Search Results for: sponge

Need a few websites to fill in sponge time? Here are Holiday websites that will keep students busy while teaching them:

1. 12 Days of Christmas
2. Christmas—history—fun video
3. Gift Hunt–updated version of 12 Days of Christmas–just as much fun
4. Holiday collection
5. Holiday Crossword
6. Holiday Elf Games
7. Holiday hangman
8. Holiday Hangman II
9. Holiday music
10. Holiday music II–sing along with the music–the site provides the words
11. Holiday—Design Gingerbread House
12. Holiday—find the word
13. Holiday—match game
14. Holiday—Math Facts
15. Holiday—North Pole Academy
16. Holidays–various
17. NORAD Santa
18. Penguin Show
19. Reindeer Orchestra
20. Santa Tracker

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Need a few websites and apps to fill in sponge time? Here are Thanksgiving sites that will keep students busy and still teach them:

1. Canadian Thanksgiving
2. Online/Offline Thanksgiving activities
3. Plimoth Plantation–a field trip of a Pilgrim’s life. Included on this real-life site is a video of the Pilgrim’s crossing to the New World.
4. Primary Games Thanksgiving Apps
5. Starfall–Silly Turkey
6. Thanksgiving Coloring Book App
7. Thanksgiving edu-websites–CybraryMan
8. Thanksgiving Games
9. Thanksgiving games–Quia
10. Thanksgiving information–history, more
11. Thanksgiving Jigsaw
12. Thanksgiving Jigsaw II
13. Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
14. Thanksgiving puzzle–by Digipuzzle
15. Thanksgiving Tic-tac-toe
16. Thanksgiving video–Brainpop
17. Thanksgiving Wordsearch
18. The First Thanksgiving

If you’re looking for projects, you’ll find two on Ask a Tech Teacher:

• A Holiday Card
• A Holiday Flier

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents and teachers about their computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: My students get distracted immediately when they go on the internet–by all the adds, bling, and websites they might like but I know are not age-appropriate.

When students open the internet, it should kick start their browsing experience, not leave them searching for a bookmark. As a teacher, you make this happen with what’s called an internet start page. It’s also your first line of defense in protecting students from the inherent dangers of using the internet because it focuses them on safe, age-appropriate sites that you have personally approved.

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In the past few weeks, I’ve gotten several emails like this from teachers:

I am a tech teacher, going on my fifth year in the lab. Each year I plan to be more organized than the last, and most often I revert back to the “way things were.” I’m determined to run the lab just like I think it should be! … Could you please elaborate on how you run your class? I love the idea of having kids work independently, accomplishing to do lists, and working on different projects. You mention this in Volume I, but I want to hear more!

Currently, I see close to 700 students, grades 1-6. I want to break out of the routine (the “you listen, I speak, you do” routine), and your system seems like it would work well. Just hoping you can share some details.

I decided to jot down my typical (as if any planned lesson ever comes out the way it’s written–you know how that goes!) daily lesson. You can tweak it, depending upon the grade you teach. Here goes:

Reading is defined as “the action or skill of absorbing written or printed matter silently or aloud.” Sounds dry, maybe even boring, but once a child learns to read, they get much more than an understanding of words, sentences, paragraphs, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. It has been credited with providing an escape from reality, exercising the mind, saving lives, bringing people together, answering problems, and predicting success in school. It alleviates boredom in the bits of free time that pop up between soccer and dinner and it can be done alone or in a group.

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends…”
― Charles William Eliot

According to Early Moments, reading is associated with the following traits:

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Need a few websites to fill in sponge time? Here are Holiday websites that will keep students busy while teaching them:

1. 12 Days of Christmas
2. Christmas—history—fun video
3. Gift Hunt–updated version of 12 Days of Christmas–just as much fun
4. Holiday collection
5. Holiday Crossword
6. Holiday Elf Games
7. Holiday hangman
8. Holiday Hangman II
9. Holiday music
10. Holiday music II–sing along with the music–the site provides the words
11. Holiday—Design Gingerbread House
12. Holiday—find the word
13. Holiday—match game
14. Holiday—Math Facts
15. Holiday—North Pole Academy
16. Holidays around the world
17. Holidays–various
18. NORAD Santa
19. Penguin Show
20. Reindeer Orchestra
21. Santa Tracker

(more…)

Need a few websites to fill in sponge time? Here are Thanksgiving sites that will keep students busy and still teach them:

1. Canadian Thanksgiving
2. Online/Offline Thanksgiving activities
3. Plimoth Plantation–a field trip of a Pilgrim’s life. Included on this real-life site is a video of the Pilgrim’s crossing to the New World.
4. Starfall–Silly Turkey
5. Thanksgiving edu-websites–CybraryMan
6. Thanksgiving Games
7. Thanksgiving games–Quia
8. Thanksgiving information–history, more
9. Thanksgiving Jigsaw
10. Thanksgiving Jigsaw II
11. Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
12. Thanksgiving puzzle–by Digipuzzle
13. Thanksgiving Tic-tac-toe
14. Thanksgiving video–Brainpop
15. Thanksgiving Wordsearch

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

updated 12-23-18

If your state adopted Common Core, 75% of you will administer yearly assessments online. If students haven’t used online tools or software for classwork, this can be a daunting task. Having computer devices as optional education tools is a massive difference from requiring students to use them for grded assessments. This can be intimidating for both students and teachers.

The tood news: It doesn’t take as much time and practice as you might think to prepare. What it does require is a techie mindset, the acceptance that technology is part of the daily economic landscape, that it be integrated into assignments, practice, modeling, homework, assessments, projects, portfolios, grading rubrics, expectations.

There are ways to get students in shape that won’t take much out of your already-packed day.

Here are twenty-two strategies to use next year that will make your teaching life easier, bump up your effectiveness with students, save time complying with Common Core standards, and prepare students effectively for next Spring. As you’re in your grade-level teams, planning lessons for next year, include these. They will add spice to your classes, build flexible learning paths, , and contribute to sustainable, transformation learning. Once you start using tech in the classroom as a tool (not a separate activity), you will find students self-selecting it when given a choice, coming up with their own ways to make tech today’s adaptive answer:

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Need a few websites to fill in sponge time? Here are Holiday websites that will keep students busy while teaching them:

1. 12 Days Gift Hunt
2. 12 Days of Christmas
3. Christmas—history—fun video
4. Holiday collection
5. Holiday Elf Games
6. Holiday hangman
7. Holiday Hangman II
8. Holiday music
9. Holiday—Design Gingerbread House
10. Holiday—find the word
11. Holiday—match game
12. Holiday—Math Facts
13. Holiday—North Pole Academy
14. Holidays–various
15. NORAD Santa
16. Penguin Show
17. Reindeer Orchestra
18. Santa Tracker

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Common Core notes:

New technologies have broadened and expanded the role that speaking and listening play in acquiring and sharing knowledge and have tightened their link to other forms of communication. Digital texts confront students with the potential for continually updated content and dynamically changing combinations of words, graphics, images, hyperlinks, and embedded video and audio.

The underlying theme can’t be ignored by teachers any longer: A 21^st Century learner requires technologic proficiency. Proof enough is that Common Core summative assessments will be completed online—only possible if students use technology as comfortably as paper and pencil to demonstrate knowledge.

But how do you do that if you aren’t a ‘techie’, a ‘geek’, if you barely use a Smartphone much less the myriad of online tools. I have ten strategies that will make your teaching life easier, bump up your effectiveness with students, and save time complying with Common Core standards. Try these ten tech uses. Watch what a difference they make:

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