Module E Integration-Crayola Creativity

In the Chapter 5 Integration Corner I discovered Crayola Creativity Central. The Crayola website has many creative activities for use by parents, teachers, and children. There is a Crayola for Educators link where you can search for lesson plans by keyword, grade, subject, theme, or product. Crayola provides multiple craft ideas on any subject. They provide a list and pictures to explain different art techniques to use with crayons, dough, and paints. And of course, crayola provides numerous coloring pages organized by subject that you can either print or color online. The color online feature allows you to choose if you want to color with a marker, crayon, colored pencil, or paint. It also has a card and certificate maker, online games, outdoor game ideas, and a calendar. You are able to click on a holiday on the calendar to discover coloring pages, crafts, ecards, and lesson plans that relate to the holiday. There is also a story studio where children can be the main character in the story and make choices in order to develop the story. They can print and color the pages upon completion of the story. Crayola also has a play zone with fun activities for the kids to spark their imagination. For example, they can create their own coloring pages by uploading photos. I found this website to be user friendly. You will find this website useful if you are looking for craft ideas to spark your child’s creativity.

Module D Integration-Busy Teacher's Cafe

I discovered the Busy Teacher's Cafe in the early childhood integration corner for Chapter 4. The main topics include themes, strategies, printables, and resources. The printables page provides printable worksheets for reading, writing, language arts, math, management and forms, seasonal/holiday and Spanish. The math section includes worksheets on addition and subtraction, multiplication, time, money, and word problems. The seasonal section includes worksheets on creative writing, holiday word searches, and words that relate to each month. The writing section includes a journal calendar for every month with a topic for the students to write about each day. These printables would be great as classroom exercises or homework. The themes section has many different activities listed for the class. The activities are divided by topic such as money, election day, and pumpkins, to name a few. I find this website useful because I wouldn’t need to come up with all the ideas on my own. It is nice to have a guide to go off of when planning a lesson. There is also a strategies section that includes strategies for teaching and classroom management. The classroom management section provides ideas in order to make the class run smoothly. It even provides suggestions on how to organize the classroom. I find this page extremely useful and I think it is necessary to have a daily routine so the students know what to expect throughout each day. I think that all new teachers will find this website useful in helping to develop an organized classroom and a daily routine, as well as providing teachers with ready to use worksheets.

Module C Integration-Discovery Education

I found a useful website in the Elementary corner of the Chapter 3 Integration Corner called Discovery Education http://school.discoveryeducation.com/.  Discovery Education has many excellent features for teachers, students, and parents. It includes lesson plans, a puzzle maker, homework help, and worksheets.  
The lesson plans are divided into three sections for grades K-5, 6-8, and 9-12. They are listed by subject and are easy to follow by giving step by step instructions on how to teach the lesson. Discovery Education also has a puzzle maker web page where you can create many different types of puzzles. I also found an emergency preparedness section that gives you a checklist and information on different types of natural disasters. There is also a homework help section for students that helps them with a specific topic through the use of videos. There is also a worksheet section where you can have your students complete worksheets on various topics. I also discovered a Think Green section which assists in teaching students about conservation. There are also different technology tools on the website including a virtual frog dissection. This website is beneficial to anyone who is planning on teaching K-12. It is easy to navigate and provides detailed explanations of the lesson plans. I found the website to be useful in teaching students through the use of technology.

Module B Integration-Virtual Books

I explored the Early Childhood Corner in the Chapter 2 Integration Corner. I discovered a few websites that have virtual books to help children learn to read. Storybook Online (http://www.storybookonline.net/) tells a story with audio while the words are on the page. The child could follow along while the narrator is reading the text. There are numerous books and poems to choose from.


I found the “Between the Lions” website (www.pbskids.org/lions/index.html) the most beneficial for assisting children with their reading. They have a stories link on the homepage where you can choose from a list of stories to view. The book comes to life with animation and character voices. The words in the book are highlighted as the characters are speaking. This helps students recognize the visual spelling of the word while it is being spoken. There is also a link for games. All of the games are focused on teaching basic English skills such as, definitions, opposites, pronunciation, and letters. This website is fun for kids while assisting them with their reading skills. It also has a link for parents and teachers that gives suggestions on teaching children about letter sounds and other basic English skills. This website is important to me because I believe that teaching children to read is the most important lesson they will ever learn. I plan on introducing this website to my children when they are old enough to start reading and also integrating it into my classroom. This website would be interesting to anyone who has young children or who plans on teaching children how to read.

Discovering Websites

There are many ways that teachers can integrate technology in the classroom. In the website for Under5s (www.underfives.co.uk) they have numerous activities that you can print out for learning the alphabet, counting, matching, shapes, and more. They also have a wide variety of pictures that can be printed and colored. They have holiday activities listed as well as rhymes and songs for children under 5. I like the variety of pictures that can be printed and either colored or painted by the children.


I also discovered a link for www.ixl.com which supplies quizzes on the website for Pre-K through eighth grade. In the kindergarten section they have quizzes for telling time, addition and subtraction with pictures, and money, just to name a few. This website would be a useful way to use technology in the classroom for anyone interested in teaching Pre-K through eighth grade. Unfortunately, this website requires a membership that costs $199 per year. They allow you to get through one quiz before your free time expires.

I also came across a free website called Teaching with the Web (http://edtech.Kennesaw.edu/web/teaching.htm). This website has internet activities for grades K-12. It is an interactive website that has online activities including games, quizzes, and lessons. It also provides you with ideas for offline activities. I think students would enjoy this website the most, simply because the pictures in the games and quizzes come to life. It would help motivate the students to learn a specific lesson that may be boring otherwise. This website will be useful for anyone who wants to integrate computer activities into the classroom.

Module A

Blogs can be beneficial when working in education in order to communicate with other teachers, parents, and students. Teachers can brainstorm about lesson plans and can reply to each other on their own time instead of finding an available time that works for everyone to meet in person. Teachers can also post information for parents to read on the blog. This may include information regarding field trips, daily class assignments, supplies needed for class, and school functions. I think that parents would like to have more communication with their children’s teachers. If a child comes home from school and tells his or her parents that they don’t have any homework, the parent can go to the blog and check for themselves. We all know that kids are not always completely honest. The parents and students can respond to the blog with questions about assignments.


For an assignment, a teacher can put a blog on the internet and require all of her students to comment on it. Students are more likely to openly share their views over the internet than in person. They may feel less threatened when their classmates aren’t staring at them. Blogging gives students more time to put their thoughts together, instead of being expected to come up with an answer when called upon in class. My biggest fear in school was being called on in class when I did not know the answer. When responding to the blog, the students have the time to do research and put together an answer without feeling pressured to come up with an answer on the spot.