Need LEGO Ideas? Take a Look at This!
Making things with LEGOs is one of my favorite indoor activities to do with my daughters. We’ve spent many rainy days building all kinds of things LEGOs. Often we follow the directions from a guidebook and sometimes we just make our own things. Every once in a while they ask for another LEGO guidebook. I’m […]
Students Can Learn About Weather Patterns and Make Forecasts in the Smithsonian Weather Lab
The Smithsonian Science Education Center’s Weather Lab is a simple online activity designed to help elementary and middle school students learn about weather patterns. In the Weather Lab students select an ocean current and an air mass then try to predict the weather pattern that will result from their choices. The Weather Lab provides an […]
Short Lessons and Activities for the Start of Spring
The snow in our yard is at least two feet deep right now. This was concerning to my youngest daughter who asked me on the way to school, “can we have spring if it’s still snowy?” My answer, of course, was that spring will still start even if our yard is buried in snow. That […]
How to Catch Monsters – A Halloween Play Script
How to Catch Monsters is a free play script published by Playbooks Reader’s Theater. The play was written to be performed by students in first through third grade. The play centers around two children who are trying to catch blue, green, and purple monsters. The children do get a little help from their work-from-home dad. […]
Read Write Think Animal Inquiry
This morning I’m taking my daughters to a little petting zoo near our home. They love to pet the goats, sheep, ponies, horses, and bunnies. Both of my daughters love learning about animals and they are both learning to write right now. Thinking about those things reminded me of a writing template hosted by Read […]
Rhythm Fit – New Lesson Plans from OPEN Phys Ed
Last spring I highlighted OPEN Phys Ed’s National Field Day activities and lesson plans. For the new school year OPEN has published a new collection of lesson plans, activities, and videos for K-8 students. The new collection is called Rhythm Fit. You can access all of the Rhythm Fit resources right now with a free […]
Ten Good Templates for Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts Activities
At the start of this year ReadWriteThink re-released all of their popular interactive templates for creating all kinds of things including poems, story plots, timelines, compare & contrast maps, and much more. If you haven’t looked at ReadWriteThink in a while, take a look at these updated templates that can be used for lessons in […]
Fun Science Lessons for Students and Parents to do This Summer
Today is the first day of June and even though it was only 44F when I woke up this morning, summer is on my mind. I’m sure it’s on the minds of many of you, your students, and their parents as well. If you have students whose parents are asking for some things they can […]
Create an Alphabet Book on ReadWriteThink
This week Larry Ferlazzo shared the exciting news that ReadWriteThink relaunched all of their popular interactive student writing templates. The templates now work without Flash. One of my favorite templates that has been relaunched by RWT is the Alphabet Organizer template. Alphabet Organizer is a great little tool from Read Write Think that students can use […]
Solving Problems With Simple Machines
A couple of weeks ago one of the most popular posts of the week was A Cute Series of Videos About Engineering. That post was about a SciShow Kids series containing a lesson about what engineers do and two lessons about using engineering to solve problems. This week SciShow Kids released a new video that […]
Five Genius Hour Activities With Tract – Students Teaching Students
Disclosure: Tract is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com Genius Hour or 20% time in a classroom provides students with an opportunity to pursue topics and projects of their choice. Rather than the teacher telling students what project they should complete and how they should complete it, students choose the topic and the project that appeals […]
Lighthouses and Minibooks
The Library of Congress has a great collection of activities suggestions and resources for parents who are looking for educational activities they can do at home with their kids. The collection is called Resources for Family Engagement. Within this collection you will find activity kits that offer directions and ideas for making mini books at home, designing […]
WriteReader Adds New Features for Teachers and Students
WriteReader, one of my favorite tools for telling stories with pictures, recently launched four new features for teachers and students. One of the new features improves the usability of WriteReader while the other three enhance the overall experience for teachers using WriteReader in their classrooms. Phone-friendly Interface WriteReader was originally built to be used on […]
Letters, Numbers, Seasons – Free Classroom Posters
PBS Learning Media‘s newsletter should be on the subscription list of every elementary school teacher in the U.S. I subscribe to it simply because of all of the great resources it provides that I can use with my own children. An example of that is found in the latest issue of the PBS Learning Media […]
Free Summer Reading Packets from ReadWorks
Summer is here in the northern hemisphere. If you find yourself looking for some summer reading that you can give to elementary and middle school students, ReadWorks has you covered. Once again this summer ReadWorks is offering free summer reading packets that you can send home with your students. The free summer reading packets are available with […]
Catchy Words – A Fun Augmented Reality App for Spelling Practice
My daughters recently became very interested in a PBS Kids show called Word World. In each episode of the show the characters build a new word. As I was watching Word World with them this morning I was reminded of a fun augmented reality app called Catchy Words AR. Catchy Words AR is an augmented […]
Combine Canva and Classwork to Create Online Activities
Canva offers nearly two thousand worksheet templates for teachers to copy and modify. All of the templates can be downloaded as PDFs. You could print them and give them to your students to complete. But who wants another thing to have to print and keep track of? So instead of printing worksheets made with Canva’s […]
Use WriteReader With Google Classroom
WriteReader is a good tool for elementary school students to use to create multimedia stories. I’ve featured WriteReader in about a dozen blog posts over the last few years. It has two distinguishing features that I always point out. First, it provides space for teachers to give feedback to students directly under every word that […]
Snoopy in Space – Lesson Plans About Space and More
