The Web Catcher » Printables

RIF Reading Planet

K. Haugen — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:46:46 +0000

From RIF (Reading is Fundamental) comes the Reading Planet, a place to explore, create and… read! Choose from the Activity Lab, Games Station, Book Zone or Express Yourself. Explore and have fun, or ‘join the club’ to be able to create your own ‘bookshelf’ and save your activities.

Favorites: The activity lab includes links to kids contests, and in Writer’s Blocks you can collaborate with other kids online to write a story together. The super sorter helps kids get a recommended reading list after answering a few questions.

Pros: Bright, no ads, many options. Membership is free and gives some nice additional features.

Cons: Animated stories simply play or pause and the animation, while simple, distracts from paying attention to the text. More reading is required to navigate this site than one would expect from a site for kids learning to read

Wordsmyth GlossaryMaker

K. Haugen — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:24:33 +0000

The Wordsmyth GlossaryMaker allows you to generate a “miniature dictionary”. You can type or paste a list of vocabulary words in Step 1, and customize your dictionary’s level of detail in Step 2.

BookShare.org

K. Haugen — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:04:34 +0000

Bookshare.org gives print disabled people in the United States legal access to over 34,500 books and 150 periodicals that are converted to Braille, large print or text to speech audio files.

UpToTen.com – fun and educational

K. Haugen — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 19:40:04 +0000

UpToTen Kids calls itself “the fun place to learn online.” With online cards, coloring, interactive games, puzzles and more, there truly are a lot of fun activities, with some opportunities to learn along the way. As the name implies, the site is designed for kids up to age ten, but will probably appeal most to kids a bit younger. The site has many free games and highlighted games change frequently. There are also paid and premium subscriber options to skip the (mainly print) ads and access even more games and content. Plenty of teacher and parent info regarding the design of the site and its content.

Math Cats

K. Haugen — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 01:46:28 +0000

The Math Cats web site offers several activities to explore, ideas for and examples of math crafts, and a great section on make-at-home math manipulatives. It has a simple, folksy feel, a welcome contrast to much of the slick stuff you see on the web. Most of the activities include some guided discussion of how to explore and interact. The activities provide feedback rather than corrections, so the students can discover for themselves how the concepts work.

I especially like the OBBL Architecture Blocks. You can build with different architectural shapes, but the blocks have gravity for an added challenge! Beyond that, you’ll find a balance activity, an age calculator (in hours, minutes, etc.), logic challenges, fractions, tesselations, polygons, place value, ‘really big numbers,’ story problems, crafts and much, much more.

Math Printables

K. Haugen — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:43:47 +0000

Imagination Cubed

K. Haugen — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:43:37 +0000

Imagination Cubed is an on-line interactive drawing page where one or more people can create a drawing and then download it, or share it by email. Another great feature is the ability to ‘replay’ your drawing how you made it. I can only begin to imagine how this could work for creating lessons on how to draw or write! Would be even better if we could also record a voice over.

Starfall Reading

K. Haugen — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:34:21 +0000

Starfall is one of the best sites for early reading and literacy, with online stories that offer audio support as needed, a fun, enticing interface, and supportive activities and printables. Multiple levels, with numerous stories and activities at each level.

Starfall was created by the family behind Blue Mountain Cards, one of the earliest online greeting card companies. One member of the Blue Mountain Card family struggled to read because of learning disabilities. The activities are free, and the printed materials very low cost, as a way to help all students who are learning to read, including those who struggle.