Freely Educate

The Coolest Periodic Table of the Elements We've Found (& it's free!)

Chemistry, at first glance seems ho-hum, right?  But when you consider that baking is chemistry, the science suddenly becomes much more interesting, don't you think?  And when you visit this Periodic Table of the Elements, chemistry and science in general are interesting enough to be kind of fun. 

This Periodic Table of the Elements is  "dynamic," meaning, the chart knows where your cursor is and provides more information on the element you are hovering over.  Also, you can click on an element, finding out more about each one.  It's  worth checking out!  (Set the kids loose at the site and maybe you won't have to teach any other chemistry beyond baking.)   

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Chemistry, at first glance seems ho-hum, right?  But when you consider that baking is chemistry, the science suddenly becomes much more interesting, don't you think?  And when you visit this Periodic Table of the Elements, chemistry and science in general are interesting enough to be kind of fun. 

This Periodic Table of the Elements is  "dynamic," meaning, the chart knows where your cursor is and provides more information on the element you are hovering over.  Also, you can click on an element, finding out more about each one.  It's  worth checking out!  (Set the kids loose at the site and maybe you won't have to teach any other chemistry beyond baking.)   

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Free Magazine Subscription (no catches!) for Planning School Field Trips

Here's a GREAT resource for you!  If you plan field trips, you'll enjoy this free magazine subscription to help you choose the best trips.  Student Group Tour Magazine is  a free trade magazine for educators, individuals and organizations in the US and Canada. 

      

Here is a description from Student Group Tour Magazine:

Student Group Tour Magazine is a publication for individuals, educators and organizations actively planning trips for student groups.

Every issue contains information focusing on student oriented destinations, itineraries, travel trends, and information covering all aspects of student travel. With the regional breakdown, articles and advertisements are placed within their respective section of the magazine for easy reference.

 If you'd like the Student Group Tour Magazine to come to your postal - snail mail - box, fill out the mailing information form, here.  There is no credit card required and nothing to cancel - this is a trade magazine, 100% free to educators.    

Note: This is a limited time offer.   There is no deadline, but the number of free subscriptions is limited

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at freelyeducate@gmail.com

      

Here is a description from Student Group Tour Magazine:

Student Group Tour Magazine is a publication for individuals, educators and organizations actively planning trips for student groups.

Every issue contains information focusing on student oriented destinations, itineraries, travel trends, and information covering all aspects of student travel. With the regional breakdown, articles and advertisements are placed within their respective section of the magazine for easy reference.

 If you'd like the Student Group Tour Magazine to come to your postal - snail mail - box, fill out the mailing information form, here.  There is no credit card required and nothing to cancel - this is a trade magazine, 100% free to educators.    

Note: This is a limited time offer.   There is no deadline, but the number of free subscriptions is limited

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at freelyeducate@gmail.com

      

Here is a description from Student Group Tour Magazine:

Student Group Tour Magazine is a publication for individuals, educators and organizations actively planning trips for student groups.

Every issue contains information focusing on student oriented destinations, itineraries, travel trends, and information covering all aspects of student travel. With the regional breakdown, articles and advertisements are placed within their respective section of the magazine for easy reference.

 If you'd like the Student Group Tour Magazine to come to your postal - snail mail - box, fill out the mailing information form, here.  There is no credit card required and nothing to cancel - this is a trade magazine, 100% free to educators.    

Note: This is a limited time offer.   There is no deadline, but the number of free subscriptions is limited

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Have a resource or giveaway to share?  Email me at freelyeducate@gmail.com

Our Favorite Site for Preschoolers, Kindergartners & Early Elementary

Lately whenever I take our little girl, a 1st grader, to the library, she never fails to tell a new friend about her favorite website.  For her sake - well, for yours really - I thought I'd rerun this post again:

Poisson Rouge, or, Red Fish Soup, is....um...it's a site that is hard to explain, that's what.  Here's a screenshot of it:

Your little student simply clicks on something.  Anything.  He or she can then move it, build it, learn the alphabet from it, listen to it, play with it...all depending on what he or she chooses to do.

The makers of Poisson Rouge didn't post instructions on the site, as they'd prefer that children freely do whatever they'd like to do on Poisson Rouge,  but with more than a little reluctance, they wrote up a User Guide for Teachers & Parents, which is well worth a read not only for the lesson tips, but also for their insight into how children learn.