From a very young age I’ve enjoyed Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and all of the characters in Peanuts. Watching Charlie Brown specials and reading the Peanuts comic strip is something my uncles did, my sister and I do, and now my daughters do. That’s why I was excited to discover that the Peanuts website now offers […]
Get the Wiggles Out With Sworkit Kids
Sworkit Kids is a free app that I’ve been using and recommending for a few years. It provides prompts for one to five minute physical activities that kids can do in their classrooms or at home relatively small spaces. These activities are great for short brain breaks or to “get the wiggles out” during a […]
A Good Game for Learning About Nutrition Around the World
The Smithsonian offers a lot of neat apps and games for elementary school students. One of those games is called Pick Your Plate. It’s available to play in your web browser or as an iPad or Android app. The premise of Pick Your Plate is that students have to create balanced meals within a budget […]
Wizer Now Offers a Google Drive Add-on
Wizer is an online platform for creating multimedia worksheet activities that you can distribute to students through a variety of means including Google Classroom. On Wizer you can design worksheet activities that include pictures, text, videos, and audio. One of its better features is the option to add questions directly on top of images and […]
“Why Do We Have Fall?” – A Post Inspired by My Daughter
“Why do we have fall?” That was the question that my four year old asked while we were walking in the woods yesterday. It was a good question (she’s full of good questions these days) and I tried my best to explain that different times of the year have more or less sunlight which […]
Classwork- Quickly Create & Share a Variety of Online Activities
Disclosure: Classwork is an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com. As the new school year begins we’re all trying new things while also trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Classwork is a new tool that lets you tick both of those boxes. With Classwork you can quickly and easily convert some of your favorite “old standby” activities […]
Five Elementary Lessons You Can Do With Pixton EDU
Disclosure: Pixton is currently an advertiser on this blog. For many years I’ve promoted the idea of using comics as a way to get students to develop fiction and nonfiction stories. In fact, I’ve hosted webinars in which I explained how I’ve used comics as the basis for getting students interested in telling history stories. […]
Kids Can Learn About National Parks on a Virtual Road Trip With Nature Cat
PBS Kids Nature Cat collection offers a bunch of great activities that elementary school students can do at home with or without direct involvement of parents. One of the activities that kids can probably do on their own is the Nature Cat Road Trip. On the Nature Cat Road Trip students learn about a handful of […]
Fact Fragment Frenzy – An App to Practice Identifying Facts
Yesterday, I shared Common Craft’s new video about facts and opinions. In looking for some related resources I came across a blog post that I wrote a few years ago about a free iPad and Android app from Read Write Think. The app is called Fact Fragment Frenzy. The purpose of Fact Fragment Frenzy is to help […]
WriteReader Templates Can Help Students Start the Writing Process
WriteReader is a great tool for creating multimedia stories that I’ve featured a half dozen times or more over the years. The last time I wrote about it they had just added some new page styles. Last week WriteReader unveiled a new feature that I think a lot elementary school teachers will like. WriteReader now […]
Free Historical Coloring Pages
If you’re looking for an offline activity that you can recommend to parents for their students to do at home, take a look at the New York Academy of Medicine’s Color Our Collections website. The site contains contributions from more than one hundred museums and libraries around the world. The participating museums and libraries offered […]
Math & Science Halloween Lessons
This afternoon one of my students asked me what my daughters are going to be for Halloween. That question reminded me that Halloween will be here soon. If you find yourself starting to look for some Halloween-themed math or science lessons for elementary school, take a look at the following items. PBS Learning Media also […]
A Halloween-themed Physical Education Program
In last week’s episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I mentioned a great blog for physical education teachers. That blog is called Keeping Kids in Motion and it is written by Justin Cahill. One of the free resources available on his blog is Fitness is Spooktacular. Fitness is Spooktacular is a kids fitness challenge for […]
How to Create Talking Pictures With ChatterPix Kids
ChatterPix Kids is one of my favorite digital storytelling apps for elementary school students to use. For many years the app was only available in an iPad version. Earlier this year an Android version was released by the developers, Duck Duck Moose. ChatterPix Kids is a free app that students can use to create talking […]
5 Places to Find Summer Math Activities for Elementary School Students
Summer break will be here soon (for those of us in the northern hemisphere). As evidenced by the popularity of last week’s article about the ReadWorks summer reading packets, preventing summer slide is a topic that many are interested in at this time of year. A few readers emailed me over the weekend looking for […]
Rivet – A Reading App from Google
Rivet is a reading app from Area 120 (a Google property). The free app offers more than 2,000 books for students to read independently. The books are appropriate for students in Kindergarten through second grade (5-8 years old). All of the books provide audio support to students in the form of an option to tap […]
Create Individualized Spelling Games Through Flippity Spelling Words
Flippity’s Spelling Words is a free Google Sheets template that you can use to create individualized spelling games for your students. To do this you simply have to make a list of words that you want each of your students to practice. You’ll then put those lists under your students’ names in a Google Sheets […]
Theme Poems and Shape Poems – Activities for Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month here in the United States. This is a good time to remind you or introduce you to a couple of good resources from Read Write Think about poetry. RWT’s Theme Poems interactive provides students with 32 pictures to use as the basis for writing short poems. To write a poem students […]
Eat & Move-o-Matic Encourages Healthy Eating and Exercise
Eat & Move-o-Matic by the Learning Labs Game at New Mexico State University is a free iPad app intended to help teachers and students get a better understanding of the impact of their food choices. Eat & Move-o-Matic is based on a simple premise. That simple premise is calories in, calories out. The does this by […]
An Educational Game About Animal Habitats
