9 sources of news for kids that you may not know about

Newspapers have always been an excellent educational resource for teachers. Now with the Common Core's focus on reading non-fiction material, they are more valuable than ever. Many of the classrooms that I have visited have been using either Time for Kids or CNN Students News and with good reason as both are terrific resources. Below are nine additional websites to consider when incorporating news into the classroom.

Newsela
Newsela is an awesome site that I previously shared and it helps students develop close reading and critical thinking skills by offering current event articles with varying levels of text complexity. Lexile levels of an article range from 2nd grade up to 12th grade which allows for differentiation within the same classroom. The articles are categorized by war/peace, science, kids, money, law, health and arts. Many of the articles are accompanied by quizzes that provide quick feedback. Newsela is currently in beta and is free for all teachers.

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Science News for Students
Science News for Students features a collection of science related stories. Each week several new stories are added to the site. The stories come from a wide range of science disciplines as well as math and technology.

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DOGO News

Dogo News is a current events website designed for kids and teachers. For kids, the stories are interesting and written at appropriate level. For teachers, each article is identified for grade level and Common Core Standards and is accompanied by key vocabulary. An added feature is that each story is tagged for its geographical location which can be located on the site's "map" tab.

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Tween Tribune
Tween Tribune  posts age appropriate news stories found on the internet for students grades K-12. The stories are sorted by age group and there is spanish section as well. At the end of each story, students can respond by leaving comments or take a quiz.

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National Geographic News for Kids
One of the great features on National Geographic's Kid webpage is their news story section. Their stories range from science, people, animals, and even history. Each story is accompanied by additional resources related to the story which can be found to the right of the article.

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Our Little Earth
Our Little Earth is a free digital newspaper for kids that is published every two weeks. The news stories come from all over the world and are age appropriate for most learners. They do have "extra" activities that accompany each addition which do cost money. Their policy is "pay us what you want" and you get a one year subscription to their "extra" activities.

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Teaching Kids News
Teaching Kids News looks like a real newspaper and it read like one as well. The website shares stories from the areas of news, entertainment, sports, science, arts, and politics. Their content contains media literacy activities and is targeted to learners grades 2 - 8.

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Discovery News
Discovery News has a huge collection of stories gathered from a variety of sources. The topics range from science and tech to animals, history, and adventure. Each story ends with an area that allows students to react to what they have read. Stories can be search by category or by using the site's search bar.

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The Why Files
The Why Files is a website that I have shared earlier which helps students understand science through current events or maybe it helps kids understand current events through science. Each story explores is explored from a science perspective and includes pictures, diagrams, and charts to help students understand the topic. In addition to news, the site contains a classroom activities pages with discussion questions and quizzes from stories found on the web page. There is also an interactive section where students can learn about science based concepts through games and activities. Due to its focus on current events, the Why Files is just as useful to social studies teachers who may want to use it for current events and infuse some cross curricular science content.

5 Great Science Websites For Kids That You May Not Have Seen

1- Science Made Fun
Science Made Fun wants kids to love science by showing how fun science can be. The site is colorful and makes silly sounds as you move your mouse around the page. Kids can read science trivia, science jokes, and play science games. The site also has just over a dozen experiments that kids can perform in school or at home under the supervision of their parents.

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2- BBC's KS2 Bite Size

This site from the BBC offers information, games, and quizzes on a wide variety of scientific topics. The site is very simple to navigate with only three categories: Living Things, Materials, and Physical Process. Each category contains the specific topics such as food chains, microorganisms, changing states, and  friction just to name a few. Each topic has opportunities to learn, play games, and take a quiz on the topic. 

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3- EurekAlert

EurekAlert is a science based site that offers a large collection of kid friendly, science based new articles. Their collections of news stories is extensive and would work well with the new Common Core State Standards. In addition to their news articles, they do have science trivia as well as a collection of science videos. 

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4- Love My Science

Love my Science offers a large selection of fun science experiments that can be performed safely at home or in school with everyday objects. There are well over one hundred experiments that cover biology, chemistry, and even physics.  The site also has fun science games and trivia for kids to enjoy.

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5- Cells Alive

Cells Alive is the place for students to go when learning about cells. They cover cell biology, microbiology, immunology, and microscopy while offering the type of features that keep kids engaged.Using animation, games, and puzzles, this site will help kids learn about cells. The site also has quizzes, worksheets, and a cell cam for kids to watch. 

