The Web Catcher » Art

The Poetry Foundation

K. Haugen — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 05:27:31 +0000

The online home of the Poetry Foundation – Use the Poetry Finder to find poems by poet, category, occasion, title, first line and glossary term. Also many other poems and poetry resources, including audio

(tags: literature literacy search teens ages09-12 cooltools audio authors poetry)

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

Leo Reynold’s Letter Collection

K. Haugen — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 02:51:35 +0000

Today we take you to a Flickr page of photo collections by photographer Leo Reynolds. What’s unique about Leo’s photos is he takes close-ups of letters in all kinds of wonderful, whimsical locations, often more than 100 examples of each letter. He invites visitors to use the letters (and many, many other photos) in any non-profit activities, under a Creative Commons license. You’ll want to visit Leo’s other collections as well, including signs, nuts and bolts, mosaics, cemetaries and churches, and more. This site invites you to consider letters and literacy in a whole new light!

An Astronomical Alphabet

K. Haugen — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 02:09:34 +0000

An Astronomical Alphabet is a fun introduction to astronomy. The photos displayed show the alphabet shapes as found in a variety of astronomical phenomena. A picture’s worth a thousand words, so this one’s worth 26,000 at my count, but really what happens here is the photographed ‘letters’ are the hook — if you click on one, you learn what the photos represent. It’s wonderfully simple and sophisticated at the very same time.

VoiceThread

K. Haugen — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:23:02 +0000

VoiceThread is an awesome tool for creating and sharing annotated online slideshows that you have to experience for yourself. Make your own slideshows or browse what others have done.

You can interact by recording or typing comments directly in others’ slide shows and then listen or read what others have said, which creates a non-linear conversation in which anyone can participate.

It’s also possible to doodle on your slideshows, and the doodles fade away (or stick, if you tell them to).

There are numerous examples of how one could use VoiceThread in the classroom.

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.

Crayola Digi-Color

K. Haugen — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:20:33 +0000

Draw online with digital versions of Crayola’s pens, paints, crayons and colored pencils. This simple site has no outgoing links, making it great for younger kids. Apart from one Crayola logo, there are no ads. This site would work great with a touch screen or graphics tablet!

The major downsides are no “undo” button and no “fill” or “bucket” but this does provide a simple, non-cluttered space for fun drawings.

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.

Draw (splatter!) like Jackson Pollock!

K. Haugen — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 23:50:23 +0000

Draw like Jackson Pollock!

This is a place for FUN… simply move your pointer and the virtual paint splatters. Click the heart to change colors. Then when you’re done, learn more about Jackson Pollock at The WebMuseum, Paris. No ads!
Image uploaded with Skitch!

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.