FREE Online Summer Camps (K-12)

It's summer again and the kids (and their teachers! Woot!) are home! This means loads of opportunities for more family-fun time and memory-making moments. Annnnd more chances for whining, fighting, cleaning up messes, getting burnt out... well, you get the picture.

So here's our summer challenge this year: use a few tricks and tips to create a fun, enjoyable summer for both our kids AND for us. Let's go!

Challenge #3: Register your kids for FREE online summer camps.

VarsityTutor.com is providing free summer camps for kids in grades K-12 this year and they look awesome! My oldest two have already done a few of their free classes and LOVED them, so we're really looking forward to their week-long summer camps.

Most are done in an interactive webinar style: the kids can see and hear the teacher and communicate by typing questions and comments in a text box. (If you are looking for an online camp that looks more like a traditional Zoom call with smaller class sizes, check out Outschool.com. It's not free, but the classes are reasonably priced and look really interesting). 

Some of the camp themes on Varsity Tutors:

• cooking  healthy snacks
• coding games
• creating a Lego movie
• arts & crafts
• dinosaurs
• fairy tales
• creating Minecraft storyboards
• foreign languages
• theater
• creative writing
• book clubs
• building structures

... and sooo many more.

Tip #1: Check the site each day as they add new classes to their list constantly. 

Tip #2: You can easily un-enroll by clicking one button (and no credit card info is ever required, so no worries of getting charged for anything)... this makes it it a very flexible program if your plans change last minute.

Tip #3: You can have multiple kids participate in the same class from the same computer- just sign up one child. The ages are also 'suggested ages' and VT has stated that if a child is interested in a topic, they can join a class even if it's out of their age-range (which is AWESOME for our gifted or special needs students who like to work up or down a level). 

Want to continue to create a fun and stress-free summer? Check out all the Summer Challenge posts here.

Great Sites: Kid-Friendly Search Engine

In the last twenty years, the internet has drastically changed the way we do daily life, from how we shop to how we stay informed and connected. As teachers, the web can be an incredible source of great ideas and helpful sites....but it can also be very time-consuming finding the sites that are the most helpful. During this series, I will be doing that research for you and highlighting some of the best websites out there for teachers.

Today's Featured Site:

Kids Click is a site designed by a group of school librarians. It is a simplified search engine that only gives kid-friendly results. You don't have to worry about your students accidentally stumbling on content that might be inappropriate when doing research for an in-class project.

Kids Click offers students the option of searching in five different ways:

• By Keyword

• By Category

• Alphabetically

• By Media Type (pictures, videos, sounds)

• By the Dewey Decimal System

Have you ever used this site before? What did you think? We'd love to hear your feedback!

Great Sites: Put Your Flashcards Online

In the last twenty years, the internet has drastically changed the way we do daily life, from how we shop to how we stay informed and connected. As teachers, the web can be an incredible source of great ideas and helpful sites....but it can also be very time-consuming finding the sites that are the most helpful. During this series, I will be doing that research for you and highlighting some of the best websites out there for teachers.

Today's Featured Site:

Quizlet is a simple website that allows you to create online flashcards. Your students can practice with them on their own (it has a feature that will read the cards to the students for those who are struggling readers) or as a group.

One feature I think it fun is that it has a matching game called Scatter. In this game, the cards are scattered all over the screen with both the front and back showing. Students must drag the front of each card to the matching back. The site times the students to see if they can get faster and beat their previous time. I can see this being a great whole group game if you use a SmartBoard or other touch screen board. Students could run up to the board one at a time and match one card, then race back to their seat and 'tag' the next student in line. Record the group's time and race again to see if they can beat it!

Have you ever used this site before? What did you think? We'd love to hear your feedback!

Great Site: Teach Animal Adaptations

In the last twenty years, the internet has drastically changed the way we do daily life, from how we shop to how we stay informed and connected. As teachers, the web can be an incredible source of great ideas and helpful sites....but it can also be very time-consuming finding the sites that are the most helpful. During this series, I will be doing that research for you and highlighting some of the best websites out there for teachers.

UPDATED 2019: It appears that this site is no longer active :( If anyone knows of a current link that works, please let us all know!


