level.
Living With Severe Allergies
Safely back to school (September 2007)
M
Magnum Photos
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
Martindale's Calculators On-Line Center
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
Math Dictionary
Penguins lead the way in this sweetly designed math dictionary for kids. It includes more than 600 math terms. Fun is provided by corresponding quizzes and animated examples, like a pelican’s beak that opens at different angles – depending on the value entered – to catch a fish.
Mathfrog
Mathfrog is an excellent site where you can access many 45- to 60-minute lessons for Grades 4 to 6. The lessons are intended for use as reinforcement at the end of a unit, and each contains worksheets and either a math game or a technological tool.
The Master List button leads to a well organized chart of activities with notations regarding strand and expectation. From the cemc site, follow the links English > Resources > mathfrog.
Mathswap
This promising new site from the University of Waterloo has been up and running since August 2005. The site is intended for teachers to share anything they think may be useful to colleagues. There are many resources for Grades 9 to 12; just click on Search for Resources.
Menu of Choices
A simple bulletin-board design highlights healthy eating lessons based on Canada’s Food Guide. Under healthy environments you’ll find a school nutrition checklist, healthy food choices for school events and guildelines for starting a school nutrition action committee. Also look for recipes, posters and newsletter templates.
Merriam-Webster
Word games and an exceptionally nice visual dictionary can be accessed at the top of the home page. To build vocabulary, subscribe to the Word of the Day and let students solve the daily word game. A link to Word Central (www.wordcentral.com) offers word puzzles and a build-your-own-dictionary section. Daily Buzzword is good for vocabulary-building exercises.
MES English
ESL Tools for the Classroom
Designed particularly for kindergarten to Grade 6 students, but also good for beginning high school students, this site includes colouring sheets, stickers, flash cards, games, worksheets and a language-resource room. MES-Kids at the bottom of the page leads to a few simply designed vocabulary games.
More Apple Apps
Here are some of the better apps for teachers: Flash Me (flash cards), Mathematical Formulas, GradePad, Educate, TeacherTool, Attendance, iGrade for Teachers, ClassMarker and Lesson Planner Advanced. You will find many more education applications on the colourful, well-organized Apple site.
Museum search
As easy as one, two, three – the Ontario Museum Association's database includes a search function for Ontario museums by name, type or city. Or click on a map to locate museums in your area. Information includes a brief description of each site plus maps, web sites and contact information.
N
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics promotes high-quality math learning and is very active in supporting teachers. This site offers over 150 lessons for pre-K to Grade 12. The lessons are sorted by grade and strand. They include objectives, worksheets, follow-up, extensions and related web sites.
National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities
Special Education (March 2006)
National Earth Sciences Teachers' Association
The Natural World (December 2006)
National Geographic Kids
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
National Geographic Society
National Geographic's site is updated daily. It boasts pages related to the society's television series, magazine, a children's section, photography and online quizzes. Teachers can also subscribe to e-mail updates to assist them with in-class projects.
National Ocean Service
The Natural World (December 2006)
An easy-to-navigate site with
topics broken into oceans, coasts, charting and navigation. Under the Education
link, you'll find discovery kits, case studies and lesson plans. See Data
Explorer for searchable information on a variety of topics. See the Web
Sites section for additional sites.
National School Safety Center
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Natural Resources Canada
A one-stop depot for Canadian earth science materials, this site is basic in design with simple access to information. Topics include geological resources, geography and Arctic tutorials, with links to EarthNet, a virtual resource centre for educators.
Nature Canada
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
Nature Challenge
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
Suzuki’s site has many projects for kids.
Nature Conservancy Canada
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
NetSmartz - Teens
Safely back to school (September 2007)
NetSmartz Workshops - Cyberbullying
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Newfoundland and Labrador’s Living Healthy Schools
You’ll find a lot of good, solid information packed into this education web site. It provides an overview of Newfoundland and Labrador’s school health initiatives and includes comprehensive links and access to many provincial and national resources.
New teachers' survival guide
The New Teachers' Survival Guide offers easy-to-navigate information on getting organized, classroom management, discipline, grading and tips for the first day of school.
