Help with educational websites/programs, please?!?!

I am the new technology teacher for my son's school. We have very little software. Until now, the computer lab was used for practicing typing with a couple of typing software games. Needless to say, I have a lot of work to do to bring these kids up to speed. I am developing the curriculum from scratch so I am flexible. The school is a very small private school with a very small budget. I am scrambling to come up with ways to teach everything these kids need to know. I will be teaching K-6th grade. If you have any suggestions, I would really, really, really appreciate it!

Thank You so very much for any help!

I'm sure you probably already know about it, but starfall.com is a great, free site with reading programs, probably best for pre-k through 1st or 2nd grade.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, here are a few sites:

www.funbrain.com
www.brainpop.com and www.brainpopjr.com
http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com
http://www.playkidsgames.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/ is great for teaching typing. The kids LOVE the British Goat!!!

Starfall is wonderful. Also http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/ for educational games.

Some other things to teach are, especially with the older kids:

*using paint or similar program to "write" letters with the mouse, print out and make a book.

*type spelling words in word (turn off spell check first); word has lots of things you can teach like bullets, tabs, spelling features, letter wizards

*simple formulas in excel (older kids love this, especially if statements- you can do things like if[cell address]="clean","$","GROUNDED"); also things like creating automatic lists (colors of the rainbow, kids in class names, etc)

*powerpoint presentations- you can do something as simple as their favorite ice-creams and use it to make multiple slides, find graphics, use the drawing tools to draw icecream (and utilize things like grouping, order, changing defaults)

*how to navigate the web- historical research projects are good for this.

If I think of more I'll post them! Congrats and good luck!!!

My kids have liked starfall.com

I know some people in the homeschooling community like Reading Eggs (you need to pay for access i believe). I have no personal experience w/ that one.


eta: not sure what your budget is. We did a trial of Discovery Streaming for a month and it was cool. I don't like my kids having a ton of screen time at this point in their lives so we're holding off on subscribing for a full year at this point. Also with summer/warmer weather, they weren't as into it. I'm not sure if that's something your school would have any interest in.

Other website options:
www.spellingcity.com is a great way to work on spelling words- it is a free site- teachers or parents can put in word lists- and students can play games around these.

Other options for all curriculum areas might be
www.pbs.org- great resources organized by grade/age and subject- there are suggested assignments and ideas for kids for projects, questions, discussion points, etc.

www.discoverykids.com has come cool ideas and information!
www.englishcompanion.com
www.lessonplanet.com- a search engine for teachers- great resource!
www.tolerance.org- website for Teaching Tolerance- has good resources to use in the classroom

For science:
www.billnye.com- Bill Nye the Science guy
http://cellsalive.com- more MS/HS focused
www.tryscience.org- Science fair type stuff
www.scholastic.com- good for science, LA, etc
www.smithsonianeducation.org- good for science, history, etc.
www.zoobooks.com

For math:
www.mathforum.org
www.purplemath.com - more Algebra stuff
www.math.com
www.coolmath.com


Good luck!

when you say you're developing the curriculum from scratch, does that also mean determining the goals of the courses that you're going to be teaching them?

Before I could offer suggestions, I'd need to know what you hope to achieve in the school year with each group (or is it the same for all grades?), or is this something you need help defining? Before looking at any software or websites I'd make sure that is nailed down and agreed upon by both you and the administration and other faculty.

In our school, we do a lot with Mapmaker's Tool Kit (great for social studies) and Kidspiration and Inspiration (excellent for writing, especially pre-writing).

We also teach them Photostory and Powerpoint for making presentations.

Your public library may loan out educational software "games" so you can try before you buy. Also, they may offer remote access to some things (databases, etc.) from their website. You may need a library card number to use them though. Tumblebooks came to mind, though I don't know if that is something you would use in your curriculum.

http://www.tumblebooks.com/

Also check out any free stuff they link to. A lot of the work you need to do has probably already been done by somebody else and conveniently put on the internet! I would see if another local school has stuff on their website.