Cool Classroom Halloween Resources

Looking for some cool classroom resources for Halloween?

Writing Prompts:

Teach Hub: 7 Halloween writing prompts

Wrentham Public Schools: Halloween Writing Activities and Ideas

Pinterest Boards:

Halloween Language Arts Ideas

Halloween Classroom Ideas

Halloween - School Ideas

General:

Larry Ferlazzo's blog (ton of resources here)

The Teacher's Corner (crosswords, word search, etc.)

Education.com (a lot of classroom activities here)

Scholastic (includes Math and Science activities)

Cybraryman's website (pretty much everything you can think of here)

LiveBinders:

By Wisermar:

Halloween

By KB...Konnected:

Halloween 1

Extra Life 2014

Extra Life 2014 is going to be one of the biggest and best years on record.

What is Extra Life?

Extra Life is a annual event where gamers come together and play video games for 24 hours to raise money for the Children's Miracle Network.

Here's a video about the story that started it all:

My goal this year is $500.  All the funds I raise goes to the Don and Sybil Harrington Cancer Foundation, our local Children's Miracle Network participant. 

If you can even donate $1, that will go towards helping helping kids.  Feel free to donate via the widget on the right side of this blog or you can click here to visit my donation page.   

5 Back to School LiveBinders

The 2014 school year has kicked off for many schools recently.  Teachers are collecting and organizing resources for lesson plans and students are building E-Portfolios to demonstrate and reflect upon their learning.

Here are 5 LiveBinders to help you and your students for back to school:

1.  Know your Students by Chandra Manning

Know Your Students

This LiveBinder is full of excellent resources.  Resources range from: Meet the teacher, icebreakers and learning styles.  This binder is a must to start planning your year!

2.  First Five Days by Joy Kirr

First Five Days

This LiveBinder, from Joy Kirr, is a outstanding resource to get your school year started!  This binder includes icebreakers, letters and videos examples you can send home with your students and blog posts about the first days of school.  Another must have LiveBiinder to add to your resources!

3.  Ipads in Schools by Mike Fisher

iPads in Schools

If you are looking to use Ipads in your classroom this year, this LiveBinder is where you will want to start. Voted one of the Top 10 LiveBinders in 2011, this LiveBinder has everything from lesson plans, lists of multiple apps and resources for Special Education.

4.  Evernote for Educators by Justin Stallings

Evernote for Educators

Evernote for Educators, created by myself, was voted as one of the Top 10 LiveBinders in 2013.  If you are looking to get started with Evernote this year, this binder has you covered.

5.  Free Technology Tools for Teachers by Mickie Mueller

Free Technology Tools for Teachers

Voted as a one of the Top 10 LiveBinders of 2012, this LiveBinder is packed full of resources.  If you need resources for photo editing, Google, coding and presentation tools then this binder will have what you are looking for.

Looking to get involved with LiveBinders this year in your classroom?  Check out my recently released guide, Educator's Guide to LiveBinders on theedublogger.com.  Special thanks to The Edublogger and the ladies at LiveBinders for their help on putting the guide together!

Wireless G and Wireless N Routers Explained

Ever wondered what the difference is between Wireless G and Wireless N routers?

Here's a good video I found from Netgear that explains the difference:

5 Oceanography Classroom Resources

Here are 5 Oceanography resources you can use in your classroom:

Office of Naval Research

The Office of Naval Research, an official U.S. Navy website, provides excellent resources for educators to teach about oceanography.  Resources include ocean characteristics, habitats, ocean life and ocean regions. The website also includes information about their research vessels.  

NOAA

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a wonderful page full of resources for teachers.  If you are needing resources for ocean currents, ocean floor features, tides and tsunamis.  Each topic includes multimedia resources, lesson plans and activities and even information about careers students could have in this field.  

