Home PublicationsL&LIssuesVolume 27 (1999-2000) March (No. 6)

In this second installment of a four-part series, the authors provide 30 activities for language arts and social studies and suggest meaningful ways to use technology when means are limited.

Web Resources
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Many of these sites include links to other material, and the user is cautioned to evaluate these resources for appropriateness in the local school setting before allowing students access to them.

K–12 teachers will find lesson plans and ideas in Lesson Plan Sites. For the most part, these sites are organized both by topic and grade level and include many links to related sites. Although many of the Internet sites identified for language arts and social studies are most appropriate for middle and high school activities, the creative teacher will modify the sites to meet the needs and levels of his or her students. For example, when working with keypals, the teacher might do the keyboarding for elementary students, but as students mature and learn keyboarding skills, they would become responsible for their own word processing and keypal correspondence.

Lesson Plan Sites
Lesson Stop
(www.lessonstop.org)
Find suggestions for lesson plans in language arts, math, science, social studies, technology and more, currently with links to 500 sites organized by topic and grade level.

Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators
(http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide)
This is a categorized list of Internet sites that teachers have found useful for organizing and enhancing the curriculum. Includes hundreds of useful links to subject disciplines and links to sites that will help organize and manage classroom activities, such as bulletin board ideas, evaluation tools, and calendars.

Ask ERIC Lesson Plans
(http://ericir.syr.edu/Virtual/Lessons/)
This site contains more than 1,000 lesson plans written by teachers throughout the United States. Plans are categorized by subject, with a section on interdisciplinary plans.

Houghton Mifflin Education Place
(www.eduplace.com)
Houghton Mifflin’s Education Place offers links to activities and lesson plans for Grades K–8.

EMT Curriculum Resources—Lesson Plans
(http://itdc.sbcss.k12.ca.us/curriculum/lessonplan.html)
These lesson plans and unit suggestions in language arts, social studies, math, science, and art are grouped by elementary and secondary levels.

Language Arts
NCTE Teaching Ideas
(www.ncte.org/teach)
The National Council of Teachers of English site offers practical teaching ideas in journalism, literature, reading, writing, and vocabulary.

Creative Writing for Kids
(http://kidswriting.about.com/kidsteens/ktarts/kidswriting)
This site, for kids from K–12, has links to sites for word games and activities as well as guidelines for writing and editing poetry, prose, and essays.

CyberGuides: Teacher Guides & Student Activities
(www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/cyberguide.html)
Find lesson plans in language arts arranged by grade level.

Reference, Grammar, and Writing
Guide to Grammar and Writing
(http://www.ccc.commnet.edu)
This site offers exercises, quizzes, composition hints and guidelines, and an e-mail link to “Ask Grammar” for answers to questions about grammar and writing, and links to “A Guide for Writing Research Papers.”

Merriam Webster Online
(www.m-w.com)
Merriam Webster’s online dictionary and thesaurus site includes the word of the day, a word game, a monthly list of “cool words,” and “The Lighter Side of Language.”

Wacky Web Tales
(www.eduplace.com/tales/index.html)
Houghton Mifflin’s writing site has a quick exercise in story writing similar to “Mad Libs.”

Guide to Grammar and Style
(http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/)
Find assorted grammatical rules and explanations with resource links to various other style guides and grammars, written at levels ranging from elementary to college.

Pen Pal Sites
(www.pen-pals.net and www.interpals.net)
Examples of sites that can be used to arrange for international and domestic pen pals. Some sites offer programs for teachers and youth leaders.

Reading and Literature
Bartleby Library to Great Books Online
(www.bartleby.com/index.html)
Find Great Books, including Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, online with full text of prose and poetry. Users can search by subject.

LSU Libraries Webliography
(http://www.lib.lsu.edu/hum/lit/authors.html)
This index of author guides and documents relating to individual works also includes an extensive index of Web sites for specific authors.