7 outstanding science based websites you may not know

1- The Why Files

The Why Files is a website that helps students understand science through current events or maybe it helps kids understand current events through science. Either way, the site provides a variety of opportunities for students to learn about science in interesting ways. The home page looks like a newspaper and contains a few news stories from around the world. Each story explores is explored from a science perspective and includes pictures, diagrams, and charts to help students understand the topic. In addition to news, the site contains a classroom activities pages with discussion questions and quizzes from stories found on the web page. There is also an interactive section where students can learn about science based concepts through games and activities. Due to its focus on current events, the Why Files is just as useful to social studies teachers who may want to use it for current events and infuse some cross curricular science content.

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2- Science (and More) to Music

Science (and More) to Music is a very neat website where you can find songs about a wide variety of topics from science, to social studies and even math. The songs are all written and performed by the sites creator Dr. Lodge McCammon. Some of the songs contain lesson support material, some have videos, and all songs have lyrics that accompany the music. Science (an more) to Music is a fantastic resource for teacher to utilize.

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3- Science Bob

Science Bob (AKA Bob Pflugfelder) is a website that wants to make science more fun and interesting for kids. The site offers a variety of learning opportunities for visitors including a science questions and answers section, and research section with a huge collection of links to websites, and science fair ideas. The parts that kids might find most interesting are the three areas set aside for science experiments. There is the experiments page which lists materials and instructions for simple experiments that can be done at home or in the classroom. There is the experiments blog which is another page that shares simple experiment ideas only this page has pictures. Finally, there is the video page where you can watch Science Bob perform even more amazing science experiments. Science Bob is a fun and educational website that teachers and parents should take the time to explore. Teachers can integrate ideas from the website into their lessons while parents can use the website to help support their children's education.

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4- Symphony of Science

Symphony of Science is a project that combines science videos with music to create new and novel ways to learn science concepts. The videos are from well known scientists like Carl Sagan and Bill Nye and the content shared ranges from dinosaurs, to astronomy, to global warming. Symphony of Science videos are an excellent resource to support science curriculum in the classroom of from home. Science teachers and students should take the time to watch these videos and bookmark this site because their library continues to grow.

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5- Succeeding with Science

Sellafield Ltd.'s science education section is built around fun and interactive educational games, activities, and videos to help students learn and love science. The student activities are sorted by age range from 4-7 years up to 16+ and there is also a teachers section. Each activity come with PDF lesson plans and support materials as well. Science teachers at all levels should find this site to be useful way to support their curriculum.

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6- Periodic Videos

Periodic videos is a science based website that features videos about all the elements on the periodic table. The site is the creation of video journalist Brady Haran, featuring real working chemists from the University of Nottingham. The site also contains other science based videos based on molecules, science based road trips, the symbols of physics and astronomy and more. Science teachers and students will likely find the site both fun and educational.

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7 - Understanding Science

Understanding Science is a site with a variety of resources to help increase student understanding of nature and process of science. The site offers options that will help both the science student and the science teacher. The site's Understanding Science 101 section and their resource library are places where students can explore to increase their content knowledge. Teachers can visit the sites various Teacher's Lounges to help with lesson plans, teaching tips and educational strategies.

The Why Files - The Science behind the news

The Why Files is a website that helps students understand science through current events or maybe it helps kids understand current events through science. Either way, the site provides a variety of opportunities for students to learn about science in interesting ways. The home page looks like a newspaper and contains a few news stories from around the world. Each story explores is explored from a science perspective and includes pictures, diagrams, and charts to help students understand the topic. In addition to news, the site contains a classroom activities pages with discussion questions and quizzes from stories found on the web page. There is also an interactive section where students can learn about science based concepts through games and activities. Due to its focus on current events, the Why Files is just as useful to social studies teachers who may want to use it for current events and infuse some cross curricular science content.

Headslinger - Share the news

Headslinger is a social media site that focuses on articles found on the web. After signing up (it's free) you begin by choosing a news site you like. You are shown the top headlines from that site for the day. If you like an article and wish to share it you simply click the "sling it" button. As you add favorite sites, suggested site appear on the left. You can choose up to 17 different categories to explore such as news, sports, humor, or entertainment to name a few. Headslinger is a great source to find and share interesting stories for current events in your classroom.

Clik/Hear - A Compelling Multimedia Showcase

Clik/Hear is a multimedia web page from the Palm Beach Post that features compelling stories, stunning images, and amazing videos from around the world. Their extensive collection has six categories; South/Florida, World/Nation, Sports, Lifestyle, Video, and Pictures of the Week. Just browsing through this last category (pictures of the week) can take up a lot of your time due to the sheer volume of photographs on display. If you are a fan of incredible photography, thought provoking stories, and remarkable videos, then take a look at Clik/Hear and be prepared to spend a lot of time browsing around.

Chronicling America - Huge Digital Newspaper Collection from L.O.C.

