// Langwitches Blog

Here is a growing list of interesting sites to explore for elementary school students. Please add any favorites of yours in the comment section.
Elementary Learning Sites

Learning your Alphabet
Help a monkey shake coconuts out of the tree
Count Us in Games
Games designed to help children understand basic number concepts
Between the Lions
Get Wild about Reading
English & Math & [...]

Here is my Top Ten “Learn by Playing Sites list for Elementary School age kids. No particularly order. They include links from categories, such as drawing, simulations, digital storytelling, programming and puzzle solving.

http://langwitches.glogster.com/LearnByPlaying/

Kerpoof
Linerider
Scratch
Fantastic Contraptions
Virtual Knee Surgery
Art Pad
Wildlife Film Maker
Tinker Ball
Glogster Edu
YOUR favorite “Learn by Playing” Site

As you may have noticed, Number 10 in this list [...]

ShareTabs is a new tool I just heard about. It looks like a great tool to use in presentations, but also for your elementary school classroom.
It is very visual by displaying a thumbnail of the website link, but also has tabs open with the links you specify open, ready for your students to click on.
You [...]

She did it! Paige McGee from LeadingToLearn (can’t wait to finally read her first blog post ) found a cute little tool before I had caught it in my RSS reader or from my Twitter network. She is getting ALL  the credit for this one.
How cute for lower level elementary school kids to [...]

I have found an amazing resource, while researching and planning the coordination of teaching research skills in our elementary school. This incredible website is a fantastic site for media specialists, technology coordinators, literacy specialists and classroom teachers in their quest for introducing and supporting research skills in elementary age students.

The site guides your students through [...]

Piclits came to my attention via Kevin Jarrett’s amazing NCS-Tech blog.
PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, [...]

Last year, our third graders had a great time increasing their vocabulary while donating free rice through the UN World Food Program. I just learned that the site has added more subject areas to their questions:

Famous paintings
Chemistry symbols
English Grammar
English Vocabulary
Geography: World Capitals
Languages: German, Spanish, Italian, French
Math: Multiplication

Directly skipping over the debate, if it is really necessary to dedicate specific (precious) time to teach AND practice keyboarding skills during school hours… our tech team was asked to “teach” keyboarding at our Elementary School.  Parents “demand” it, since it is something “visual” for them to understand that they child is “getting” technology instruction. [...]

Just found this amazing site, that allows students to create Character Trading Cards from Read Write and Think. Thank you CLong from Tech Integration in School.

Students will be asked question by question to fill out an analisis of a book character for example.

Once completed, students can print it out, to fold and then glue together. [...]

I have briefly highlighted a few screen capturing tools and keyboard shortcuts on Langwitches before. Here is a quick run down, links to original posts or links to the software website:

Windows Keyboard Shortcut

Capturing the entire desktop: Use the Print Screen button on your keyboard to place the image on your clipboard, then past (CTRL+V) the [...]