Instructional Websites

My best instructional websites are http://www.first-school.ws and http://atozteacherstuff.com. these two websites are very useful for me. I do not use websites with my students, I used to use youTube, but that has since been blocked, so now I mainly just use the internet to help me find ideas when I am not feeling creative. these tow sites have a lot of material that I find helpful. They provide ideas and resources as well as links to other sites.

The thing I like best about First School is that it has many different activities that I could use within a specific topic. For example this year, we are starting to teach a letter a week. This can be more difficult than it would seem because some letters are easier to teach than others. A is pretty easy because its the first letter of the alphabet and many children have the letter A in their name, on the other hand Q is more difficult because it is not as common and there are less words that are familiar to the students that begin with or even contain a Q. Like I said, First School offers many activities and resources regardless of the letter or topic. This site does not only offer letter related ideas but has many broad themes that can be taught in a variety of settings using easily obtained materials. It offers ides for Fairy tales, Environmental sciences, Human Body, Community Helpers, etc. Sometimes I get stuck when it comes to thinking up new projects for the kids to participate in and First School offers a wide variety print outs, craft ideas, and links to related topics (within their website and external sites as well). Another way that First School is useful is because the themes are age related, I don't have to modify it to work with preschoolers. Many other sites offer good ideas, but I would have to change, which i don't mind doing, but sometimes it is easier to not have to reinvent everything.

A to Z is another website that I use when looking for ideas or resources to use in my classroom. This too, has many topic ideas which is never a bad thing. This site even offers book related themes for popular stories such as "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Eric Carle and "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by Bill Martin Jr, John Archambault and Lois Ehlert as well as broader categories such as Character Education. This website offers links to other sites that have the topic you are interested in. It is like a search engine for preschool themes. Other benefits of A to Z is that it not only gives you resource for within the classroom to use with the student, it also has a page where you can look up articles related to important topics within the educational world. This site offers quick tips and tricks for topics such as Meal Count, Attention Getters, Classroom Decor. There are many useful aspects of this page that I use with the students and on my own. I highly suggest any teacher look here for ideas because while First School was aimed at preschoolers, A to Z is for anyone working in th educational field.