Regular readers of this blog know that I have had several prior posts containing useful free educational resources. I have continued to collect these sites and offer this attempted compendium of free educational websites:
Janet Young's Super Charged Educational Voyage & The Education Companion Web Site: As described by the site's author: This award winning site is a central location in which to find a ready reference of some of the best education sites on the web. Content is geared towards that information sought after by teachers, parents and students. The focus is grades K-12. The site is constantly changing, as new topics are listed for further development as requests are submitted to me. Material is a mixture of my own insights, and links to outstanding sites in the fields. Topics range from lesson plans, math, reading, children's safe internet fun, to homework help, parenting skills, to teacher resources. This site is easy to navigate and tries to make each topic appealing. I work very hard to assure that ALL of the information is "Family Safe" and is RASCi and Safe Surf rated.
The Educator's Reference Desk: Contains the following: Resource Collection - Links to over 3000 resources on a variety of educational issues. This collection includes Internet sites, educational organizations, and electronic discussion groups. Lesson Plans - The Lesson Plan Collection contains more than 2000 unique lesson plans which were written and submitted by teachers from all over the United States. Question Archive - A collection of over 200 responses to popular questions on the practice, theory, and research of education. These responses may include citations from the ERIC database, Internet sites, discussion groups, and/or print resource information.
Sites for Teachers: Hundreds of educational websites ranked by popularity.
Atlapedia.com: Provides a wide range of facts about countries across the globe and gives you access to an A-Z country guide. Atlapedia Online also has a large collection of world maps with attractive graphics and clip art. Ideal for Geography homework or subjects where knowledge of the world is required.
Encyclopedia.com: This site contains an extraordinary amount of information at your fingertips in the form of an online encyclopedia. You can access more than 14,000 articles from the "Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia" and sort your way through an organised A-Z directory to find particular topics.
Federal Resources for Educational Excellence: More than 30 Federal agencies formed a working group in 1997 to make hundreds of Federally supported teaching and learning resources easier to find. The result of that work is the FREE web site. For an overview of what's available here at FREE, please visit the site map.
Learning Wave: Another compilation of resources website.
BUBL: Website geared to high school and college. Covers just about every subject area possible from accounting http://bubl.ac.uk/link/linkbrowse.cfm?menuid=9583 to zoology http://bubl.ac.uk/link/linkbrowse.cfm?menuid=6412
Eric Weisstein's World of Science: This science education site contains free full-text "encyclopedias of astronomy, scientific biography, chemistry, and physics ... assembled over more than a decade by Internet encyclopedist Eric W. Weisstein with assistance from the Internet community."
Chemistry.org : This American Chemical Society site provides information for professionals, educators, and students at all levels with access to publications, chemistry news, jobs, lesson plans, a "Molecule of the Week" feature, and an interactive periodic table. Check out the "Educators & Students" tab, with its K-12 sections, including "WonderNet" for elementary kids.
The Constellations and Their Stars :This site explains what constellations are, lists stars and constellations alphabetically, by month, and by catalog number. It also includes interactive star charts, a bibliography of star myths from various cultures, and a brief explanation of the myths behind the names of constellations.
Freebielist.com: FreebieList.com has free education resources plus a huge collection of freebies and freeware.
Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. In this English version, started in 2001, we are currently working on 881,306 articles.
Elementary Math Classroom games
Math Goodies: Math Goodies is a free math help site featuring interactive lessons, puzzles and worksheets.
The Teachers Resource Center: Offers 20 downloadable lesson plans focusing on financial topics designed to complement your existing curriculum. They’re all on printer-friendly worksheets.
Interactive Plasma Physics Education Experience: This site's goal is to get middle and high school students excited about science using interactive pages on matter, fusion, electricity, magnetism, and energy. Questions can also be e-mailed to Ask a Physicist.
Sci-Math World: is designed for teachers and librarians who wish to expand their knowledge of science & math education Web resources. This Web site contains many resources that today's searchers need, whether they are K-12 or higher education students, educators, or parents. Together, this hands-on class & Web site will provide the tools to locate valuable, reliable information on the ever-changing, rapidly growing Web.
EdSelect: Ontario, Canada "Science and Technology," "Earth and Space Systems," and "Health and Physical Fitness" Curriculum Areas for Grades 1-8.
Mathpower.com: A very large compilation of math websites
Online Teacher Resources from Ferrell Middle School of Technology: A very large compilation of Middle School educational websites
Consumer Directory: Another very large compilation of education resources for teachers, parents, and students
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences: Another very large compilation site, this one is geared to elementary school science
Geo Teacher: Yet another compilation site of general educational links
Teaching Ideas for Primary Teachers: United Kingdom website is for teachers who teach primary-age children (i.e. ages 5 to 11). Although it has been designed with UK teachers in mind, all ideas can of course be used by teachers around the world.
Spartacus Educational: British online encyclopedia focuses on historical topics. Articles are geared toward students.
Exploratorium: Housed within the walls of San Francisco's landmark Palace of Fine Arts, the Exploratorium is a collage of over 600 interactive exhibits in the areas of science, art, and human perception. The Exploratorium stands in the vanguard of the movement of the “museum as educational center.” It provides access to, and information about, science, nature, art, and technology.
The Google search: This search will give you every other website containing the words "free education resources."
Open Courseware: (prior post)
NASA's Observatorium: (prior post)
Italian Ph.D. Christoph Schiller's Free Online Physics Textbook: (prior post)
The Space Foundation's K-12 Lesson Plans: (prior post)
This site contains one billion mazes in high-quality printable PDF
format. You may view, print and solve these mazes... and yes, there are
exactly one billion mazes!
