Best educational and free sites for K12 students

During my browsing for educational and resources sites, I was amazed to see so many blogs with a lot of useful information which were otherwise difficult to search around the net. 'Learning reviews' is one of those sites which is mainly a free resource site with reviews.

Site author 'Heidi Reina' is a parent, teacher, technology integrator and webmaster. She has more than 20 years of experience as a computer guru and fifteen years experience as a tutor and elementary school teacher.

Her blog 'Best Kids Educational Websites' is a source of free information and reviews for kids, parents and teachers.

Her site "Learning reviews" is a directory of educational web sites. The site helps K-12 students, teachers and parents to find worthwhile educational content appropriate to their grade levels. If offers listing of more than 2,100 mostly free educational sites.

LearningReviews.com provides a forum for reviews and ratings from you. Is the content of the educational website worthwhile? Is it easy to navigate? How did you use it in the classroom or at home?

What you can get at the site?

For Kids - Interactive learning tools in all subjects, including research paper help.
For Parents - Websites for learning support, homeschooling information & parenting skills.
For Teachers - Lesson resources from elementary school math lesson plans to high school writing

Another video sharing site for educators and students

'Teacher Tube' and 'Teachers tv' are the best video sharing sites and millions of people around the world use these kind of video sharing sites.

Now its time for 'School Tube' which is for K-12 schools and where Videos and pictures are student produced and moderator approved, The result is an appropriate site for school use.

For a teacher, it helps to see what other schools are doing.
For students it provides the opportunity to easily view work produced by other students from all across the world.

How the media is uploaded on the site?

The SchoolTube platform allows students to upload media.
An email is sent to a moderator informing them that the media is available to be viewed for approval. Only after the media has been approved by the moderator is it available for viewing on the site.

SchoolTube can be used by students, teachers, administrators, and school-related associations.

How students can use 'School tube'?

Students can use it to share media from school, about school, just for fun, or just to showcase academic, sports, and club events to family, friends, and the world!

Teachers can use it to share media right from their classroom, to integrate technology into their curriculum, to learn from recognized educational leaders, to share concepts, ideas, and lesson plans with other teachers,

SchoolTube is for principals:

who want to support their teachers, students, and community. interested in utilizing safe, moderated media onto the school's website. who want to keep up with national educational organizations and activities. to post welcome videos or pictures from their building administrators for parents and students.

Parents can help their child encourage to share media via this platform.

'School Tube' is FREE.

Videos on SchoolTube show the possibilities of what can be done in the classroom, and are a great learning and motivation tool for your entire student body. From sports to drama, assemblies to clubs, and academics to activities, you are sure to find an assortment of new student and teacher created content on it daily,

Link: 'School Tube'

Tips and useful links to help integrate technology in classroom

One of my colleagues asked me to provide links to the site which can help educators integrate Information technology in classroom. This post is written to compile the tips and useful links for all teachers/educators who are new to this topic or want to get in touch with best resources around the net. I hope that this post would help you.

* 'Free Technology for teachers' offers free technology resources and how teachers can use them also ideas for technology integration i education.

* David Andrade is the tech guy behind this awesome blog 'Educational Technology Guy' where you can find the information on topics like as: educational technology, educational theory, educational pedagogy, as well as exploring free educational technology resources, ways to integrate technology into the classroom, professional development, project based learning, and tips and resources for new teachers.

* 'Ed tech power'

* 'U tech tips' is a blog full of tech tips and fun stuff from a technology teacher.

'Subscribe' for the weekly newsletter which would provide information about U Tech Tips.

Useful posts:

* A valuable post from 'Education World': 'Get Ready to Integrate Technology-Ten Tips'

* 'Top 10 Technology Tips for New Teachers'

* iLearn Technology provides this post: 'Top 10 Technology Tips for New Teachers'

* 'Marilyn Western's' Technology Tips for Classroom Teachers

* A blog from an educator, consultant and presenter 'The Thinking Stick'

Have fun learning maths with 'math mom'

Math is really fun when you really enjoy learning it. I can feel it while doing activities at reception stages (nursery classes). These activities help children learn maths and prepare them for next levels for mental maths. Numeracy strategy has made the maths very easy and fun for young age kids because it really helps them learn maths with playful activities. I am here with a review about a blog and the person behind it 'Maria Lando' who is a math lover. I have copied many words which she said at her blog because I want the readers of this post to check the site themselves. I am sure you would be loving 'math' while having fun learning math with 'math mom'

Maria Lando is the name behind 'The math mom'. She is a working mom who loves humor and maths.

'It has been my drug, my meditation, my weapon and my best friend. It fed and dressed me, led to travel, men, lavish parties and even Cuban cigars. It has placed my name on a movie screen, put my work in museums and allowed me to manipulate things deep inside the human brain. It is called Math.