Habitats is an educational game from the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The online game challenges elementary school to match animals to their habitats. In the Habitats game students are shown images representative of four habitats; desert, coral reef, jungle, and marsh. To play the games students have to drag pictures of animals from a list […]
Wiggle & Stomp – A Fun App for Learning About Animals
Shutterbugs Wiggle and Stomp is an educational game produced by the Smithsonian. The purpose of the game is to help children recognize the movements of animals. In the game children move through a virtual zoo with a zoo keeper. As they go through the virtual zoo the zoo keeper will ask students to take pictures […]
eMammal Lite – Practice Identifying Animals and Learn Where They Live
eMammal Lite is an online activity based on the wildlife photographs on the Smithsonian’s eMammal site. eMammal was previously known as Smithsonian Wild. All of the pictures on both sites were captured by camera traps. Camera traps are wildlife cameras that are triggered by motion when an animal walks in front of a sensor. On eMammal […]
I Don’t Like Vegetables – A Free Book About Eating Vegetables
One of my favorite parts of the BETT Show is the section called BETT Futures. BETT Futures is comprised of small stands of small start-ups. It’s in that section that I have found many neat products over the years. Today, I found a small stand owned by a woman named Debbie Coggan who was featuring […]
Kids World Atlas – An iPad App for Learning About Animals Around the World
Last week I wrote a review of the Kids U.S. Atlas iPad app. That app offers an interactive map of the United States that kids can tap on to learn about 25 animals that are indigenous to the United States. Kids World Atlas is the companion app to the Kids U.S. Atlas. Kids World Atlas […]
PBS Kids ScratchJr – Scratch With a PBS Twist
PBS Kids ScratchJr is a PBS Kids-themed version of the popular ScratchJr app. PBS Kids ScratchJr is available as a free iPad app and as a free Android app. The app is designed to help five to eight year old students learn basic programming concepts through a drag-and-drop interface. Just like the ScratchJr app, on […]
A Fun App for Learning About Money
Money Math Duel is an iPad app and Android app designed to help students learn to count currency. The app is unique in that it allows two students to use it at the same time. Students place the iPad between them and each has his or her own end of the screen to use. Students […]
Great Ideas for Mystery Skype & Hangouts
This week I am welcoming some guest bloggers. This one is from Sarah Fromhold. Mystery Skype is a concept that first began around 2011. The premise is that students Skype with another class somewhere in the world, and each class tries to guess the location of the schools by asking yes or no questions. When […]
A Good Tool for Writing Reflections on Stories
Scholastic’s Character Scrapbook offers a good template that elementary school students can use to write about and reflect on the characters in their favorite stories. The template is quite simple to use. Students enter the name of a story and the name of their favorite character on the first page. On the next pages students list […]
Parts of Speech Quest
ABCya offers hundreds of fun and educational games for elementary school kids. Parts of Speech Quest is one of the games that was recently featured on ABCya’s homepage. Parts of Speech Quest is a series of nine games that, depending upon your age, will remind you of Legend of Zelda or Minecraft. Each of the […]
700 More Writing Prompts from Make Beliefs Comix
Last week I shared an ebook of writing prompts from Make Beliefs Comix. That ebook is just one of many free writing prompt resources offered by Make Beliefs Comix. This morning I explored the site and found more than 700 writing prompt pages. All of the pages are designed to be printed and given to […]
11 Halloween Lesson Resources
Halloween is just two days away. If you’re looking for some Halloween-themed lessons, take a look at the following resources that I featured earlier this month. All About Poe In Why Should You Read Edgar Allan Poe? students can learn about Poe’s guiding principles for writing, the recurring themes of his work, and the personal factors in […]
How to Find and Modify Halloween Games in Kahoot
Halloween is only seven days away. If you’re an elementary school teacher, you might be planning to do some trick o’ treating safety reviews with your students. Playing Kahoot games is a fun way to review almost anything including Halloween safety. That’s why I made the following video to demonstrate how you find and modify […]
Two New Ways for Kids to Create Stories on WriteReader
WriteReader is one of my favorite tools for elementary school students to use to create multimedia stories. The outstanding feature of the service is the option for teachers to write corrections directly beneath a students’ original writing in their ebooks before publication. Students can record their voices on the same pages that they write on […]
Halloween Articles for ELA Lessons
ReadWorks is a popular service that offers a huge library of standards-aligned ELA lesson plans for K-12. You can search the ReadWorks library according to grade level and topic. Throughout the year ReadWorks publishes curated collections to align with holidays and other major events. This week ReadWorks published a collection of forty-two articles and lesson […]
Kindness Bookmarks and Kindness Bingo
This week I had the opportunity to observe a great teacher-librarian in action at Sigsbee Charter School in Key West, Florida. One of the activities that she did with kids was making “kindness bookmarks.” The kids made bookmarks like the one in the picture for this post. All of the bookmarks weren’t the same, but […]
A Fun and Free State & Country Capital Identification Game
Capital Toss is a free geography game from ABCya. The game has a state capitals mode and a country capitals mode. In both modes of the game works the same way. The name of a state or country appears at the bottom of the screen and three rows of capital names scroll across the top. When […]
Nature Cat’s Great Outdoors – An App for Sunny, Rainy, and Snowy Days
Nature Cat’s Great Outdoors is a free app from PBS Kids. The app, available for iOS and Android, provides students with activities they can do outdoors in all kinds of weather. And there some indoor activities for those days when you really don’t want to go outdoors. To use the Nature Cat’s Great Outdoors app […]
5 Free iPad Apps for Making Videos in Elementary School
In the next weeks I’ll be spending quite a bit of time working in elementary school classrooms that are equipped with iPads. One of the things that I’ll be doing is helping teachers help their students make short videos. These are some of the apps that we’ll be using. Teachers will try them with me […]
SciShow Kids Answers “Why Do Animals Have Tails?”