Newspapers Worldwide
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
Nye Labs: Bill Nye the Science Guy
Bill Nye's web site uses the latest web technology to promote his television show while providing a few projects for kids. Nye's web pages include home science projects, a question of the week and e-cards that can be sent to friends.
O
Ollie's World
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
Online Conversion
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
Online Newpapers
Reference Sites (June 2006)
This site has a link to Canadian
newspapers plus 16 drop-down menus broken into North America, United Kingdom,
Europe, South/Central America, Asia/Asia Pacific/South East Asia, Middle
East, West Indies and South Pacific.
Ontario association of career colleges
This site's searchable database offers detailed information on all of Ontario's career colleges. Students can choose a profession and a city and receive a complete listing of all schools – with links to their web sites – offering the program they wish to take.
Ontario Curriculum Tracking Templates
Brent Philips of the Halton District School Board has created approximately 190 or so tracking templates for each subject area. The templates offer an overall picture of which expectations specific students have achieved and at what level of performance. Philips also offers Ontario elementary curriculum links sorted by subject area, grade level and strand.
Ontario Parent Council
The Ontario Parent Council's bilingual web site acts as a gateway to related online resources and provides commentary on education issues in Ontario as well as news and other information pertinent to parents and educators.
It features links to about 400 sites including parent organizations inside and outside Ontario, the Ministry of Education, other governmental and education organizations as well as school councils and school boards.
Ontario Science Centre: SciZone
The well-known Ontario Science Centre has a section on its site called SciZone. Here, you can slide along a timeline to follow the aging process of a boy and girl from childhood to age 122, the age of the oldest known person. It also provides a few responses to the question: "Why do we age?"
Oriland
A single piece of paper, some snips, folds and tucks and you've created a masterpiece. Plus you've found a great way to help children develop creativity and hand-eye co-ordination. Oriland provides lots of origami instructions and some challenging opportunities for exploration. It's definitely a site for older children and a great resource for teachers.
Oxfam Cool Planet for Teachers
Oxfam Cool Planet for Teachers (there's also an Oxfam Cool Planet for Children) provides a variety of teacher resources, including a curriculum for global citizenship, suggestions for teaching students about distant localities and a section called school linking and twinning.
P
Parent Pals
Special Education (March 2006)
PBS Kids Share a Story
Interactive Flash games make this site a lot of fun for children and adults alike. Write a story by clicking on the words to fill in the blanks - I created one about a cat with scaly wings with a striped hotdog. Words are spoken out loud by the computer as you choose them and children can e-mail their final story to a friend. Kids can also rhyme a story, create a story or make a story for someone in their family.
PBS Zoom
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
PhysicsEH
Earl Haig teachers embrace social media
Mark Caruana, OCT, and Adam Morin, OCT, have posted more than 40 physics lessons on YouTube.
Planning Your Next Steps After High School
The provincial government's web site breaks student options into categories, including: I want to go to university; I want to go to college; I want to learn a trade; I need financial assistance for postsecondary studies.The site offers a career planning guide and tips for finding work.
Planet & Vision: Teacher Vision
See, Hear, Remember (September 2008)
This year’s International Day of Peace is September 21 and these two sites offer a significant
number of relevant printable materials and lesson plans, as well as many supplementary resources.
Polar Husky
Choose the links at the top of the page to get immediately to the heart of the site where you have a front-row seat to a five-year dog-sledding expedition to five Arctic destinations. You'll find trail reports, notes and maps, supplementary materials for students and extensive teacher resources. The fancy navigation is irritating.
ProTeacher Community
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
The ProTeacher Community
Archive is a growing collection of tens of thousands of ideas shared by
US and international teachers over the years. Type "back to school" in
the search field and you'll receive 61 different suggestions. The nice
thing about this site is that the tone is friendly and conversational.
ProTeacher Special Needs Discussion Groups
Special Education (March 2006)
Protozone
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
R
Reach the World
Reach the World takes students from severely underfunded schools on annual field trips around the world, and invites other students to join them online for the voyage. There's a daily log book plus journals, field notes and itineraries on this very nicely designed site.
Reading and Remembrance
See, Hear, Remember (September 2008)
This year’s project launches in September and the theme is Letters Home.