Today's Featured Site:

Build Your Wild Self is a fun activity hosted by the Wildlife Conservation Society's New York Zoos and Aquariums (what a mouthful!). It allows you to design your own 'wild self' by choosing different animal features to add to your body. Each feature is something that helps an animal adapt to it's surroundings. Here's mine:

So....apparently, I am going to be really good at flying, jumping up high, and fighting other reindeer. Hmm...this could come in handy in my real life ;)

I love this little tool because I can see it being a fun mini-project to end a unit on adaptation. Each student could design their own 'creature' and give a little presentation (or write a little essay) about how each feature allows his or her creature to adapt to their surroundings.

(NOTE: I used the screen shot function on my key board to capture this picture of my creature. You can also email it to an account. To take a screen shot, just press the PRINT SCREEN button on a PC or command + shift + 4 on a Mac.)

Have you ever used this site before? What did you think? We'd love to hear your feedback!

An App That Levels Books

In the last twenty years, the internet has drastically changed the way we do daily life, from how we shop to how we stay informed and connected. As teachers, the web can be an incredible source of great ideas and helpful sites....but it can also be very time-consuming finding the sites that are the most helpful. During this series, I will be doing that research for you and highlighting some of the best websites out there for teachers.

Today's Featured Site:

Wow. How many hours did I spend looking up the reading level of the books in my classroom library so I could label them? Many hours, people. Many.

But you could be saved from this same fate if you have this nifty little app on your phone: Level It Books

Level It Books

Level It Books is designed for iphone users (which my husband forced me to become by simply bringing home an iphone one day and declaring that it was replacing my perfectly good and totally still working phone. Supposedly it was a 'buy one get one free deal' so he 'had' to get it. Whatever, dude. ....though I do completely love my new phone and couldn't imagine life without it.  But I digress.)

Back to Level It Books. This app allows you to use your phone to scan the barcode on each book to find it's level. Within seconds, it spits out the Guided Reading, DRA, grade level equivalent and the Lexile levels for that particular book. (*Angle chorus sings*)

As a bonus, this app will also let you keep track of which student has checked out a book!

And guess what? This app is currently 40% off the $4.99 price, making it just $2.99.

Read more reviews and information on Level It Books.

Have you ever used this app before? Was it helpful or just a waste of time? We'd love to hear your feedback!

Don't forget to enter my back-to-school MEGA GIVEAWAY. There's something for every grade level!

Put Your Spelling Words Online

In the last twenty years, the internet has drastically changed the way we do daily life, from how we shop to how we stay informed and connected. As teachers, the web can be an incredible source of great ideas and helpful sites....but it can also be very time-consuming finding the sites that are the most helpful. During this series, I will be doing that research for you and highlighting some of the best websites out there for teachers.

Today's Featured Site:

This is one of those 'Why didn't I think of this great idea and make a million bucks?!' moments for me.

Spelling City is a handy little site that allows you to enter your spelling lists online (for free, of course!). These lists can be accessed by your students at home and used to play all sorts of pre-made games and activities. They can also take practice tests at home!

You can use these activities on your SmartBoard (or whatever swanky new board you have) as a fun large group spelling lesson.

Here's the part that I think is the best:

No more parent notes saying they didn't know what the words were until Thursday night and-can-you-please-give-Johnny-until-Monday-to-take-the-test. You know the ones. All they have to do is get online and BOOM the words are there!

I swear- this site has the potential, people, to change your life ;)

Have you ever used this site before? Was it helpful or just a waste of time? We'd love to hear your feedback!

Great Site: The Ruler Game

QUICK UPDATE: Before we get to the post, I'd like to ask you to do a quick favor for me. I recently decided to take the plunge and put this blog on Facebook and Twitter...which is completely nerve racking for a social media novice like myself (my Facebook-addicted husband was so proud though, you guys!). If you could take just a moment and like my page or follow my twitter account, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks!

  

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

In the last twenty years, the internet has drastically changed the way we do daily life, from how we shop to how we stay informed and connected. As teachers, the web can be an incredible source of great ideas and helpful sites....but it can also be very time-consuming finding the sites that are the most helpful. During this series, I will be doing that research for you and highlighting some of the best websites out there for teachers.

Today's Featured Site:

The Ruler Game is a simple game you can have your kids play to reinforce measurement skills. A measurement flashes on the screen and students are timed as they try to click on the correct part of the ruler. Select the level of difficulty, from 1" to a sixteenth of an inch. (Um, apparently I need a little more work the sixteenths!)


The game looks like this (I apologize if it looks super big on your screen- I haven't figured out how to fix that quite yet!):

Score:

Strikes:

Level:

Timer:

Click on: 

Have you ever used this site before? Was it helpful or just a waste of time? We'd love to hear your feedback!