My daughters and my dogs’ tails have a close relationship. Sometimes that relationship is tested by a quick grab of a tail and sometimes tested by a swishing tail to the face. But no matter what, my dogs always wag their tails when we come home. That, of course, begs the question, “why do animals […]
Monster Heart Medic – A Game for Learning About Heart Health
Monster Heart Medic is a free iPad app produced by the Lawrence Hall of Science with funding from the National Institutes of Health. The purpose of the app is to help students learn about the cardiovascular system through a game environment. The basic premise of Monster Heart Medic is that students have to help a […]
ABCya’s Number Chart Is a Fun Math Activity for Kids
ABCya’s Number Chart is a simple but fun online activity for elementary school students. The chart offers “beginner” and “challenge” activities. In both activity levels students have to drag numbers into their proper places on a number line. In the “beginner” level students are shown a number line of ten numbers at a time. In the […]
This RWT Template Helps Students Craft Persuasive Essays
Developing persuasive writing skills is a process that students start in elementary school and continue to develop through high school and beyond. Read Write Think offers a good interactive guide that can help students craft a good persuasive essay. The Persuasion Map asks students to start with a thesis statement before walking them through developing […]
Educational Games for Elementary School Science Lessons
Educational games can be useful in helping to reinforce concepts and content. A good game can keep students engaged while also helping them develop some thinking skills at the same time. You could create your own games on platforms like Kahoot or Metaverse, but those might not provide the depth of context that professionally developed […]
Camp GoNoodle – Four Weeks of Fun and Educational Summer Activities
Camp GoNoodle is a summer program offered by the folks at GoNoodle. The program is designed for elementary school age students to complete over the course of four weeks. It can be used in a summer camp setting, summer school setting, or at home setting. There is a different theme for each week. Within each […]
10 Good Templates for Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts Lessons
Earlier this week I published a post about Read Write Think’s theme poem online activity. Obviously, that activity is a great fit for a language arts lesson. RWT is known for language arts interactive activities and templates. Dig a little deeper into RWT and you’ll find interactive activities, apps, and templates that can be used […]
PBS Kids Summer Adventure Math Lessons
Summer is here (in the Northern Hemisphere) but that doesn’t mean that the learning has to stop. PBS Learning Media recently published set of resources designed to help you help the learning going throughout the summer. PBS Kids Summer Adventure is a set of eight online and interactive activities designed to help kids ages 4-8 […]
Why Do We Itch? – A Science Lesson
Summer here in northern New England brings long and sunny days that make us forget about the short and frigid days of winter. Those sunny days come with a catch. That catch is blooming poison ivy and biting insects that make us itch. But what really makes us itch? Is there any way to avoid […]
WriteReader Is Now Available In Spanish
WriteReader is a fantastic tool for elementary school students to use to create multimedia ebooks. I have been impressed by it since the first time I gave it a try a few years ago. WriteReader provides students with a place to write stories that include pictures and their own voices. On each page of their […]
Hurricane Webinar 2018!
Thanks to a teacher at Sigsbee Charter School in Key West I learned about a free webinar for fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students. The webinar is the 2018 Hurricane Webinar hosted by Hurricanes: Science and Society team in partnership with the NOAA National Hurricane Center and the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center. The goal of […]
New Scenes and Characters Added to Storyboard That
Storyboard That has been one of my favorite digital storytelling tools since I first tried it many years ago. Many readers of this blog have come to love it too. Three of the things that make Storyboard That popular are its ease of use, the free lesson plans, and a commitment to continuous development. That […]
A Fun App That Helps Kids Learn How Animals Adapt to Their Environments
As the weather warms students start asking, “can we have class outside today?” If you’re an elementary school teacher who has heard this recently and you’re ready to get your kids outside for a lesson, take a look at Plum’s Creaturizer. Plum’s Creaturizer from PBS Kids is a free iOS and Android app that lets students create fun […]
A Hands-on Science Lesson for the Spring
When I was in Kindergarten we grew marigolds in Styrofoam cups and took them home in spring (probably for Mother’s Day, but my mother will have to confirm that detail). I was reminded of that little project when I watched a new SciShow Kids video. Earlier today SciShow Kids published a video titled Grow Your […]
Draw and Tell – Great App for Simple Digital Stories
This afternoon, for the first time ever, I let my toddler use my iPad. I hadn’t planned on letting her play with it, but I had it open to play music and she grabbed it while I was changing her sister’s diaper. She enjoyed pushing the button and seeing things change when she tapped the […]
13 Free Typing Games for Kids
TypeTastic is a service that currently offers thirteen free typing games. The games start with basic skills like identifying the letters on a keyboard and build up to touch typing skills. Unlike some other typing games services, all of the TypeTastic games are designed to work equally well on laptop as they are on a […]
Three Free iPad Apps for Creating Animated Movies
Last night I answered an email from a reader who was looking for a free alternative to Tellagami. Tellagami hasn’t been updated to work with iOS 11 so if you’ve updated your iPad, the app won’t work. Tellagami says that an update is coming, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for that. They said […]
A Cup Stacking Typing Game
ABCya produces lots of games designed to help elementary school students sharpen their skills in a lot of areas. Included in ABCya’s catalog of games is a fun typing game called Cup Stacking. In this game students have to type the letters that they see on the cups that appear on their screens. When they […]
The Cat In That Hat Knows A Lot About That – Educational Activities Inspired By Dr. Seuss
Today is the birthday of Dr. Seuss. If he was alive he’d be turning 114. Here’s a set of fun, online activities that you could use to celebrate the work of Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That is produced by PBS Kids and features online games, videos, puzzles, and printable materials based on […]
Squirrels!!! Why Are You Digging In My Lawn?