Kathy Schrock's Guide

Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators, who's guide has a plethora of resources on almost everything, also includes resources on Oceanography.  The guide includes multiple links to several resources that cover oceanography.  If you need a good starting point to your research, this is the best place to start. 

PBS - NOVA

NOVA, a resource from PBS, provides several resources to learn about Oceanography.  Resources include classroom activities, ideas shared by other teachers and interactive resources for students.  The interactive resources is a solid way to get students engaged.  One of the interactive resources provided is "Anatomy of a Tsunami" - which provides diagrams and animated videos and images.  

NASA

NASA is a outstanding resource to engage students in the learning of Oceanography.  Resources include ocean topography, sea surface temperatures, climate variability, carbon cycle and the water cycle. Each topic includes images and data.  NASA also provides a few interactive resources such as "Ocean Motion". This interactive shows animated videos of ocean currents.  

5 Free Apps to stay informed of Severe Weather

Over the last couple of weeks, there has been several storms in the area I live in that have produced Tornadoes.  Thankfully no one has been hurt and everyone has stayed safe.  

With technology like tablets and smartphones, you can be alerted to severe weather warnings and events without having to be near a radio or TV.  Here are 5 resources you can use to stay informed of severe weather when it occurs:

Intellicast (IOS, Android) is a excellent resource to check out current weather radars and severe weather alerts.  The app also offers push notifications for your phone/tablet whenever there are severe weather alerts for your area (Severe Thunderstorm Watches/Warnings, Tornado Watches/Warnings, etc.)  With the push notifications enabled, you can be alerted of what is going on without even being in the app.  You can also access Intellicast by going to their website at www.intellicast.com.  

The Weather Channel app (IOS, Android, Windows) is also a handy app to have when needing updates on severe weather and radars. The app also provides push alerts to your phone just in case you are not in the app or not aware of any severe weather events in your area.  You can also get weather forecasts for the week ahead or for the current day. You can also get this information via The Weather Channel website at www.weather.com.

Accuweather (IOS, Android, Windows) provides a excellent app severe weather and weather forecasting.  Along with the other apps mentioned thus far, this app also provides push notifications in case of severe weather, weather forecasts and weather radars.  The app also includes news and videos related to weather events.  You also have the choice of sharing your current weather conditions on social media websites like Twitter and Facebook. 

The Weatherbug app (IOS, Android) is a great weather app to have in you need to look at the weather forecast, weather radars or receive alerts for severe weather.  Weatherbug provides also a lightning detector called "Spark".  This gives you a idea of how many lightning strikes are in a certain area.  The app also provides live weather cams from different locations across the United States.   

The TVN Weather Live Storm Chasing app is one of my favorites.  If you watched Storm Chasers when it was on the Discovery Channel (or caught it currently on Netflix), you'll be familiar with Reed Timmer.  Dubbed as a "extreme Meteorologist", he, along with multiple other chasers for TVN (Tornado Videos.net) chase tornadoes.  This app provides weather radars and live video feed from chasers who are online.  So, if you are looking for live video of potential tornadoes in your area, this app has you covered.  This can also be accessed from their website, www.tvnweather.com.       

Programing Tutorials - Learn coding with screencasts

Programming Tutorials - a app on the Windows store, is a great app to help you get started coding.  The app, which requires Windows 8.1 to run, provides free screen-casts that give you a step by step guide to coding.

The screen-casts range from programming languages such as HTML, Javascript, Java, Ruby, PHP and several others.  Each programming language has it's own set of screen-casts.

If you looking into creating a Windows Store app, Android app or a Iphone app, this app has you covered. The series of screen-casts for the Windows Store app development, for example, is a very well done series created by Bob Tabor (www.learnvisualstudio.net).  If you don't have Windows 8.1 to run this app, you can head on over to Bob Tabor's website and watch these videos for free.  Click here to visit the free screen-casts lists on his website.

Looking for more coding resources?  Feel free to visit my Coding 101 Livebinder:

Coding 101