INDEX CARD Title: The Weather Channels Grade Level: 4-12 URL:www.weather.com http://cirrus.sprl.umich.edu/wxnet/ Summary of Information: The weather.com site provides a weather forecast across the United States. Can also get weather by entering the location around the world. The UM weather site provides worldwide weather and claims to have the Internet's largest collection of weather links. Use in My Classroom: I would use these sites for students to learn to read and understand the weather forecast nationwide. Also I would use them for my students to learn to research weather in specific locations. Furthermore, I would use these sites as an aid to teach the students to research weather conditions and storms such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunderstorms where they live and across the United States. When these major weather events occur, the students will learn more about them by studying these weather information sites online during class than perhaps they may have learned through the news media.
INDEX CARD Title: Quote of the Day Grade Level:5-12 URL: http://quoteaday.com http://goodreads.com/quotes Summary of Information: www.quoteaday.com/ provides a new quote for each day of the year. I also like this site, www.Goodreads.com/ which contains quotes by famous people and a search list of various areas of different types of quotes. Use in My Classroom: The Quoteaday site is functional for use in the classroom as an everyday activity. It's ready to use daily as a teaching strategy. I would have my students write their thoughts about a different quote each day, either a paragraph or paragraphs depending on grade level. Then I would have them discuss their ideas about the quote in groups of 3-4 students. Each day one of the groups would share their ideas with the whole class. For the Goodreads.com site, I would have my students choose a quote by a famous person they are interested in or curious to learn about. Then I would have them write a paragraph or longer as stated above on their reflections. Then I would have them do a presentation before the class by reading the quote and what it meant to them.
INDEX CARD Title: Beef Up History Lessons Grade Level: 5-12 URL: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html Summary of Information: A primary source of materials that adds interest to history lessons, a.g. Thomas Jefferson's notes on the U.S. Constitution provide insights into U.S. History that a simple reading of the Constitution cannot do. The "Today in History" link connects to the "Library of Congress's American Memory Collections" link that provides source material for varied topics. Use in My Classroom: Using this site can make history interesting and fun to learn about especially for those students in my classroom who don't like learning about history. Everyday the students can look forward to learning about something special about that day in American history. I will have them read and discuss the topic for the day. I would have them discuss the topic in their table groups and then open the discussion to the whole class to share their reflections. Also I would have my students research the American Memory Collections vast amount of topics. I would have my students write papers on their findings, individually and as groups to gain experience in both methods of writing. I would encourage my students to include primary sources of information in their writing. I would also encourage them to question their findings, to reflect on them and inquire about the validity of the sources using critical thinking and analysis.
INDEX CARD Title: Make Geography a Daily Event Grade Level: 2-12, for the National Geographic Geography Bee grades 4-8 URL: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geobee/ http://indo.com/distance/ Summary of Information:Maps are boring for many kids (not for me when a child). This is a great site to get my students interested in geography and using maps. It even tells about how to enter the National Geographic GeoBee Challenge. The indo.com site enables students to find distances between different cities worldwide. Use in My Classroom: I would first of all have my fourth and fifth grade students take the five daily questions provided on the National Geographic site. Then I would have them quiz each other in pairs. Younger students could also take these daily quizzes to practice and prepare for the upper grades. To take it further, there are helpful quizzes and hints on how to study for the GeoBee. I would have my students study these and even possibly enter the National Geographic GeoBee. This would be a great task for the GATE students in my class who are especially interested in world geography. Using the indo.com/distance site, I would have my students calculate distances between various cities around the world and places they would like to travel to. Then have them find the cities on a map using the longitude and latitude results given from the search. Next, I would have them compare the distances between two cities by how the crow flies, by car, by train, and by airplane. They would do this by using a graphic organizer or displaying the results in a graph.