3 Sites every teacher should try this year

Newsela is a site that offers a wide variety of current events articles for students to read. Users can browse for articles by searching one of their eight categories and many articles come with ready made quizzes. What separates Newsela from other sites is the ability to set the articles to varying reading levels. Any article can be set for lexile levels ranging from a low of 530 up to 960 which is an invaluable feature in today's heterogeneous classrooms. The site is free to use but they do offer additional features for a fee.

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Kahoot is a great tool for creating formative assessments and review games for students of any age and it will be an instant hit as soon as you use it with your students. Creating Kahoots is very simple and intuitive and it allows you to add text, images and even  videos. Kahoot doesn't require any student information and kids simply use a special code to join your game. Kahoot also allows you to add YouTube videos to play at the beginning and when the game is over you can download your student's results to see how they did.

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Tackk is a great site where students can easily create online posters that can be shared via email, social media or be embedded onto a webpage or blog. As soon as you arrive on the website you can start creating your poster by editing their ready made template. The site is simple to use and users can easily add a title, body text, pictures, videos, and even songs. Content can be added from YouTube, Instagram, Vimeo, Sound Cloud, Hulu, and Spotify. Tackk is free to join and it is one of those great websites that anyone can use and students should enjoy.

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.

3 great science sites

The United States Government for all it's many faults does have an impressive amount of educational material available to students and teachers. This post is the first of many where I will be sharing those resources with you. I hope you are able to discover something useful for your classroom.

Science and Innovation
Energy.gov, the website for the U.S. Department of Energy, contains multiple layers of educational material for students and teachers. Their science and innovation section provides links to articles and videos on physics, biology, chemistry and environmental science. These resources could prove useful for high school and college level instruction.

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Energy Kids
Next you'll find the science education section which when you first view it seem rather plain. There are a number of videos but looking deeper you'll find the Energy Kids area which is full of  energy-related kid's resources including games, riddles, field trips, and classroom activities. The site also contains a teacher's guide with lessons for students of all ages. 

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Energy Star Kids
Finally there is the Energy Star Kids section which explores energy conservation and is targeted for elementary level learners. This page does include information, games and a parent/teacher area with lesson plans.

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Everyday Mysteries
The Library of Congress website has a very cool science area called Everyday Mysteries where students explore science based questions and mysteries. There dozens of "mysteries" for students to examine from ten science based categories. Each "mystery" comes with a detailed explanation and pictures to help the student learn more about the topic. There are also additional resources given for those who are doing a research project.

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10 great tools for education: Day 4

The first two days of this series focused on tools that are useful to all educators. Day three was dedicated to tools to help keep parents and students informed. Today's post will feature one resource that is social studies related and one that could apply to everyone.

The social studies resource is called Docs Teach and is produced by the National Archives. Docs Teach is an excellent web based resource that teachers can use to create their own interactive learning activities based on primary source images and documents. This site is a must see for all social studies teachers and it is free to use. 

The second site I am sharing is called Good Reads. Good Reads allows its users (members) to keep track of what they are reading, form book clubs with other members, and will even recommend books based on what you have read. It is a social network for avid readers and a useful "next book" site for everyone.

I hope you have an opportunity to try out these and the other sites I have shared. Please check back to see what's in store for tomorrow.