Themes from previous years are still available on the site.
Readysetgo.org
Based in Toronto, Readysetgo is a project of the Ontario Physical andHealth Education Association. Geared more to parents, it also has excellent resources for teachers. The kids' area includes interactive games and an invitation to "Meet an Athlete."Rockhounds
This well-designed site introduces beginners to the world of rocks, minerals, fossils, gemstones and Canadian geology. The junior rockhound section includes student-friendly information on fossils, mining, rocks and minerals, and geology. A field trips and trip safety section provides good information on preparations, map-reading and safe rockhounding – plus a code of conduct for collectors.
S
Safe Canada
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Here's a great federal
government site with national links to lots of safety information. See
School Safety, Teachers and Kids for the most relevant material. Topics
include: Chat/News Groups, Emergency Preparedness at School, Injury Prevention
and much more.
SafeTeens.com
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Save the Planet
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
Similar to Wikipedia, Squidoo is compiled by self-proclaimed experts. The good ones provide links to books and supplementary information. Lenses are ranked by users. Save the Planet offers information on wind turbines, green living and a new way to compost. Scroll down the page to RSS news feeds from environmental organizations around the world.
Scholastic for Teachers
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
While the back-to-school
materials are not extensive, they are well organized and separated by grade.
For especially useful items for teachers, click on any of the links at
the top of the page. Tools offers a number of teaching templates and classroom
management materials while Teacher Home provides teaching ideas by grade.
The site also includes a nicely designed home-page builder you can use
to create your own teacher web page.
SchoolBookings.com
If you need an author to speak at your school, Arizona-based SchoolBookings.comprovides a comprehensive searchable database of willing international authors. The database is broken down according to grade and 40 categories, including animals, art, technology and women's issues.
You can book the authors online and negotiate speaking and transportation costs. Some authors will speak for free. Signing up for access to one section of the site allows you to post requests for speakers and view articles on education written by the authors.
School Bullies – Canada Safety Council
Safely back to school (September 2007)
School Bus Site
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Simple, colourful animation
makes the Ontario Safety League web site a good one for young children.
Elementary-school student Sam walks kids through safely boarding, riding
and dismounting the bus.
SchoolFinder.com
SchooFinder.com has information on more than 1,400 Canadian universities and colleges. Students will find information on business, law and medical schools plus graduate and undergraduate programs and so on. Sign up for the member's only section of the site, which allows you to customize searches and gives you access to ScholarshipsCanada.com.
SchoolNet
While it may be a well-known standard among most teachers, SchoolNet is still worth mentioning as one of the largest sources of teacher information in Canada. With over 7,000 learning resources, the site is nicely designed and has at least three areas for teachers: Curriculum, Teacher's Corne and Federal Learning Resources.
School Psychology Resources Online
Special Education (March 2006)
Schools for a Living Planet
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
World Wildlife Fund Canada’s Schools for a Living Planet offers over 30 curriculum-linked, printable in-class activities for Grades 3 to 8. Each unit is school board approved and has a unique environmental theme designed to meet curriculum expectations in English, social studies and science. You’ll need to sign in to access the materials, but it’s worthwhile to do so.
Science Daily
The Natural World (December 2006)
Scriblink
Need to illustrate a point with students or colleagues? Scriblink is a free web-based digital whiteboard that is “sorta like pen and paper, minus the dead trees.” The interface is easy to use, plus you can invite people to participate, use VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), set up a telephone conference, and save, print or send your file. You can also change the board’s background colour, add links and upload images.
Scrub Club
Here’s a fun way to help kids fight germs. Webisodes and games bubble up, showing kids how to properly wash their hands. I like Big E’s Grossest Hits, The Five Finger Alert and the Villain Gallery. Sal Monella, a germ-toting cowboy, is particularly creative.
Sick Kids – Safe Kids Canada
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Skills connect
Students who wish to apprentice in a trade can discover everything they need from the provincial government's Skills Connect site and the Waterloo Region District School Board's Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program, two very comprehensive sources.