Along with the birds returning my yard, the squirrels and chipmunks are starting to dig around in my lawn. The same thing might be happening in your students’ yards too. SciShow Kids has a new video that explains why squirrels are dormant for much of the winter and why they dig in the spring and […]
Front Row Introduces New ELA Practice Activities
Front Row is an excellent service that provides differentiated reading materials and practice exercises in K-12 classrooms. Front Row offers articles and exercises on topics in math, science, social studies, and language arts. The latest update to Front Row features new ELA skills practice activities. The new ELA skills practice activities on Front Row are […]
NASA Kids’ Club – Fun Games for Learning About Space
NASA Kids’ Club is a collection games, interactive activities, and images for students in Kindergarten through fourth grade. At the center of the NASA Kids’ Club is a set of games and interactive activities arranged on five skill levels. The activities range from simple things like guessing numbers in “Airplane High Low” to more difficult […]
Youngzine – Great Current Events Resource
Youngzine is an excellent resource for anyone who needs ideas for current events lessons in an elementary school or middle school classroom. Youngzine articles feature a mix of news, sports, and entertainment stories for elementary school students. A new edition is published weekly. Most articles on Youngzine are accompanied by a supporting video. Articles that reference […]
Create Valentine’s Day Cards on Canva
Valentine’s Day is five days away. In elementary school it can be fun to make and distribute innocuous little greeting cards. (Middle and high school turns into a day of drama). Last week I shared directions for creating Valentine’s Day cards on Storyboard That. Another option is to use the free card templates that are […]
Try the Redesigned Make Beliefs Comix
Make Beliefs Comix has long been one of my favorite tools for creating comics. In fact, I recently featured it in this post about using comics in social studies lessons. Over the weekend the founder of Make Beliefs Comix sent me a note about the redesign of his free comic creation tool. The new version […]
Peter Pig Helps Kids Learn About Money
Peter Pig’s Money Counter is a fun little game designed to help kids learn to recognize U.S. coins, to recognize the values of U.S. coins, and to add the values of U.S. coins. The game is available to play online. Peter Pig’s Money Counter is also available as a free iPad app and as a […]
WriteReader Launches a New User Interface
WriteReader is one of my favorite writing tools for elementary school students and their teachers. WriteReader is a free service that students can use to create multimedia ebooks. I like it so much that I have included it in my Best of the Web 2018 presentation. This week WriteReader unveiled an updated user interface. The […]
Videos and Google Earth File for Learning About Glaciers
SciShow Kids recently published a new video that explains to children how glaciers are formed and how they change over time. SciShow Kids is intended for early elementary school grades and this video about glaciers not an exception to that pattern. For older students you might want to take a look at How Do Glaciers […]
12 Free Lessons About Rocks, Minerals, and Landforms
Scholastic has a nice resource called StudyJams that contains short videos, slideshows, and quizzes about a variety of topics commonly taught in elementary school classrooms. Rocks, Minerals, and Landforms is one of the topics covered in a unit of twelve StudyJams. The Rocks, Minerals, and Landforms StudyJams include videos, slideshows, and short quizzes. Some of […]
Try This Fun, Free AR App for Outdoor Lessons – A 2017 Favorite
For the last five days I have featured the most popular posts of 2017. On this last day of the year, I’m going to highlight my favorite posts of the year regardless of their popularity. This post features an augmented reality app for elementary school students. Spring is here in the northern hemisphere and those […]
RWT Flip Book – Free Flip Book Creator for Kids
Read Write Think offers a lot of great tools to help you get your students interested in writing. One of those tools is the RWT Flip Book app. The RWT Flip Book app is available for iPad, for Android, and for use in your web browser (Chrome or Firefox is recommended). RWT Flip Book lets […]
WriteReader – Honoring the Emergent Writing of Young Learners
This is a guest post provided and sponsored by WriteReader. Last spring, I discovered WriteReader. Sign-up was easy and free, and the site is very user-friendly. I was pleased to find that it didn’t take hours of my time to figure it out before using it with my students. Most importantly, it’s “kid-friendly.” It’s designed […]
4 Ways to Use Flipgrid in 4th Grade
This is a guest post from Caroline Schaab. As a 4th grade teacher, I’m always looking for creative ways spark curiosity, promote student voice, and keeps students engaged and to want to continue learning outside of school. Last year, with a few weeks left in the school year, I was introduced to Flipgrid. Fligrid is […]
5 Ways to Use Comic Creation in Elementary School Classrooms
This is a guest post from Stephanie Krisulevicz. For the last few years I’ve been using cartoons in my classroom to assess my students knowledge. I’m sure you’re thinking, “Yeah, yeah, my principal would think I’ve lost my mind letting them play like that.” Don’t discredit the idea just yet! I’ve found that it’s quite […]
Character Scrapbook Helps Students Analyze Stories
Scholastic’s Character Scrapbook is an online activity that could help your students analyze the characters in the books that they read. The Character Scrapbook asks students to create a digital drawing of what they think a character from a book looks like. The Character Scrapbook allows students to create digital drawings of people or animals. After creating […]
Fraction Mash – A Neat App for Elementary School Math Lessons
Fraction Mash is a free iPad app that provides a fun way for students to learn about fractions. The app lets students insert two pictures then divide those pictures into grids, columns, pie slices, triangles, or rows. Once their pictures have been divided students select the portions of one picture that they want to combine […]
Introducing Programming to Elementary School Students
Earlier this week a reader emailed me with the following question: How would you introduce / start coding with a Grade 2 and 3 class? Snap or Scratch? My suggestion was to start with ScratchJr then move into Scratch. ScratchJr is available to use on iPads, on Android tablets, and on Chromebooks. ScratchJr uses the […]
Great Writing Prompts for Elementary School Students
Last month Night Zookeeper launched a fantastic creative writing platform called Writing Sparks. Writing Sparks offers timed writing prompts to share with your elementary school students. Students can respond to the prompts by writing on paper, in a word processing document like MS Word, or by writing on the Writing Sparks website. The Writing Sparks […]
Front Row Offers New Science Units for the New School Year
Earlier this summer I featured Front Row’s updated social studies units that complemented their existing language arts units. Over the summer Front Row expanded their offerings to include ten science units. Like all Front Row offerings within the new science units you will find multiple versions of the same article to distribute to your students. […]
Kids Discover Online Offers Great Concept Maps
