As a fellow kindergarten teacher, you may run into trouble trying to figure out how to apply the internet in a safe and effective way for your young students. The following websites have been reviewed for safety and usefulness JUST for teachers like you. Have no concern when venturing here for your every need!
Catch-All Blue Web’N!
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/index.cfm
This website is truly a catch-all for all teachers. It allows educators to deeply narrow searches for lesson plans, WebQuests, resources, and other websites on an easy and aesthetically-appealing page. The best thing is, the kindergarten-specific resources are abundant and can often easily be modified to be more challenging or even easier. This site is great to use for the students, and great to use as a teacher!
The Amazing Kathy Schrock:
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/?pID=kathy
Kathy Schrock, an administrator for technology in Cape Cod, has designed an awesome “categorized list of sites useful for enhancing curriculum and professional growth. It is updated often to include the best sites for teaching and learning.” The site is excellent for new teachers as if even features information from workshops, articles, and search tools that Kathy has found interesting in her years in education. There is a lesson planner, puzzle maker, and easy-to-access rubrics for those who use them in Kindergarten. Definitely a must-see website for those looking for a “one-stop-shop”!
We All Know the ABC’s…
Doubling as a teacher and parent resource, ABCteach.com has thousands of worksheets and filler pages that can be searched for by topic or theme, and mostly printed for free. Fairly cheap memberships will buy the teacher or parent thousands of more dittos for the student to practice with. Even better, the site also features twelve different “abctools” which allow users to create documents such as “Sudoku” or “Word Searches” for free. Most worksheets are designed for the younger students such as Kindergarteners, but because so many are available, this site makes differentiation easy.
Let’s Dive Into Those Standards!
It would be hard for an educator to never come across this website when using any search engine available on the internet for education-related searches. Thinkfinity is a rather large website that is partnered with other internet companies, including National Geographic Expeditions and ReadWriteThink.org to provide educators with a multitude of resources with the click of one button. While it may take longer on this website to narrow down choices for kindergarten, there is a link entitled “Standards Alignment” which does just that. The site is also affiliated with the ISTE standards. Now that is easy!
Need Some Kidspiration??
http://www.inspiration.com/standards/index.cfm
For those teachers who have Kidspiration software but do not know much to do with it, this website is the absolute solution to the problem. Browsers may choose what state they wish to search, what subject area they would like to target, and they are immediately shown every state standard and which Kidspiration activity meets that standard. This website takes the world out of the job for educators, and makes like just a bit more simple. So, are you looking for a technology-integrated math content standard match? You know what to do!
That All-Time Go-To…
http://www.educationworld.com/
Education World, unlike many other websites, has technology integration suggestions for usage with primary students, which is probably the best thing about this website. But to say that SO much more is not offered would be a lie. Education World offers a plethora of lesson plans, professional development ideas, after-school links or students and parents, game ideas for on and off the computer, and discussion areas for school issues. This site is a great place to start for kindergarten teachers in need of resources.