Free Printable Certificates

With the end of the year fast approaching we are all trying to plan for all of the end of the year activities.  Recently I found a very cool website that offers free printable certificates that can be downloaded.  Certificate Street offers a ton of free templates that range from Student of the Day to good listener awards.  Once you find the certificate that you like you click on download and it opens from with Adobe reader.  Now all you have to do is type in the information hit print and the certificate is yours.  The only downfall to this is that you cannot save your completed certificates with the information filled in but you can save the template to use later.  This is definitely a time saver when it comes to the chaos that the end of the year brings.  Enjoy!

If you are looking for a website that has all the bells and whistles and amazing things that the web has to offer then don't read this!

If you are looking for a website that has all the bells and whistles and amazing things that the web has to offer then don't go to this website.  But, if you are looking for a website that will give your students ideas to write about then I would absolutely visit this site.  At first glance you would think that this website has nothing that you would be interested in but when you actually start to use it your students will thank you.  The Story Starter website is a website that provides 763,591,140 wonderful ideas and writing prompts for writers of all ages.  It is very simple to use all you have to do is click on the button that says "Click Here for a Random Story Starter Sentence" and the website provides a story starter.  After reviewing a few of the starters you will find some of them are very entertaining like this one "The hilarious airline hostess composed a song in the garage for the deadly frog."  Most of the story starters are probably for upper elementary through high school students but Joel Heffner has also created The Story Starter Jr. which provides story starters like "The superhero was walking in the school."  This website is good for your elementary school students but does not provide nearly the number of story starters as the original.  If you are anything like me this will make your job easier because I could never think of creative story starters like the ones provided on these two websites.

Wild Weather Adventure

If you are looking for a great weather review game you should visit NASA's space place.  Within the games section you will find many games that will be very helpful to you and your students. 

While visiting a classroom I was able to observe students playing a game called Wild Weather Adventure and having a great time while learning.  This game takes the students on a weather adventure across the world.  As the game starts the teacher chooses how many groups will be playing and then sets the groups.  The students now choose their group name and start the game.  As the students spin a wheel it asks them questions about weather and gives them small bits of knowledge as they play the game.  Each team has a weather ballon that they move from space to space on the board of the world.  The more answers that they answer correctly the further they move and the closer they get to the end.  The first team to move their balloon to the end wins the game.  This can be a great review for your students.  It is not only fun but they can also learn something while they play.
Note:  On the main page the teacher can click on "Click here to view the text version" and they will show all of the questions that are asked along with the answers to those questions. 

Special Thanks:  Thank you to Michelle Bernstein for sharing this link with me.  If anyone else has some good links that they would like included feel free to let me know and I will pass them on to everyone.  Don't forget to tell your friends.

Did you know that Big Bird is 8 feet 2 inches tall?

When it comes to kids they always have one thing in common and that is they all love Sesame Street.  Sesame Street has a great website with games that can be played either on their own computer or along with the Promethean Board.  While browsing their list of games I found 62 different games that range from numbers and counting to early reading.  All of the games can be sorted by subject, theme or even by the characters to make it easier to find what you are looking for. While Sesame Street is probably geared more towards the younger students, there might be a few things that even your older students might like.  All of the games are based on one of the Sesame Street characters and that character leads them through the activity that the kids will be doing.  Even if you don't teach the lower grade levels this would be a great website for any kid that may just be learning their numbers and letters up to those kids who may just be starting to read. 

Make Beautiful Backgrounds Using Science

Do you wish you could design your own backgrounds in ActivInspire? Do you possess some graphic designer qualities yourself? Are you looking for a visually stimulating exercise for your students? Need a brain break idea?

Caution: The Flame Website is absolutely mesmerizing!


We all know how important creativity is but it's difficult to find the time. The Flame Website offers an opportunity for teachers and students to be creative by using their amazing drawing tool to draw vivid images.
There are also animations, pictures, and experiments on this website. I encourage science teachers to check out the experiments as they show some awesome examples of particle behavior like the effect wind has on fire. Even if you don't get into the scientific aspects of this (I'm no chemistry teacher-that's for sure!) the kids will enjoy and learn a lot just by watching or exploring this site.
Click here to go to the Flame Website.
The program may ask you to run an earlier version of Java that's ok. Just click ok.
The first ISTE National Educational Technology Standard for students is: 1. Creativity and Innovation Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance to support individual learning and contribute to learning of others. The first IST/E standard for teachers is very similar: 1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity .

To create your own backgrounds in ActivInspire: save your masterpiece by clicking the save button on the lower right hand corner. Giver your computer a minute to load. After your image is displayed go to file, then choose "save page as". Select your location i.e. pictures, documents, desktop, etc . . . This will save your masterpiece on your computer as a picture you can import.

In ActivInsipre choose Insert, then Media. Browse for your image-double click. Your masterpiece will then appear on your flipchart page as an object that you can use as a background or image.