Kids Discover Online offers excellent reference articles for elementary school and middle school students. All of the articles are offered in multiple versions to match a range of Lexile scores. But that is not all that Kids Discover Online offers. My favorite feature of Kids Discover Online is the concept maps that students can explore. […]
CK-12 BrainFlex Can Help Kids Keep Their Math & Science Skills Sharp This Summer
For the third summer in a row the CK-12 Foundation is hosting the CK-12 Brainflex Summer Challenge. The challenge is a free program that students can use to keep their math and science skills sharp through the summer while also learning some new knowledge and gaining new skills. Students register for the program and then track […]
Fact Fragment Frenzy
Fact Fragment Frenzy is a free iPad and Android app from Read Write Think. The purpose of the app is to help students learn how to pull facts out of a passage of text. The app includes a demonstration video in which the narrator explains which words in a text represent facts and which words […]
10 Apps & Sites That Help Students Learn To Spell
Last night a new champion was crowned in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. I followed a lot of the finals on Twitter last night. Like many others who followed the finals, I have to admit that there were some new-to-me words in the final rounds. That reminded me that I have a bunch of sites […]
The Kid’s Guide To How the Internet Works
Our students have never known a world without the Internet. Before they use the Internet, it’s a good idea to teach them what the Internet is and how it works. The Kid’s Guide To How the Internet Works is a free ebook designed for early elementary school students. The book is not comprehensive, but could […]
How the Popsicle Was Invented – A Tasty TED-Ed Lesson
How the Popsicle Was Invented is the title of a recently released TED-Ed video. The short video explains the origin of the tasty treat itself as well as the name “Popsicle.” This TED-Ed lesson doesn’t include any multiple choice or discussion questions. It’s just a fun little lesson for students to think about as the […]
Try This Fun, Free AR App for Outdoor Lessons
Spring is here in the northern hemisphere and those of us in northern climates are ready to get back to playing outside without wearing seven layers of clothing. This is the time of the school year when my students always ask about having class outside. If you’re an elementary school teacher who is ready to […]
Story Cubes – Templates to Help Students Plan Stories
Read Write Think’s Cube Creators provide templates designed to break the writing process into six distinct parts. There are templates for writing biographies, mysteries, short stories, and a blank template that you can customize. Students enter the required information into the online template. When the template is completed, it can be printed with lines for […]
Kitchen Science – Let’s Make Butter
SciShow Kids recently released a new video titled Let’s Make Butter. The video provides directions for making butter in your kitchen then goes on to explain the science of what happens in the process of making butter. Applications for Education Rainy days like the one we’re having here in Maine are perfect for kitchen science […]
Number Rack & Geoboard – Good Apps for Elementary School Math
Geoboard is a free app on which students stretch virtual rubber bands over pegboards to create lines and shapes to learn about perimeter, area, and angles. The app is available as as an iPad app and as a Chrome app. It can also be used directly in any updated web browser. The browser-based version can be […]
WriteReader and Sesame Street Partner to Help Kids Create Multimedia Stories
WriteReader, a fantastic multimedia writing platform, has just announced a partnership with Sesame Street. This partnership brings Sesame Street characters into WriteReader’s bank of images for students to use in their own stories. Now when students create a story in WriteReader they can choose one or all of twenty Sesame Street characters to place into […]
Plum’s Creaturizer – A Neat AR App to Get Kids Exploring Outdoors
Creaturizer from PBS Kids is a free iOS and Android app that lets students create fun cartoon creatures then place them into outdoor settings through the use of augmented reality. In the app students create cartoon creatures by swiping and tapping on the features they want their creatures to have (students can have multiple creature […]
Teach Your Monster to Read Minigames Overview
Last month the folks behind the popular Teach Your Monster to Read virtual world for literacy development introduced a set of minigames. The minigames are short activities designed to help students improve the speed and accuracy with which they recognize letters. In the video embedded below I provide a short overview of the Teach Your […]
Free Through the Weekend – Teach Your Monster to Read Mobile Apps
Teach Your Monster to Read is one of my favorite online programs for helping children learn to recognize letters and sounds. The browser-based version of Teach Your Monster to Read is free and always has been free. The mobile apps for the program are usually not free. Through this coming Sunday (March 26th) the iPad […]
Two Good Sources of Online Grammar Games
Road to Grammar is a free resource featuring quizzes, games, and lessons for English language learners. Visitors to Road to Grammar will find grammar quizzes. Most of the quizzes provide students with instant feedback. Part of the feedback that students receive on the quizzes they take includes explanations why an answer is correct or incorrect. Before taking the […]
How to Make a Terrarium
Build a Tiny Plant World! is the title of a new SciShow Kids video. The video explains how plants stay alive inside of terrariums and what you need to create your own plant terrarium. The video does a good job of explaining what students will need to create a terrarium and the elements within the […]
Two Ways to Design and Print Valentine’s Day Cards
One of the elementary school memories that most of us share is writing little Valentine’s Day notes for all of our classmates. Back then we had sheets of cards that all looked the same. Today, students can design their own cards to print and sign, Storyboard That offers templates for designing and printing Valentine’s Day […]
WriteReader Presents the Most Popular Topics Amongst Student Authors
WriteReader is a great multimedia writing tool for elementary school students and their teachers. On WriteReader students can create multimedia ebooks independently or with the assistance of their teachers. Teachers can log-in and see what their students have written. Teachers can make suggestions and corrections to what their students have written in WriteReader. Teachers’ suggestions […]
5 Good Elementary School Activities from the Smithsonian
The Smithsonian offers wonderful online resources for students of all ages. The Smithsonian’s Learning Lab lets teachers create collections of resources. But you don’t have to use the Learning Lab to use many of the activities available through the various Smithsonian channels. Here are five good online activities available through the Smithsonian. These are activities […]
The Climate Time Machine
Crafting my previous post about 40 years of snow data reminded me of a neat climate change demonstration for kids. NASA’s Climate Time Machine is one of many activities that students can complete on NASA’s Climate Kids website. The Climate Time Machine is essentially an interactive timeline that lets students see the changes in the […]
TinyTap Talk or Type – Voice Response Activities
