A Discussion on Osama bin Laden

Discovery Education had a webinar last week that explained the events that led up to the capture and demise of Osama bin Laden.  The discussion took place with Ben Rhodes the Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor.  Mr.  Rhodes tells about the events leading up to the big event and then he took questions from students from across the United States.  The archived event is located here if you would like to share this with your students.  The webinar is about 30 minutes in length with the first ten being a recap of events and the last 20 minutes being questions from students. Discovery recommends that due to the sensitive nature of the webinar that only middle and high school students watch the archive.

April 22nd is Earth Day!

With Earth Day fast approaching there are several websites that offer information for teachers and kids.  The first website is called Energy Kids and it is a fascinating website that gives a ton of information about energy.  Do your students know what energy is?  If not they can visit Energy Kids and they can learn about energy and all of its different forms.  The website also give great information about nonrenewable and renewable energy.  It also breaks down how we use electricity and hydrogen as forms of energy.  Have you every wondered how much energy homes or businesses use?  Energy kids also gives some great statistics as to how much energy is used by people every day.  There are a few games and activities that are included but they are not very interactive so they will probably be best used within a lab setting.  This is a great website that provides a lot of information for both teachers and students.

BrainPop is also offering several videos and activities that go along very nicely with earth day.  They have 11 different videos that can be used to inform your students about earth day as well as an overall earth awareness package.  If you are not sure what to teach about earth day I would start with these videos and activities.

Science Website

When it comes to the internet there are millions of resources that are available for science.  For a really great science website click here.  Science Bob has a lot of free resources that you can use with your students as well as many resources that your students can use on their own.  The website is broken down into 8 different categories for you to choose from.  The main categories being science fair ideas, experiments, and videos.  Science Bob has created this website as a tool for both teachers and students.  Within the science fair ideas section it gives great ideas for science experiments that students can do on their own or for a science fair.  Science Bob breaks down the scientific method which can also be printed and also has many resources for kids.  Within the experiments portion of the website Science Bob has many experiments with step by step instructions and an explanation of why it works to help your students.  One of the best parts of the website is the videos section Science Bob has 20 videos that are also found on his You Tube channel.  The videos are very entertaining and also educational for your students.

Math Playground

Math Playground is a fun and entertaining website for students of all ages.  They have many games that can be played on the Promethean Board which range from multiplication to percentages.  All of the games are interactive and are easy to figure out. 

Math Playground also has word problems that can be used in the classroom and they are broken down from grades 1-7.  Some of the word problems are not very fancy but they do let the students answer the question and then it will give them immediate feedback.

Another part of Math Playground that can be beneficial to the teacher and the students is in the Logic puzzles section.  In this section there are several logic games that can be played like sudoku as well as connect 4 along with many others. 

The last section of Math Playground is the Math Video section.  In this section there are many videos that will help compliment the lessons that you are already teaching.  This would be great for the students who may need some extra support at school or even at home.

If you are a math teacher this site is definitely one that you will enjoy and you will probably refer back to time and time again.