Slideshare
Free sign up gives you access to thousands of slide shows – why reinvent the wheel when someone else has done it for you? A few examples include: What Makes a Good Teacher, A Teacher’s Guide to Web 2.0 at School, Building a Great School Faculty and Action Research for the Reflective Teacher.
SNOW Project
The Special Needs Opportunities Windows (SNOW) web site is a useful tool for teachers who teach students with special needs, are interested in special education or want to share information and experiences with their colleagues.
The site is a clearinghouse of information that covers a wide range of topics – from teaching methodologies and best practices to professional development.
The curriculum section includes materials adapted by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, a teacher'sguide to teaching Braille to children and electronic resources submitted by teachers to share with others.
Special Needs Opportunity Windows (SNOW)
Special Education (March 2006)
A partnership between the provincial
schools branch of the Ontario Ministry of Education and the University
of Toronto's Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, SNOW provides online
workshops (most are free), discussion forums and curriculum materials – plus
links to adaptive technologies, web tutorials and Ontario-specific information.
Staying Alive – School Bus Safety
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Stone Soup Magazine
Stone Soup encourages young writers less than 13 years of age to submit their work for publication. The web site supplements the magazine. It includes hundreds of pieces of original published work, including some stories read aloud by authors. Canadian children are regularly published in the magazine. Submissions must be sent by mail and publication on the web site is based on editorial choice.
Stopbullyingnow.com
Safely back to school (September 2007)
STOP Cyberbullying
Safely back to school (September 2007)
stopcyberbullying.org offers
age-specific information. Choose the blue apple for teacher materials.
Storyline Online
The American Screen Actors Guild Foundation has created a vibrant site where well-known actors read streaming video books for children - complete with illustrations. Each e-reading comes with a lesson plan and activity guide. There are only about a dozen books available and you can choose between three file size options for opening the story. Listening to the stories is a lot of fun.
Street Cents
The Street Cents TV show and web site concentrate on debunking spurious marketing claims, specifically those made by companies that market primarily to young people. The TV show's forte is the Street Test in which teens test products in real world situations then judge the products as representing good value or not.
The value of the Street Cents site is that it archives these test results, as well as other editorial content re-purposed from the show, including some pretty funny commercial reviews, and presents them in an authentically funky web format.
A black background, numerous video clips from the actual show and a vaguely subversive design effectively convince anyone much over 20 that they're not invited to this corporation-bashing party.
Struggling to Learn
PBS's Struggling to Learn site may be geared to parents but it has well-written information on learning disabilities. Sections are broken into reading, writing, math and attention disabilities.
Content delves into the complexities of learning disabilities and how they affect children and their ability to function. A frequently asked questions section provides responses from doctors and education specialists and a link to the Misunderstood Minds web site (www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds). Here you will find testimonials about specific children with specific learning disabilities.Both sites offer solid information for anyone working with a child who has difficulty learning.
Studentlink.org
The site includes material specifically put together for Catholic schools and public schools and covers Grade 1 to Grade 8 curriculum requirements. It lists more than 2,500 links updated monthly related to specific grades and Ontario Curriculum subjects.
A click on any one of them opens up a world of resources – all of them appropriate and relevant to the grade, making it safe for students.
T
Teach Children ESL
ESL Tools for the Classroom
This lovely web site – maintained by teacher volunteers – proudly announces free resources for teachers and no registration required. It’s the only site I’ve seen that offers socially conscious ESL materials, such as environmental education worksheets. You’re also invited to submit your own lesson ideas for posting.
The Teacher's Corner
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
The Teacher's Corner
is organized by: Primary, Intermediate, Teacher Resources and any grade.
Included are assembly themes, back-to-school reading lists, how to help
kids think before speaking, first-day activities, first-week homework,
ice breakers and kits.
Teacher exchange
Drexel University in Pennsylvania offers a teacher exchange for pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12. All you need to do is click on Find a Lesson, and then select your grade. Lessons are organized by strand. The site is well designed and easy to navigate. Browse its Teacher Resources for your grade.