Who needs to pirate software with a list like this?: An incredibly long list of freeware.
Storynory: Free children's stories you can listen to online or download to your iPod.
Digital History: The University of Houston's History Department and College of Education have created this resource. In their words "This Web site was designed and developed to support the teaching of American History in K-12 schools and colleges and is supported by the Department of History and the College of Education at the University of Houston. The materials on this Web site include a U.S. history textbook; over 400 annotated documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection on deposit at the Pierpont Morgan Library, supplemented by primary sources on slavery, Mexican American, Asian American, and Native American history, and U.S. political, social, and legal history; succinct essays on the history of film, ethnicity, private life, and technology; multimedia exhibitions; and reference resources that include a database of annotated links, classroom handouts, chronologies, glossaries, an audio archive including speeches and book talks by historians, and a visual archive with hundreds of historical maps and images. The site's Ask the HyperHistorian feature allows users to pose questions to professional historians."
The National Science Foundation's Biology Research Overview: (described by eSchool News) Visitors to the National Science Foundation's Biology Research Overview site are privy to an interactive tour that guides users through a three-dimensional image of a human cell, complete with numbered parts such as the mitochondria and the nucleus. Cutaways reveal the inner structure of the cell, along with detailed explanations as to how each component in the cell works with others. Students also can find information about the latest biology news and discoveries, while teachers can use the classroom resources provided on the site--such as web sites about biotechnology and botany--in their lesson plans. The site gives information on topics such as how climates affect life today, the role in technology in biology, and how living creatures evolved from single-celled organisms.
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Online Assessment of Student Technology Skills: The National Education Technology Standards (NETS) Online Technology Assessment helps teachers measure student skills in using software applications and helps measure student progress toward meeting the NETS. Each assessment consists of 5 to 10 activities measuring a number of separate skills as well as integrated sets of skills related to a project or problem. The assessments are designed to be completed within an average of 30 minutes or less, but they are not timed. Individual activities can be repeated, and the assessments can be retaken as many times as needed. Feedback on student performance is provided after each question, and a summary is given at the end. The assessment detail page identifies which applications are used in each assessment, the ISTE NETS•S performance indicators they can help to measure, and specific activities performed during the assessment.
The Web English Teacher: At Web English Teacher educators can take advantage of online technology to share ideas and to benefit from the work of others. Beginning teachers can find guidance; experienced teachers can find inspiration. Think of it as the faculty library and faculty workroom on a global scale.
America's Library: This is the Library of Congress site formatted for young children. Includes a Jump Back in Time section that shows what happened on a particular date in the past or a specific era in history.
Animals - Myths and Legends: Here is an interesting site designed for children 8 to 13 years old which presents myths and legends involving animals from all over the world. The Fun Stuff section for activities your students can use along with links to a few other sites with appropriate activities.
FirstGov for Kids: Information about the US federal government that an elementary student can understand. Maintained by the Federal Consumer Information Center (the folks in Pueblo, Colorado), this site pulls together the best government sites along with other outside sites that feature information about the government There is even a homework helper section.
KidLink: KidLink is an unusual site with the purpose of helping "children collaborate with peers around the world". Owned by a non-profit Norwegian group and supported by the World Bank, the site acts as a clearinghouse for communications projects between students in many countries around the world. Another major goal is to develop links between teachers both to connect classes and to help teachers learn from each other. There is also an archive of past projects available to give you ideas.
Kids' Space: This site just seems to get better and better every year (it's been around since 1995) and is still a lot of fun for younger children. Highlights of this extensive site are the Kids' Gallery, where kids from all over the world post their art work, and Story Book, where kids can read original stories, also written by kids. Another section, Kid's Space Connection, allows students to find key pals, ask questions, post site reviews and more communication activities designed for younger kids. All in all, an excellent resource.
National Geographic for Kids: This site offers some of the great National Geographic materials repackaged for elementary students. The Stories section offers a new article with video each month and past articles can be found in the archives section. Games and Try This! offer activities for kids to try which can also be used in the classroom. Finally, check into the Kids News section for a weekly story about animals, history or geography.
National Wildlife Federation Kidzone: This is but one part of the Federation site and actually has four different sections, three aimed at elementary students. The material, of course, deals with animals and ecology and features lots of pictures. Like so many of the sites on this page, these pages are oriented around the publications of Federation but they also offer materials and activities that can be used without them.
New York Philharmonic Kidszone: Making great use of Flash, this site offers kids an inside look at how a symphony orchestra is organized, information about instruments, the role of the conductor, and profiles of composers and musicians. In the Instrument Storage Room students can listen to short sound samples of each instrument while the Instrument Lab shows students how to make musical instruments using common household items. A very good example of how to make a complicated subject very understandable for kids.
Ology: The American Museum of Natural History has created this site to teach kids about various "ologies" in science. Designed for children ages seven to twelve, topics include marine biology, archaeology, paleontology, biodiversity, and astronomy. Each section includes interactive games and opportunities to ask questions of experts in each field. Check the After-School Educator's Guide for ideas on how to use the materials on this site in your classroom.
Time for Kids: A companion site for the print version of the magazine of the same name, this site offers current events written for elementary students. The news section includes one or two news stories each week, many written by elementary-aged students themselves. The Teacher and Parent sections offer suggestions on how to use the materials, although the teacher pages have more advertising that I would like. The site also has a section of materials (which parallels the magazine and the site to a lesser extent) that can be reproduced for use in class.
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