Catherine's Contribution

www.gonoodle.com

This online site is excellent for engaging students in productive learning and thinking. I love the concept of virtual field trips to help children see hands on things they ordinarily would not have access to. Travel is one of my biggest passions, but due to funding a lot of traveling abroad would not be possible, but with virtual field trips this allows me the chance to show my students what all is out there and educate them on more than what is found in a textbook.

http://www.starfall.com

Starfall is a site that pre-k - 2nd graders can use to test and build their phonemic awareness skills. This site is a great tool for parents to use at home to work with their children to begin these basic reading skills that the teachers will add to when in the classroom. This is also a fun and interactive site that the teachers can have the students access during center time or for struggling students. These sites are a wonderful way to assess their comprehension and understanding of the technology as well.

http://www.funbrain.com

These website was developed for kids in kindergarten through 8th grade. I found this very appealing because it is a site that many of these children can grow with and continue to challenge themselves in areas of math, reading and technology. They have the ability to navigate through many pages and varying games/topics. Allowing for independent work and opportunity to choose games that interest them.

http://www.roomrecess.com/pages/23.html

I probably had way too much fun with this website. These games were so much fun and really had me on edge. I would love to use in my classroom. This particular site focuses on 2nd and 3rd grade level learning. It incorporates many interest that the students may have varying from sports to video games even hangman. The ability, once again, to choose based on personal interest of the students is a wonderful addition. Focusing on math and reading helping to challenge students, but also to help make it less overwhelming for the struggling student.

http://www.discoveryeducation.com

Although this site does not have the game aspect as many of the ones above it offers more in terms of science and social studies context. It is a great site to pull up on the promethean board and navigate through with students (pre-navigated by the teacher of course). There is a big selection of education videos that can be great to begin a new topic/lesson or to wrap one up. I really enjoy the exploration content of this site and believe the students will be just as engaged in the various topics accessible on this website.