Teacher Resource Center
Special Education (March 2006)
TeacherVision.com
Special Education (March 2006)
Teachers Helping Teachers
Many of the links are top notch. “A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust” (http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust) explains the Holocaust, provides definitions and has pictures of artwork from prisoners in Auschwitz and Birkenau. The site cautions teachers to review the material carefully before using it and offers guidelines from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Teach Nutrition
Ontario’s registered dieticians have created this attractively designed site just for teachers. Big bold blue bars on the left sort content by grade. Other click-through features appear in boxes on the right, including research resources, a menu planner and age-specific Flash games. Be sure to check out the free teacher workshops and the Nutrition Innovation Award, which provides $100 prizes to kindergarten to Grade 8 teachers in recognition of innovative ideas for teaching nutrition.
Teacher's Planet
Brampton-based Teacher's Planet has lesson plans, themed units, worksheets, grade books and book lists. The Teacher Tools section offers puzzle makers, teacher forms, flash cards, rubrics and access to demos of educational software. For an Ontario-based site, however, it offers a lot of US resources.
Teachertube
Skip the US-based partner videos at the top of the page and access the thousands of educational videos, Word and PowerPoint documents, audio files and teacher blogs. Abbot and Costello’s Math Problems and the Kenya Clapping Games videos are two of my favourites. The site’s ads are extremely irritating because they appear on top of some of the videos.
Planet & Vision: Teacher Vision
See, Hear, Remember (September 2008)
This year’s International Day of Peace is September 21 and these two sites offer a significant
number of relevant printable materials and lesson plans, as well as many supplementary resources.
TeAchnology
While it is heavily subscription/membership driven, TeAchnology offers thousands of free lesson plans, work sheets, organizers, rubrics and so on. In each section, you'll have to scroll down the page past the subscription info to get to the really good free stuff – but it's worth the effort.
Teacher Web
I normally don’t review sites where the majority of services aren’t free, but this one is a worthy exception because it lets teachers quickly and easily create their own web site. Signing up takes minutes and content categories are already in place for you. Many Ontario schools are on the drop-down registration list. You can try it free for 30 days followed by a $39 annual fee.
Tech Museum of Innovation
The Tech Museum of Innovation, in the heart of Silicon Valley, has a web site offering a range of tech information. Two particularly good online exhibits are Robotics and Tech Topics. The Robotics section lets you operate the controls for an exploratory rover.
Also included are audio discussions on robot ethics, a history of robotics and activities to help students understand the potential and limits involved in creating robots.
Tech Topics cover earthquakes, matter, genetics, electricityand the cardio-vascular system. Each section includes a comprehensive vocabulary list and extensive resource links, conveniently located at the top of each page.
Teen Reads
Teen Reads is a beautifully designed site with hundreds of book options and descriptions. There are more than 1,000 book guides and links to book clubs for teenagers. The Readers Say section provides teenagers with a chance to comment on books they've read.
If a teenager is an avid reader, he/she will find lots of interesting information to help them choose the next book to read. If he/she isn't an avid reader, the colourful images and detailed information may be just the thing needed to get started.
Teen Workers
Safely back to school (September 2007)
TeensHealth – Staying Safe
Safely back to school (September 2007)
Terra - the Earth Observing System
The Natural World (December 2006)
The AngerOnline.com Children's Booklist
Here's a quick site to check for books geared to children and anger management. Choices are sorted into: Books for Helping Children Understand Anger, Games for Helping Children Understand Anger, Other Tools for Helping Children Cope with Anger.
The Best on the Web for Teachers
An education portal for teachers, the Best on the Web for Teachers offers more than 400 links to educational resources. This includes: language exercises, free software, pre-school and kindergarten materials, science fair projects, math games and online quizzes.
The Canada Site
This gateway provides access to 450 web sites with up-to-date information on more than 1,000 programs and services. Navigate by subject, organization or keyword search.
Some features are geared toward educators. Under the Subject Categories listing, for instance, teachers will find the Youth, Education and Canada sections, which bring together topics of relevancefor both inside and outside the classroom.
Students can quickly discover the influences of multiculturalism on Canadian history and culture, thanks to a series of engaging sites from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Another example includes Human Resources Development Canada and its sites related to career planning and job opportunitiesfor young Canadians.
The Canada Site also offers resources that facilitate exciting web-based classroom activities. The About Canada page prompts users of all ages to test their knowledge on Canada and its social and physical geography with a series of multilevel, interactive quizzes.