Chronicling America, from the Library of Congress, is a site that contains a huge database of historic newspaper pages from the years 1836 to 1922. Their homepage features "newspapers from 100 years ago today" but users of the site can use their extensive search option to look for year, state, topic, newspaper, dates, and even language. Here is a clip from a newspaper when I searched "World War I, New York, 1918."

Chronicling America could be a good tool for student research from a particular era or topic. If you are a history teacher you owe it to yourself and your students to take some time to browse around and see what the site has to offer.

Comparison Maps, Questions, and Headlines

Overlap Maps is a website by Sunflower Education that allows you to compare the sizes of nations, states, bodies of water, man made features and objects from nature. You simply select from two columns, click the green arrow, and presto, you get a picture with the two selections overlapped. Below you see an overlap I did between Texas and Germany. It is easy to to, it is fun, and it is educational for everyone.

101 questions is a website I found out about from Doug Brunner on Diigo Education. Go there and you will see a picture or video above the words "What's the first question that comes to your mind?." If you wish to respond you type your question in the box, if not click "skip it, I'm bored.". The site is simple but it could be a great way to challenge students to think.

Headslinger is a social media site that focuses on articles found on the web. After signing up (it's free) you begin by choosing a news site you like. You are shown the top headlines from that site for the day. If you like an article and wish to share it you simply click the "sling it" button. As you add favorite sites, suggested site appear on the left. You can choose up to 17 different categories to explore such as news, sports, humor, or entertainment to name a few. Headslinger is a great source to find and then share interesting stories with friends and family.

Sketching, Infographics, and Google

Sketch Toy is a website that allows you to draw a picture on their website and share it on your Facebook page. One advantage to Sketch Toy is their "graph paper" background to help you keep your art centered and symmetrical. They also have a feature that makes your art vibrate much like an old cartoon. If drawing is your thing, why not give Sketch Toy a try.

Daily Infographic is a website that features the best and most dynamic infographics found on the world wide web. If you are searching for an infographic about a specific topic then this website can help you as well. You can use their search bar or just select the category that interests you and they will more than likely have the infographic you were looking for. If you really enjoy their site then you can subscribe to their site and have daily infographics emailed to you.

Seems as though just about everyone uses some type of Google product these days. Google Tutor is a site that wants to be your resource for all things Google. They are one of the leading websites for news, tips, and tutorials for Google and their products and services They are not affiliated with Google, but are just huge fans of Google who want to share their passion with the world. If you have any Google related questions, go to Google Tutor and they should have the answer.

History, Congress, and Funny laws

We humans are such creatures of habit. We tend to eat at the same restaurants, shop at the same stores, and visit the same websites. I am certainly guilty of being overly "brand loyal." My blog has really opened my eyes to how many amazing websites are out there on the world wide web. I really hope you have found some of the websites I share to be both useful and interesting.

First on the agenda is Congress.org. This website provides daily coverage of issues being discussed by Congress. It provides news and information while making it easy for citizens to find out how their elected officials are voting. If you are unhappy with the direction of our country then start visiting this site and become a more active citizen.

Next is History Pin, an online collection of photographs, videos, audio files, and text that have been shared by people from around the world. Their tag line is "a global community collaborating around history." Users can post their documents or search a map to find things in their area or search by collection, channel, and project. This site is great for educators as well as anyone interested in history.

Last is the lighter side of the law from Lawyers.com. This collection has pages of dumb criminals, kooky court cases, and crazy laws that are sure to entertain. No matter how you feel about Lawyers, you will most likely enjoy these stories from the funny side of the law.

News, Sports, and 10 second videos

The journey around the world wide web has many turns and twists. I never know what new (to me) site I will discover or cool resource I'll uncover. Here are three sites I came across and am happy to share.

First is Newseum, a website that features the front pages of over 800 newspapers from all over the world. The papers can be searched by using a map, selecting a location from a list or by using the gallery which contains thumbnails of every newspaper. Please be aware that use of materials from the website does require permission of the site and the respective newspapers.

The GIF file has just become outdated. Coub is a new service that allows you to create 10 second videos uploaded from your computer or taken from You Tube or Vimeo that are similar to GIF's but the difference between them is that Coub videos have sound while GIF files are silent. Creating a Coub video is very easy to do but it does require a Facebook account to sign in which shouldn't be a problem for most people.

If you are a sports fan then you may want to check out  Sportz Hype, a new site with Pinterest like qualities. Their tag line is "a place where Sportz fans can share photos, news, videos, and much more." This site looks and feels a lot like Pinterest but there is no mistaking the focus of the site. Sports, sports, and more sports. If sports are your passion then you should certainly give Sportz Hype a try.