TinyTap is a service that lets you create educational games for your students to play on their iPads, Android tablets, and in their web browsers. For the most part the style of games that are created on TinyTap are identification activities in which students either choose an answer or type an answer to a question. […]
WriteReader Offers Suggestions for Post-break Writing Activities
The holiday break is over and a lot of students have stories to tell about what they did in their two weeks away from school. Hearing students tell these stories after a break is one of my favorite things. The folks at WriteReader feel the same way and published a blog post featuring ideas for […]
10 Ideas for Using Comics In Your Classroom – Best of 2016
As I usually do during this week, I’m taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. Over the last couple of months I’ve shared a handful of tools that students can use to create […]
Great Ideas for Using Scratch in Elementary Math – Best of 2016
As I usually do during this week, I’m taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. Last month I received an email from Jeffery Gordon in which he shared with me an online binary […]
10 Sites and Apps for Vocabulary and Spelling Practice – Best of 2016
As I usually do during this week, I’m taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. Last night I watched the conclusion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. A recap of the finals is […]
Snot, Poop, Puke, and the Lessons They Teach
This post was inspired by my daughter whose snot, poop, and puke have been on me at various points in the last few days. Who Pooped? is one of the most Pinned resources of all time on this blog. Who Pooped? is an interactive site in which students learn about various animals by guessing which animal created […]
Reach Out Reporter – Science News for Children
Reach Out Reporter is a free service that provides science stories for elementary school students. The site is updated weekly with videos, articles, and graphics. There is a section in Reach Out Reporter called Fact Pack. In the fact pack section you will find sets of short videos and or images arranged around a central […]
4 Fun Facts About Reindeer
Thanks in part to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer some children don’t believe that reindeer (caribou) are real animals. SciShow Kids seeks to remedy that in their latest video 4 Facts to Know About Reindeer. Through the video kids can learn why reindeer are called caribou in North America. The lesson also teaches students how reindeer […]
How to Use Storyboard That to Create Greeting Cards
Earlier this week I published a tutorial on using Canva to create simple holiday greeting cards. Storyboard That also offers some good templates for creating holiday greeting cards. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to do that. Applications for Education As I wrote earlier this week, if you’re thinking about giving an assignment […]
How to Use WriteReader to Collaboratively Create Multimedia Books
One of last month’s most popular posts was about WriteReader. WriteReader is a free service designed to help elementary school students create multimedia books with the help of their teachers. Teachers can create online classrooms in WriteReader in which they can view and edit their students’ work. This afternoon I created a tutorial to show […]
Three Ways That Students Can Create Talking Pictures
A couple of days ago on Twitter someone asked me for suggestions for tools that work like Blabberize to let people create talking pictures. Blabberize is a site on which you can upload a picture and record audio to turn it into a talking picture. To do this on Blabberize you first upload a picture […]
Make Beliefs Comix Offers a Free Book of Bilingual Writing Prompts
Make Beliefs Comix is a free web and iOS app that offers a huge collection of comic templates for students. One of the features that you’ll find on the website is a set of editable ebooks for students to write in. One of the newer additions to the collection is a book titled A Book of […]
A Handful of Lessons on the Water Cycle
SciShow Kids is quickly becoming one of my favorite YouTube channels for educational videos for kids. The most recent video released on SciShow Kids is a concise explanation of the water cycle. The video, titled Where Does Water Come From?, explains how clouds are formed and why water is released from clouds. The video also […]
Create MadLibs Through Google Sheets
Flippity is my favorite place to find templates for creating neat things in Google Sheets. A MadLibs story generator is one of the cool templates you’ll find on Flippity. Flippity’s MadLibs template lets you create a series of MadLibs-style stories for your students to complete online (see a demo here). To create a MadLibs-style story […]
Padlet for Halloween and Thanksgiving
Earlier today Jennifer Casa-Todd asked me if I had a video tutorial on how to use the new version of Padlet. I do have a tutorial about the new version of Padlet. You can see it on my YouTube channel or as embedded lower in this post. Coincidentally, I received an email from Padlet today. […]
WriteReader – Collaborative Book Creation for Elementary School Classrooms
WriteReader is a neat multimedia writing platform for elementary school teachers and students. The appeal of WriteReader is found in the collaboration between students and teachers. Students can create multimedia books that teachers log into to correct. As is seen the video below, each page of a book has a space for students to write […]
10 Ideas for Using Comics In Your Classroom
Over the last couple of months I’ve shared a handful of tools that students can use to create comics. I even conducted a webinar on the topic last month (the recording is available here). There is no shortage of tools for creating comics available to students. Regardless of which comic creation tool you choose to have […]
5 out of 5 of These Resources Can Help You Teach Fractions Lessons
In an earlier post I highlighted the Thinking Blocks tools included in Math Playground. Thinking Blocks offers a good way to introduce your students to fractions. Here are some other good resources for teaching fractions. Who Wants Pizza? is a fun online activity for learning about fractions. Who Wants Pizza was developed by Cynthia Lanius at Rice University. The activity […]
ToonyTool – Quickly Create Single Frame Comics
ToonyTool is a free website for quickly creating single frame comics. To get started with ToonyTool simply go to site and either upload a background picture or choose one of their background picture options. Then you can choose comic characters to appear in your comic. Once your characters are chosen, select speech bubbles and add […]
Four Halloween-themed Lessons from SciShow Kids
SciShow Kids is a YouTube channel produced by the same folks behind the massively popular SciShow. SciShow Kids offers short video lessons on a variety of topics from animals, to space, to fun science experiments that could be done with a parent or teacher. Recently, SciShow Kids organized a playlist of videos covering topics that […]
TinyTap Courses – Create Interactive Lessons for iPad & Android
TinyTap is an excellent tool for creating your own educational games that your students can play on their iPads, Android tablets, or in the web browser on their laptops. I have been demonstrating the platform in workshops for elementary schools for a few years. It has been a hit every time I show it off. This […]
You Choose 2016 Teaches Kids About the Presidential Election Process