Any school project that focuses on Canadian cultural development will likely benefit from the information available on the Path of Heroes site from Canadian Heritage.
The Free Dictionary
Hear how a word sounds with this dictionary. A click of the mouse loads audio clips with no lag time. You can play electronic scrabble, hangman, spelling bee and word matchups. Home-page clutter and advertising are minor irritants.
The Global Oneness Project
Tools to build a better planet (June 2008)
The great outdoors
This site has a wealth of information for teachers interested in student field trips. Under Outdoor Adventures, you'll find arts & wonders, nature viewing, water adventures, hiking, snow adventures and spring highlights. Arts & wonders also takes you to history & heritage, which offers detailed information about aboriginal educational programs across the province.
The Hunger Site
"Every 3.6 seconds, someone dies of hunger; 3/4 of the deaths are children under 5. When a country dims on this map, it signifies a death from hunger in that country."
This is the greeting that welcomes you to www.thehungersite.com, a web site dedicated to bringing relief to the world's hungry. The site links to the United Nations World Food Program.
The Journey Inside: The Computer
The Journey Inside: The Computer provides easy-to-use materials for science, math and computer teachers of Grades 5 to 9. The kit contains a teachers' guide, introduction video, classroom video, poster, and hands-on computer chip kit.
The Life and Times of William Grant Still
Designed to also work as a travelling kiosk, this web site provides some terrific insights, sounds and images of William Grant Still, "the dean of African-American composers" and the music he created. Still is credited as the first black composer to have a symphony performed by an American orchestra.
There are numerous links to sound files, as well as a complete biography. Worth a look for any student interested in music, its history, its theory and its legends.
The Rainforest Alliance Learning Site
This handsomely designed site has lesson plans on the rain forest for Grades K-6. The site includes slide shows categorized by grade that can be shown using a computer and projector.
The UN for Kids, Youth and Educators
The UN for Kids, Youth and Educators site offers a Teacher's Toolbox and curriculum guides. Another section called What Kind of World? (created by the Canadian International Development Agency) provides lesson plans and handouts.
The Visual Dictionary
Simple word searches lead to layer upon layer of meanings with large, clearly presented visuals.
Thinking Fountain
Thinking Fountain's site is chock full of a variety of projects for children. Instructions are clear and each section has a list of supplies a child will need to make their creations.
TVO Career Matters
While most teachers are likely aware of the TVO Career Matters site, it's still well worth mentioning since it offers descriptions for more than 500 careers, including videos of individuals talking about their work, specific job duties and required high school courses.
U
UNICEF: Voices of Youth
"More than 121 million children are not in school today - 65 million girls. What do you think needs to be done for every child to be ableto go to school?"
So begins UNICEF: Voices of Youth, a site dedicated to the rights of youth and children around the world. Here, you'll findinformation on child protection, girls' education, HIV/AIDs, immunization and sustainable development.
The teacher's resource section includes information that may be useful to educators who teach children affectedby war. The strongest part of the site is Children and Youth Speak Out where children around the world comment on issues that affect them.
Unsolved Mysteries
The Teachers section of this attractive site offers numerous resources, including Mystery Quests – short, one-lesson plans that allow would-be CSIs to analyze evidence from notable historical Canadian cases and prepare profiles of suspects. Teachers’ notes are included with each cold case. More detailed guides and experts’ interpretations of each mystery are also available, however, users must register to access these.
US Geological Survey
The Natural World (December 2006)
Using English
This well-stocked site has lots of ESL handouts, worksheets and other teaching tools. It includes a news feed, extensive glossaries, articles and resources. You can register for free access to more info and forums, but you do have to answer a lot of questions. You may want to skip the downloadable software – it doesn’t work properly when you try to install it.
V
4-H Virtual Farm
These two sites are great for elementary students. Canadian-based Virtual Farm Tours covers five or six different types of farms. The Virginia-based 4-H Virtual Farm is great for younger children. The horse-farm section is colourful, with lots of videos and information. Both sites include farmer interviews and interactive learning features like moveable magnifying glasses and Horsing Around.