Here are a couple of reviews posted on Poisson Rouge:

"The site encourages, relies on, and rewards exploration.  It's only gotten better as I let students cooperate with each other.  While some of the more complicated puzzles may not entertain many students, I was very pleased to find one autistic student who happily spent hours on those."

"I have a little girl just about to turn three and she loves it. It has done wonders for her mouse skills, unlike any other websites we have found she can use it completely independently and she is still finding new things to do on it."

See those little French and British flags (circles) at the bottom of the screenshot, above?  If you click on the flag of France, you'll read the site in French.  If you click on the British flag, you'll read the site in English.   A few of the children's games are affected by this, such as the alphabet.  I can see it as a neat way to teach the little ones a bit of French (or English).

I dare you to try not to get addicted to Poisson Rouge (Red Fish Soup) yourself! 

~ Lori

~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Your little student simply clicks on something.  Anything.  He or she can then move it, build it, learn the alphabet from it, listen to it, play with it...all depending on what he or she chooses to do.

The makers of Poisson Rouge didn't post instructions on the site, as they'd prefer that children freely do whatever they'd like to do on Poisson Rouge,  but with more than a little reluctance, they wrote up a User Guide for Teachers & Parents, which is well worth a read not only for the lesson tips, but also for their insight into how children learn.

Here are a couple of reviews posted on Poisson Rouge:

"The site encourages, relies on, and rewards exploration.  It's only gotten better as I let students cooperate with each other.  While some of the more complicated puzzles may not entertain many students, I was very pleased to find one autistic student who happily spent hours on those."

"I have a little girl just about to turn three and she loves it. It has done wonders for her mouse skills, unlike any other websites we have found she can use it completely independently and she is still finding new things to do on it."

See those little French and British flags (circles) at the bottom of the screenshot, above?  If you click on the flag of France, you'll read the site in French.  If you click on the British flag, you'll read the site in English.   A few of the children's games are affected by this, such as the alphabet.  I can see it as a neat way to teach the little ones a bit of French (or English).

I dare you to try not to get addicted to Poisson Rouge (Red Fish Soup) yourself! 

~ Lori

~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Your little student simply clicks on something.  Anything.  He or she can then move it, build it, learn the alphabet from it, listen to it, play with it...all depending on what he or she chooses to do.

The makers of Poisson Rouge didn't post instructions on the site, as they'd prefer that children freely do whatever they'd like to do on Poisson Rouge,  but with more than a little reluctance, they wrote up a User Guide for Teachers & Parents, which is well worth a read not only for the lesson tips, but also for their insight into how children learn.

Here are a couple of reviews posted on Poisson Rouge:

"The site encourages, relies on, and rewards exploration.  It's only gotten better as I let students cooperate with each other.  While some of the more complicated puzzles may not entertain many students, I was very pleased to find one autistic student who happily spent hours on those."

"I have a little girl just about to turn three and she loves it. It has done wonders for her mouse skills, unlike any other websites we have found she can use it completely independently and she is still finding new things to do on it."

See those little French and British flags (circles) at the bottom of the screenshot, above?  If you click on the flag of France, you'll read the site in French.  If you click on the British flag, you'll read the site in English.   A few of the children's games are affected by this, such as the alphabet.  I can see it as a neat way to teach the little ones a bit of French (or English).

I dare you to try not to get addicted to Poisson Rouge (Red Fish Soup) yourself! 

~ Lori

~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

4 Finds Proving that A High Quality Education Can Be Free

Think a high quality education can't be free? Think again! These sites, recently highlighted on Freely Educate, are proving it.  In case you missed them the first time, here they are again:

200 Free Science & Math Experiments (these aren't boring ones!)

Aviation for Kids

 

Free Customizable Curriculum, Unit Studies, & Supplements for K-5th

 

Free Resources for Teachers, Including Standards-Correlated Lessons for K-12

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

 

Free Physical Education Curriculum

 
The American Council on Exercise is offering a free Youth Fitness Curriculum.

To understand why the Youth Fitness Curriculum was created, here is a Letter to Educators.

Download the program from this page, which explains it fully.  Note: You do need to fill out a name, address, organization form to download your free  Youth Fitness Curriculum.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Order Free Loan Materials from the National Gallery of Art (plus a lot more!)

 
The National Gallery of Art has art to view.  Duh, you guessed that, right?  But they offer much, more more than just a gallery of art to view.  The NGA online site also offers:

A Lending Library.  You choose the items (DVDs, slides, teacher packets) and the National Gallery of Art will loan them out to you, free, for a certain length of time, like a library would.  They'll ship the items right to your door!  Your only cost is the return postage (this is open to all teachers, including homeschooling teachers).