Last month I featured the classroom debate kits from PBS Election Central. This week PBS published another good resource for helping students learn about the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. PBS Kids You Choose is designed to help elementary school students understand some of the key points of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. The site features […]
Youngzine is Updated for 2016-17 School Year – Great Current Events Resource
Youngzine is a great service that provides teachers with current events articles written for classroom use. I first used the site in 2012 and it has only gotten better since then. Youngzine has been updated for the 2016-17 school year with a fresh and responsive design, new classroom discussion features, and easier sign-in options. Youngzine […]
Try Math Landing for K-6 Mathematics Resources
Math Landing is a database of mathematics lessons and interactive resources for use in elementary school. You can search for lessons and interactive resources by grade level and or by mathematics topic. You can search Math Landing and access the resources without registering. If you do register you can participate in the Math Landing message board […]
Keep Kids Active With GoNoodle or Sworkit Kids
GoNoodle is a free service that is designed to promote physical fitness in a fun environment. GoNoodle features tons of free videos that lead students in short, 2-5 minutes, exercises. These are fun exercises like dancing that can be done in your classroom or at home with parents. GoNoodle provides an online environment in which […]
A Compare & Contrast Essay Map for Young Students
Read Write Think’s Compare & Contrast Map is a template for creating a comparative essay. Using the template students are guided through writing three styles of comparison essays. To get started students identify two things that they wish to compare and or contrast. Then they choose if they want to write a “whole to whole” essay, […]
Alphabetimals – A Dictionary of Animal Sounds
Alphabetimals is a nice website on which you will find some nice resources for helping young children learn the alphabet. The primary feature of Alphabetimals is a dictionary of animals and the sounds that they make. On the Alphabetimals dictionary page kids can find a handful of animals listed for each letter of the alphabet. When […]
Character Scrapbook – A Template for Reflecting on Stories
Scholastic’s Character Scrapbook provides a nice template that elementary school students can use to write about and reflect on the characters in their favorite stories. The template is quite simple to use. Students enter the name of a story and the name of their favorite character on the first page. On the next pages students […]
My Three Favorite Video Creation iPad Apps for Elementary School
Over the last month I have spoken at conferences all over the United States. Creating videos with students is was the topic of one of my most popular break-out sessions during that time. In that session I try to offer resources and ideas for teachers of all grade levels. I also try to provide resources […]
Explain VR Virtual Zoo – Animals in Virtual Reality
Explain VR Virtual Zoo is a free iPhone app that is designed to work with Google Cardboard. The free app features ten animals in virtual reality. Some of the animals featured in the app include giraffes, elephants, tigers, and bears. Each animal appears individually and students can see them move in virtual reality. Audio in […]
A Nice Set of Animated Science Lessons for Children
The Children’s University of Manchester has great collections of animated lessons covering seven science subjects for students of early elementary/ primary school age. The lessons cover The Body and Medicine, Energy and Environment, Earth and Beyond, Teeth and Eating, Micro-organisms, The Brain, and Exercise. For each science subject covered by The Children’s University of Manchester […]
5 Great Writing Activities from Read Write Think
Over the years Read Write Think has published dozens of excellent templates and tools for elementary school language arts lessons. Five of my favorite Read Write Think activities are featured below. Read Write Think offers a good interactive guide that can help students craft a good persuasive essay. The Persuasion Map asks students to start with a […]
Elementary School Lessons About Fossils and Rocks
The American Geosciences Institute produces K-5 GeoSource which is a site that hosts lesson plans and other educational resources for teachers. K-5 GeoSource has a very Web 1.0 look to it, but if you do a little digging you’ll find some helpful materials. A few of the resources that I looked at were this free […]
Photos for Class + Canva = Fun Animal Stories
Photos for Class is a great tool for locating Creative Commons licensed images that your students can use in all kinds of projects. The great thing about Photos for Class is that when students download an image from the site all of the attribution information that they need is included in the image’s footer. This […]
5 Ways Your Students Can Create Digital Valentine’s Day Greetings
With Valentine’s Day coming up next weekend I’m reminded of filling out little Valentine’s Day cards in elementary school. In talking with a friend who teaches elementary school, she confirmed that many classes still do that. Besides paper cards there are other options for creating Valentine’s Day greetings. Animoto has video templates for almost every […]
Develop Mathematics Skills With Sushi Monster
Sushi Monster is a free iPad game from Scholastic that helps kids practice their addition and multiplication skills. This is the premise of Sushi Monster; students feed their Sushi Monsters by correctly choosing two numbers that when added or multiplied result in the number that the monster wants to eat. When the monster has been […]
Choosito – A Search Engine With Reading Level Index
Ever since Google removed the reading level option from their advanced search menu I’ve received at least one request per week from readers looking for alternative options. Recently, I have started to suggest trying Choosito. Choosito is a search engine that offers a reading level index for its search results. When you search on Choosito […]
Three Free iPad Apps for Fun Vocabulary Practice
Yesterday, I received an email from an elementary school teacher who was looking for some new-to-her vocabulary practice apps to put on her classroom set of iPads. The following were my suggestions. Winning Words is a series of free iPad apps that feature matching / “memory” style vocabulary games. There are six apps in the […]
Lots of Lessons About Winter Weather
Conditions at my house on Tuesday. A large winter storm is in the forecast for later this week in the northeastern United States. If you like snow, this is a great forecast for you. If you hate snow, the snow is still coming. I subscribe to the philosophy that you should make the most out […]
How Do We Know What Color Dinosaurs Were?
How Do We Know What Color Dinosaurs Were? is a new TED-Ed lesson that answers a question I often had in school. In the lesson we learn how scientists examine the melanosomes of fossilized feathers to determine the colors of some dinosaurs. The lesson explains how the physics of light and color eventually lead scientists […]
Three Fun Phonics Games from Teach Your Monster to Read
For the last few years I’ve been a fan of the online learning game called Teach Your Monster to Read. The game is designed to help students improve the speed and accuracy with which they recognize letters and sounds. The game gets its name from the friendly monster avatars that students use in the game. […]