LOST IN THE WOODS

Since schools is out I thought I would share some neat sites about all kinds of stuff with you for the summer.

The first is a site called LOST IN THE WOODS, THE 9 RULES FOR SURVIVAL.

It explains what to do if you get: lost in the woods. It's written for children and adults. The nine rules are clear and easy to understand.

Being a city boy I learned a lot.

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DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY?

I just finished reading a great book that I want to share with you.

Now if you are not an American history buff you can stop reading this blog and click on the "Next Blog" tag at the top of this page.


It's called America's Hidden History. The cover says it is the Untold Tales of The First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped A Nation. It's author is Ken Davis. I've read lots of history books on this subject before but every page of this book had something new on it I hadn't read about before.


I throughly enjoyed it. As a matter of fact when I got done reading it the second time I got out my 5th grade history teaching text and scribbled notes all over it of some of the interesting things I found in the book so I can share them with the kids in the fall.


Mr. Davis shares some great stories about who the first real Pilgrims in America were, an expanded version of Queen Isabella (and her pigs), the amazing story of George Washington's rise to power, how America not only came to war but how she won and several other awesome stories.


Once you pick it up you will not want to put it down. I think I enjoyed the book so much because he takes all these famous and infamous people and share there reasons for why they did what they did.



Amazing book. #

Lunar Eclipse Wednesday

Sorry for not getting this out sooner. There is a Lunar Eclipse tomorrow(Wednesday). Space.com has some pretty good information. I like the page but they have a bit too much advertising on it.

The NASA site is way to complicated for me but you might like it.

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SiEMENS

If I was 18 again and looking for a career I think I would like to be on the team that makes these amazing commercials.

BOY COULD i USE A DRINK

QUIKMAPS

This one is fun. It is called Quikmaps and oddly enough you can check it out at quikmaps.com. I made a map that shows you how to get to the local McDonalds from our school. The directions are a little lacking but if you play around with it for a few minutes you and your kids will figured it out. I can see using this to map the route Columbus took to get to the Americas, mapping the Triangular Trade, Civil War battles and much more.

Give it a try and let us know how you might use it in your classroom.

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day

You are going to love this site. Larry does a great job of finding all kinds of sites for us to use in our classroom. It's easy to read and well organized. I liked it so much I added it to my Blogger list. Start with his home page and scroll down to check out the last ten posts.

Check out his February 9th post. It is called "The Best Way for Students (And Anyone Else!) To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly, and Painlessly" He's got a bunch of great ideas that I am going to try with my 5th graders. Check out his suggestions to make a movie, write a song, make a map, or create a piece of art.



Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Subscribe to Time Magazine at an 86% discount!

That's me. One the cover of TIME. Here is me on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Subscribe to Rolling Stone Magazine at an 86% discount!

And finally me on the cover of, go figure, Seventeen.

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Subscribe to Seventeen Magazine at a 67% discount!

It's called MagMyPic. See what you can do with it.

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TWO NEW SITES

As I was cruising around the web searching for something to try with my students I came across two sites you might want to check out.

The first is called the Carrot Clustering Engine. According to it's blurb it:

... will search the Web with www.etools.ch and automatically organize the results into thematic categories

I typed in "vikings" and it did a pretty good job of sorting things out.


Another site I checked out is called Awesome Stories. According to it's blurb:

Enjoy an interactive learning experience as you see thousands of hand-selected and relevant links to pictures, artifacts, manuscripts, documents and other primary sources, IN CONTEXT, within each story. The first eight chapters of every story are available to all.

I was kind of impressed. I clicked on a link called Beowulf-The Story Behind The Movie and read all about the early history of Britain and the events that led to that fateful meeting between two foes. Then I discovered a button to click on and listen as someone with a beautiful voices read it to me.

They have dozens of awesome stories from the past for you to check out.

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LEARNING IS MESSY

I have to share with you one of my favorite blogs. It is called Learning is Messy and is written by Brian Crosby a fifth grade teacher at Agnes Risley School in Sparks, Nevada. I love the title. It's perfect.

He a man after my own heart. I think we think a lot alike. The only difference is he's doing things I have only thought about doing. He does all kinds of cool things with his class. They don't always work and lately some interesting things have been happening in wonderful world of education in Nevada in general and his classroom specially ( You will have to read his post to find out what I am alluding to.) but he keeps on truckin.

You need to check his blog out. I think its one of the best. The post I am linking to here is about an idea he had that's both hi-tech and low tech. He has his kids using reading tubes to proofread their online stories. Check out the details. I tried it with my class and it is working great.

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DINOUSAURS ANYONE?

This is the third time I've written this post. I found a fun site about dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum in the UK. I was going to share this game I found and tell you more about the site in general but the more time I spent on site the more cool stuff I found and the more I had to rewrite this post.

I found a lot of information, pictures, videos, and games here. I started with a game called WHAT KIND OF DINOSAUR ARE YOU? and ended up using the DINO DIRECTORY to scope out T-Rex.


The site is a great resource for teachers and students alike. Check it out.