Interactive lessons which include lesson plans and printables for several subjects  (you will find these lessons listed at the top of the home page, and more if you scroll down to "super-learner interactives")

My favorite section of the site for teaching is the search feature, which allows the educator to search through the National Gallery of Art's vast collection by curriculum, topic, or artist. This is also accessed on the home page. 

And, finally, set the kids loose at NGA for Kids, a kid-friendly site with more art-related features, games and interactive fun than I could tell you about in this little paragraph.  It's so big that I should highlight the NGA for Kids site on its own someday. 

Free Projects for Elementary and Preschool Students

There are many, many project sites for kids. Even so, Things to Make is worth highlighting because their projects include much-appreciated animated graphics showing us teachers just how to do the project so that we can look like we know what we are doing while in front of our students! 

 

Click on the Alphabetical Listing for projects categorized by "Over 6 years old" and "Under 6 years old."

Or, look at the list of projects by Category:

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Thank you, Katherine, for sharing this high quality, 100% free educational find with us! Want to share one, too?  Just email me at freelyeducate@gmail.com. ~ Lori

Free Unit Studies on Math, Science, History, Language Arts & More for Elementary

 
A 5th & 6th grade teacher at Mountain City ElementarySchool (Tennessee) created a site full of free unit studies on the following subjects:

• American History
• Book Units
• Social Studies
• Letter Writing
• Science
• Math
• Language Arts

There are also free unit studies based on themes:

• Apples
• Dogs
• Ancient Greece
• Survival
• Chocolate
• Ancient Egypt
• Ancient Rome
• Plants

Here's a link to the homepage of these free online unit studies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Free Online Typing Course for the Older Kids (or you!)

A local homeschooling mom asked if I had found a typing program for students in the higher grades.  I highlighted this one in the past, but it's worth mentioning again.  Our 12yo and 14yo students prefer this free typing course over others:

Peter's Online Typing Course takes you through learning "touch typing" (that's what typing without looking at the keys is called) through a series of lessons and exercises (including a custom exercise!).

I took the left-hand numbers lesson tonight while reviewing the site for you, as that's my slow area, and in only a few minutes of typing and testing (you type what it says to type  while the site times you), I improved quickly. 

There aren't any flashy games, loud audio or interactive tests at Peter's Online Typing Course, but sometimes you just want to learn, not be entertained.

p.s. Want a course that is louder and entertaining for the younger grades?  Try the free & fun Dance Mat Typing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Peter's Online Typing Course takes you through learning "touch typing" (that's what typing without looking at the keys is called) through a series of lessons and exercises (including a custom exercise!).

I took the left-hand numbers lesson tonight while reviewing the site for you, as that's my slow area, and in only a few minutes of typing and testing (you type what it says to type  while the site times you), I improved quickly. 

There aren't any flashy games, loud audio or interactive tests at Peter's Online Typing Course, but sometimes you just want to learn, not be entertained.

p.s. Want a course that is louder and entertaining for the younger grades?  Try the free & fun Dance Mat Typing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Free College Courses!

Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is for the adult who wants to learn, for the college student who wants to take an online course, and for the instructor who wants to teach from a ready-made curriculum. 

For Students:  OLI's Open & Free courses are just that -- open and free.  They are open to anyone around the world who wants access to learning and they are 100% free.  Any catch?  You won't receive credit or a diploma from Carnegie Mellon, but you may arrange that with your local school*.  The current  Open & Free courses available at OLI are:

For Teachers: Go to the "Teach an Academic Course using OLI" page for more information on how to set up the courses for students.  NOTE:  The instructor account is free.  The students that you add under an instructor account are free for some courses, but a few courses charge $15-25 maintenance fee per student.  OLI suggests that you contact them if the amount of money suggested will prevent a student from taking the course.  All of the fees (free included) are listed in a blue sidebar box on the instructor's information page. 

What's the difference between an Open & Free Course or an Instructor Account?  This:

*Will I receive credit? Students will not receive credit from Carnegie Mellon for courses taken; however, students may convince a school to offer credit or diplomas for the courses taken at OLI.  See the FAQ page for more information on how to get credit for the courses. Many schools are already accepting OLI courses, so check with yours.

Here is another link to the Open Learning Initiative homepage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

These 5 Finds Prove That An Education Can Indeed Be 100% Free

In case you missed them the first time around, here are 5 free educational finds recently highlighted on Freely Educate.  Come back Monday for another full week of freebies!

