Tuesday, January 1, 2013

December Technology Links


For Parents:
If you’re still looking for some fun educational gifts this site has some suggestions for you.
For Parents and Children:
Jan Brett has an amazing web site with resources for children, parents, and teachers.
If Santa will be visiting your house this year be sure to tune into this site on Christmas Eve to track Santa’s progress.
For Children:
http://www.wegivebooks.org- This site has many popular books for children, ages 0-10, to read. The books can be sorted by age, genre, or author.  Without an account you can read the Editor’s Pics. But by registering for a free account for your child you have access to many more books and new books are added monthly. There are even seasonal books. The books can read on the computer or any internet enabled device. 
Fun Holiday Sites
http://sprintsweets.com/ -Decorate a gingerbread cookie
Design a Christmas tree
http://www.castlearcana.com/christmas/tree/index.html

November Technology Links

For Parents and Children:
http://www.teachingkidsbooks.com/ A quote from the website:My goal is to create a resource for teachers, home schoolers and anyone interested in quality books for children.” I just discovered this site and I’ve already used it to find some picture books to teach skills in the classroom. As a parent I was always looking for good quality books for my own children and to give to other children as gifts. If you enjoy learning about new children’s book be sure to check this out.
For Children:
http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/ I mentioned Scholastic last month. This is a link to their Thanksgiving resources for children. They’ll be posting a Mayflower virtual field trip soon and you can even sign up to receive historical letters from a Pilgrim girl and Wampanoag boy.
APPS
Parents
Dropbox-Free
Dropbox is great even if you don’t have a device that uses apps. Dropbox allows you to save documents and open them on any computer. I LOVE Dropbox and use it constantly for school work. No more thumb drives to keep track of for me. The Dropbox app is a way for you to get pictures from your device to your computer or visa versa. The same thing with PDF documents. You need to sign up for the free account at www.dropbox.com
Grades PreK-3
Grasshopperapps.com
There are many choices of apps from this company-puzzles, phonics, I like books-a whole series of books about things kids like, and more. The thing I love about these apps is that they are so customizable. The apps use bright colorful photographs but you can add your own, you can record your own voice or in the case of the books the children can record themselves reading the books and under the settings button there are more ways to customize the app.