Helpful Knick-Knacks

Here are just a couple of clever tools or ideas to implement into a classroom.

• "Brain Sprinkles" could be used doing quite work, creative writing, or anything for that matter to help motivate your students and give them that extra little boost of confidence.
• Wheres your Name?! This is just a nice way to assure that everyone has written their name on every assignment, hopefully you'll never have a no-name paper ever again. Put a cup of highlighters right next to the area papers are turned in and have ever student highlight their name on the paper.
• "Rocking Behavior" instead of you're traditional color tag chart that changes according to students behavior, here is a fun creative twist I found (not my idea).
• Happy Birthday to You! This is a very cute and simple idea for a birthday chat, for each month have each student hold up the day of their birthday and present it as a collage on a bulletin board!
• "I'm Done!" When each student is done here is an idea for them to use their time effectively. Draw a popsicle stick from the jar which suggest some ideas of what to do quietly with their time until you start the next task.

Experiments!

Here's just a couple of experiments from other blogs or website that I have come across and would like to pass along!

• A weather experiment, make your won cloud! (shown left) 

• An ecosystem experiment, great activity for small groups, or everyone can make their own, very basic materials and great learning device. (shown right)

Interactives for Specific Books

Here are a list of just a handful of book and interactive craft to go along with them. They are cute crafts that relate to each book and include the kids having a blast in the making. This is definitely a site for younger children though, but I'm sure you could adapt some ideas for older kids as well.
Great Ideas!

Great Teacher Tools!

FunBrain
This is a website which includes a wide range of educational games, books, and short comics for elementary level students. My favorite part of this website was the math games, many counting games along with a range of other math games. Math being a difficult subject for many students makes it a much more appealing educational game for students in the classroom.
FunBrain Website

Discovery Kids
This website is a bit more common, but they have a variety of science related topics for students to take a look at. These activities include recipes and experiments that are simple for students to complete with an adult near by. There were also a variety of games on this website, not as many directly educationally related but there were still some.
Discovery Kids

Storyline Online
This is a great website for elementary level reading, a little more interactive than some website. It includes a streaming of select stories being read, along with follow up activities and some lesson plans for each book. I found the story being read especially helpful, in lower elementary this could be a good way for students to follow along with the story since the book is still showed.
Storyline Online

NASA for Students
NASA for students is a great webpage with video clips, pictures, stories, and interactive activities, all of which would be great and extremely useful for a space unit. I especially liked how this website had the option to narrow your search for the age group you are working with of focusing on.
NASA for Students

TIME for Kids
Its very important that we teach our students to keep up with current events, these events are just as important as anything in ancient or past history. So TIME for Kids has a variety of news stories that would interest a variety of students, also in a simplistic vocabulary which many kids would be more capable of understanding, compared to an actual newspaper. TIME for kids also has a section called: "TFK Kid Reporters," this is a very useful tool that could be used as encouragement in the classroom to get involved, and open the opportunity for you class to submit stories also.
TIME for Kids

Teaching Pay it Forward

Pay it Forward is one of my favorite teaching related movies of all time. The movie incorporates a wonderful story with great morals. It is an inspiring film that everyone should see at one point.The story consists of a boy who wants to do something good and helpful so he makes a plan to help three people in an effective way, his plan is for those three people to help three more people each and so the pattern will continue.  So here is a lesson plan outline that includes the "Pay it Forward" concept as well as a book, Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed (pictured above), which puts the concept into perspective for younger students. This is just one example of a good way to use a book in the classroom, and expand on it in many different ways. Don't forget "Pay it Forward Day" is in late April. Lesson Plan Ideas!