Shakespeare Sites
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shakespeare, www.shakespeare-oxford.com, and www.shakespeare.com)
These three sites are examples of those related to an individual author. One is related to a public television broadcast, another is sponsored by a literary society, and the third is an interactive site created by students.

The Children’s Literature Web Guide
(www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/)
Find Internet resources related to books for children and young adults with quick reference links to award-winning books, authors, and stories on the Web, and links to resources for teachers, parents, and authors.

Aesop’s Fables Online
(www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/aesop)
This online collection offers more than 600 fables and suggested morals accompanied by lesson plans.

The Encyclopedia Mythica
(www.pantheon.org/mythica)
This online encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and legends is searchable.

Bibliomania
(www.bibliomania.com)
This site is a network library with links to the full text of numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and reference, including the complete works of Shakespeare.

Database of Award-Winning Children’s Literature
(www2.wcoil.com/~ellerbee/cgi-bin/childlit.html)
This database creates a reading list according to criteria identified, such as age of the reader, type of literature, topic, and awards.

The Children’s Literature Web Guide
(www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html)
Find Internet resources related to books for children and young adults with links to children’s book awards, authors, stories, and children’s literature Web sites.

Children’s Book Council
(www.cbcbooks.org)
The site of the sponsoring agency for Children’s Book Week contains links to authors, illustrators, and suggested books for specific ages.

Social Studies
Michigan Electronic Library
(http://mel.lib.mi.us)
Use this site to survey 201,000 journals, magazines, and newspapers found in Michigan libraries. Many include full text.

E&P Online Media Directory
(http://emedia1.mediainfo.com)
Publications from Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Canada, and the United States are accessible by region, media category, and state/city.

The Jerusalem Post Online
(www.jpost.com)
The Jerusalem Post is Israel’s leading English language newspaper. Use this site and the two following to compare treatment of Middle East and International issues.

The Daily Star Online—Your Lebanese Newspaper
(www.dailystar.com.lb)
Does the Lebanese Daily Star view the events of the Middle East in a different perspective?

Khaleej Times Online
(www.khaleejtimes.com)
See how the day’s news appears in the Khaleej Times in the United Arab Emirates.

The Surgeon General’s Report for Kids about Smoking
(www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/osh/sgr4kids/sgrmenu.htm)
This online magazine sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control includes information about smoking and young people.

Eyewitness History—Through the Eyes of Those Who Lived It
(www.ibiscom.com)
Eyewitness history material permits learners to study major historical events through personal letters and essays of participants, as well as audio accounts. Included are topics from the eruption at Pompeii to recent history.

Social Studies Around the Web—The World
(www.li.net/~ndonohue/ss.html)
Social Studies Around the World links to many helpful sites about continents, geography, biomes, Antarctica, and the Arctic.

Forum Romanum
(www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6946/rome.html)
This site offers a virtual tour of Rome when it was the center of the western world.

USGS National Mapping Information
(http://mapping.usgs.gov)
This page is a great starting point for reviewing various software and sites that are available for mapping.

Historical Map Web Sites: The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
(www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/map_sites/hist_sites.html)
Scores of sites that include maps for many countries as well as specialty topics are linked from this site. Maps of cities, states, and countries are available.

A Beginner’s Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses
(www.tngenweb.org/cntylinks/tutorial.html)
Data available in the Census about Americans and American lifestyles are introduced at this site.

U.S. Census Project: State Census Status
(www.usgenweb.org/census/states.htm)
This site provides census data state-by-state

American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ammemhome.html)
Digital images of historical papers and activities are accessible here as are some audio and video clips.

Monticello: The Home of Thomas Jefferson
(www.monticello.org)
This site gives information about the life and times of President Thomas Jefferson and the home he built.

Welcome to the White House
(www.whitehouse.gov)
Find information about the White House and presidents with links to federal services.

The People’s Republic of China
(www.china-embassy.org)
This site provides information about China, U.S.–China Relations, and links to related sites.

Copyright © 2000, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All rights reserved.