My Favorite Websites
An exploratory website that takes students into the world of Dr. Seuss. My favorite feature is the Seussville Storymaker in which students supply the characters, setting and dialogue and then the website generates an animated version of the story.
This website is an academic resource for almost any topic! The website is well-organized and easy to navigate. It also has a PBS for kids section in which students can interact with various topics.
This website is great for providing current event stories written for kids. These stories, while they cover the real news, are written so that stories are both understandable and appropriate for children. This is a great resource to use in the classroom to talk about current events in order to compare them with other events in history or literary works.
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
This amazing website makes assessing student work so easy by helping teachers to generate rubrics. The site has several different topics to choose from, such as oral projects, research and writing, multimedia and many more. It also gives the teacher the option of creating their own categories and criteria for the rubrics.
http://www.doe.state.in.us/standards/welcome.html
This is the official Indiana Department of Education link to all of the state Academic Standards. This is a must for teachers planning lessons and curriculum.
The Indiana State Teacher's Association (ISTA) is a great organization that focuses on children, teachers and education. This website provides great information about what is going on in the education world and how you can get involved. The Indiana Student Education Association's webpage can also be located on this site.
ESL Websites
Karin's ESL Party Land is a great clearinghouse for ESL instruction ideas and lesson plans. The website has a student section and a teacher section. Check out the website's conversation questions on a variety of topics. They are great for any classroom setting!
http://genkienglish.net/about.htm
GenkiEnglish has great tips and activities for the ESL classroom. They are designed for the elementary classroom but can easily be adapted for an adult class. The games on this site at great for ice breakers, introductions to topics or simply for changing up the class structure a bit!