Veteran's Affairs
See, Hear, Remember (September 2008)
This repository of Remembrance Day materials is one of the best places to start your resource search.
Choose Canada Remembers. Find learning modules, 50 ways to remember, quick facts and information booklets under
Youth & Educators – Teachers’ Resources. Be sure to check the 2004 section. You can also order free publications
and a DVD.
The Vigil Project
See, Hear, Remember (September 2008)
Beginning November 4, from sunset until sunrise the next day, the names of fallen World War I soldiers will run on the National History Society site with the last appearing at sunrise November 11. The site will also offer live web casts and supplementary resources.
Virtual Farm Tours
Worlds at their fingertips (June 2007)
Virtual Field Trips
Worlds at their fingertips (June 2007)
Virtual Field Trips 2
Worlds at their fingertips (June 2007)
Virtual Lab
Worlds at their fingertips (June 2007)
Virtual Museum Canada
With 193 interactive exhibits, 420,000 images and 150 interactive games, this is one of the best-designed sites I've seen. Choose Fun and Games > All Games and scroll down to Musical Compositions to see one example of just how powerful the site is. Run your mouse along the harmonica and it plays like it would if it were at your lips. The Teachers' Centre provides numerous lesson plans and there is a directory of Canadian museums.
Visual Dictionary
Searching for Words on your Desktop (March 2008)
Simple word searches lead to layer upon layer of meanings with large, clearly presented visuals.
Voices of Youth
Tools to Build a Better Planet: June 2008
UNICEF’s beautifully designed site features powerful messages on child rights, children and disabilities, global warming, carbon footprints and many other issues. There’s a radio-drama competition and a video contest plus lots of discussion forums and sections like Young Voices from Conflict Zones and an extensive youth-created online art exhibit.
W
Web Aware
Safely back to school (September 2008)
Where the Rice Goes
Tools to build a better planet (June 2008)
Wiser Earth
Tools to Build a Better Planet (June 2008)
Works4Me
The Washington-based National Education Association offers more than 400 classroom tips. Plus you can receive weekly e-mail tips from other teachers. Presented as filing cabinets, topics are broken into teaching techniques, getting organized, relationships (family, professional, substitute teacher) and using technology. Managing your classroom has great tips on behaviour control, attendance and inclusion.
WorldAtlas.com
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
World Atlas and Factbook
This site offers an exhaustive list of countries, their capitals an territories, with encyclopedic-like entries for quick and easy reference. Users encounter an overview of the world on the main page, replete with population, land mass, climate, elevation extremes and natural resources.
The World Fact Book
Back-to-school Sites (September 2006)
A World of Resources
ESL Tools for the Classroom (December 2007)
Ontario teacher Magda Kalinowska has created a simply designed, easy to navigate site pointing to a number of ESL resources geared to the Ontario curriculum and broken into different learning levels. You’ll want to check out Canadiana and teacher links in particular.
World Rainforest Information Portal
Another well-designed portal to rainforest links, the World Rainforest Information Portal includes a good library of map links and a section devoted to data and research.
The "What can I do to help?" section contains information on conscious consuming, green transportation and direct action. Information is suited to older students and teachers.
One nice feature is the "Protect an Acre Program" where a school could raise funds to protect an acre or more of rainforest.
Y
Yahoo! Canada
Searching for Canadian Educational Content on the Internet
Youth Opportunities Ontario
Links to starting a business, loan programs and a young entrepreneurs program lead surfers through the labyrinth-like steps it takes to start a business. If you can't find answers, the site lists phone numbers and addresses of offices to help.
Your dictionary
I wasn't able to locate an online Canadian dictionary, but yourdictionary.com is a comprehensive option. It includes thesaurus, multiple language choices, specialized glossaries, translation, style guides and word lists. Specialty dictionaries - education, etymology, metallurgy and carpentry - are accessed via the top navigation bar.
Youth Action on the Issues
Tools to Build a Better Planet: June 2008
The Yuckiest Site on the Internet
Back-to-school Sites: September 2006
Z
Zap Root
Tools to Build a Better Planet: June 2008
The Zone
Safely back to school: September 2007
British-based
kid-generated videos, art, content against bullying