Free Science Fair Project Instructions for Elementary & Middle School

Free Math Worksheets for Extra Practice (Elementary to Middle School)

Free Computer Programming for Kids (K-5th Grade)

Free Full Homeschool Curriculum: Charlotte Mason, Literature Based

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Free Resources for Teachers, Including Standards-Correlated Lessons for K-12

The quality of free educational finds seems to be improving each year.  Today's freebie is definitely one of those high quality resources. 

SMART Exchange offers free downloadable lessons* and lesson plans for teachers (including homeschoolers).  There is a teacher forum on the site, where you can bounce ideas off other teachers.  You may upload content you'd like to share. And, best of all, there is a search feature built into the site where you can find lessons specific to your state's standards and specific to the grade(s) you are teaching.

The free resources are available in a dozen or so subjects, ranging from Citizenship to Math, and from English as a Second Language to Special Education.  Here is a screenshot of the most downloaded subjects (as of March 18, 2010):

03/20/10 Update:  A FreelyEducate.com reader asked how to view the files.  Mark @ SmartTech replied, "If you don't have Notebook software installed, you can use a free web-based viewer at http://express.smarttech.com to open and edit them."~ Thanks, Mark!

Are you from a non-US country?  If so, click on the small flag in the top right corner of the SMART Exchange site to view the site in another language.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Thank you, Katherine, for sharing this high quality, 100% free educational find with us! Want to share one, too?  Just email me at freelyeducate@gmail.com. ~ Lori

Free Customizable Curriculum, Unit Studies, & Supplements for K-5th

Okay, listen up, you'll like today's free educational find if you are teaching to the elementary grades.  Lesson Pathways used to be a subscription site, but on February 24th they decided to switch to offering their valuable site for 100% free, no catches at all. They say they're hoping to, like Twitter and Facebook, monetize the site through high traffic and ads.  Thankfully, the site isn't full of ads at all.   But I'm sure it will be full of high traffic, once the word gets out!

What is Lesson Pathways? 

Here is their description of the site: "We've found the very best online lessons, projects, games, and activities for K-5 students and we've assembled them into ready-to-teach, weekly topic units. [We offer over] 900 FREE weekly topic units; pre-screened, high quality, online resources; and an easy-to-use Planner, allowing you to customize your child's curriculum or supplement."

My favorite thing about the site is that planner. I have each student set up in the planner so that I can create a custom curriculum and assignments just for that child.  

You can use Lesson Pathways to create your own homeschool or classroom curriculum.  You may choose to assign a weeklong unit to one student, or assign a 36-week learning plan on a core subject (for example, math) for an entire classroom grade level (eg. Science 4).

Any catch?

You do need to register, but, if you want to, you can register with your Facebook account so that you're not giving out any other information.  Or you can register with your email address, like I did. It's quick easy, and spam-free to register.

See what you think by visiting Lesson Pathways.  The following are a few of the testimonials from the Lesson Pathways site:

	KimberlyC says:  "I have been searching high and low for ideas without having to buy a "boxed" curriculum. So far I am liking what I am seeing."
	jollygreengiant93 says:  "Thank you! I have had such trouble finding quality science information for my 1st grader. This is exactly what I was looking for!"
	bmw29 says:  "This really takes the headache away from planning fun yet educational activities to go along with our lesson plans."
	Katy says:  "This is such an unbelievably wonderful program. I have everything I need to start."
	StacyJ says:  "Finally, the exact curriculum I wanted with the same type of activities and resources, but it's already been pulled together for me! Thanks! " ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Subscribe to FreelyEducate here Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate

Aviation for Kids

Have a student interested in aviation?  If so, you may find some valuable teaching help at Aviation for Kids.  The following is a description from the Aviation for Kids site (bold emphasis, mine):

"AVIATION FOR KIDS is not as much about Aviation as is about Education.  Initially, this site intention was to be an example of how can you motivate children to learn science through aviation technology. In time, it became a guide in using project based and interdisciplinary learning in your children education.

The content of AVIATION FOR KIDS can be used in different ways. Parents and teachers can get some ideas for easy and fun science projects based on aviation technology. You will find here short descriptions of different notions and theories as well as links to other resources for those interested to learn more about different topics. Also, I have included many suggestions about how can different fields of knowledge be integrated in one project."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subscribe to FreelyEducate here

Keep up with FreelyEducate tweets (Twitter) here: @freelyeducate