I believe that math is like reading - simple and regular daily activity guiding us on every step of our way, providing directions, bringing pleasure when encountering a masterpiece, or joy of observing a clever unexpected use. We all are much better at math that we think. And it is about time to adjust our math attitude. Math is not only for geek men in plaid shirts with thick glasses that we stereotype loosing their minds in the hands of beautiful wives and daughters. Math can be everything we make it to be: cool, hip, fun. You can use math to find a real anti-salt solution, to create treasure hunt for you kid birthday party, to check whether 30% off after 50% discount is the same as 80% off (it is not), or to justify not organizing your closet. I believe we pass math attitude the same way we pass language and traditions through generations. By finding our own peace with math, we won't be transferring our math fears down to our kids.'

Liked it?

Then read the full story yourself: 'Love, life and math'

She says: 'Math can be our friend, our tool and our weapon. We all are much better at it than we think. By finding our own peace with math we won't be transferring our math fears over to our kids. Math is for everyone to enjoy. Come play along and become a Math Mom!'

*'Math mom' at news: 'Meet the Math Mom'

Search for places to spend time with your kids

It is a good idea to plan for outdoors with your family and if you want to spend time with your kids then you need to search for the places near you. You also need to know the things or activities to do with your kid, so that well planned weekends or holidays bring real pleasure for whole family.

'Spend Day With Kids' is a site which can help you guide in this regard.

Mission: 'This web site is dedicated to help you find fun things to do and places to go with kids'

* It helps you find places to go with children in the area near you (around 100 km - 60 miles)
You can find them in two ways:

* In the search box, (for the best results) enter the city name and click the 'Show Me' button.
* Or click the 'All Attractions' and browse attractions by country

* Results will be displayed in the list and on the map provided at the site.

At the site you can find different type of children activities that are educational, cheap, fun or even free for the kids of all ages - from toddlers to teenagers.

They have large list of fun places like theme parks, family parks, water parks, zoos, nature parks, farms and other attractions through out the USA and UK.

* They have plan to include other countries from the Europe as well.

Importance of body language in teaching

One of my teaching assistant was once praising another teacher while commenting on her body language. Body language is an important tool which can help you to be a good teacher, friend or a popular confident personality. In our teaching profession we are given many trainings or participate in workshops to make our teaching more effective, techniques to make use of our body language can trigger our success as a teacher and I also believe that skill development should be a continuous process.

Free Powerpoint presentation tutorials for educational puropose

Microsoft office users know that 'PowerPoint' can be very effectively used for any kind of presentation including pictures, text, charts, graphs, sound effects and videos.
Teachers can use this software for educational purposes like as delivering classroom lessons, parent group meetings, trainings, teachers seminars, or sharing any kind of information.

PowerPoint in the classroom offers eight-unit tutorial for K-12 teachers 'how to use PowerPoint to present many different forms of information'.

Teachers can learn the basics on using PowerPoint's toolbars, laying out information, saving, moving your information to the place you'll be presenting it - and much more.

This tutorial is provided free of charge by ACT360 Media Ltd.

* You can get a print out of this tutorial for free from 'this link'

Activities and crafts for preschool kids

Art and crafts is always a favourite time pass for me and for my nursery class kids. I usually search for crafts ideas at the net and participate at many parents, teachers or craft, drawing related online communities. I just pick up some ideas or project instructions, just follow it or create similar or different activities for my students. There are many sites around which offer crafts or art activities for toddlers or preschool kids and most of those sites provide free access for that stuff.

"Pre school learning and crafts" is created by former teacher who describes the purpose of creating this site:

'Using toddler and preschool learning activities, crafts, games, and songs in your everyday busy life can help your child (and you) in so many ways. As a former teacher and current stay-at-home mom, I have noticed that many of the activities for preschoolers I find online don't actually work with my kids. I have to modify them to avoid having to do most of the project myself!'

She has explained it in details at 'about me' page.

She is a stay-at-home mom of three young kids ages 1, 3, and 6.

The easy and fun learning activities and crafts on this site have all been tested by her children and friends. These activities on Preschool-Learning-and-Crafts.com are age appropriate (moms won't have to do them for their kids), have easy to follow directions.

Each month you can receive the "Craft Your Kids Smart newsletter" directly to your email. Each issue will be full of learning ideas, games, crafts, and songs around a preschool theme (Valentine's Day, Animals, Dinosaurs, Weather, etc.)
All of the preschool activities will have easy to follow directions and supply lists.

Subscribe for the newsletter at 'this link'

The site owner has account at 'facebook' and if you are interested to get updated news about her crafts then go directly to her account 'here'