Kids Blogging

This is a great tool to use, when checking for student's understanding.  It is also a great qualitative data method in learning more about your students.  I like to use this during a project, instead of journaling in a notebook.  Students like to log in and blog their thoughts, ideas and responses to questions.

http://kidblog.org/home/

Lesson Planning - Common Core!

Lesson planning can be fun, haha, right!?  I have found these two sites to be easy, helpful, organized and contain a wealth of lessons to choose from.  Most importantly, they align to Common Core Standards.

ReadWorks, is solely for Language Arts.  What I like about this site is that it provides you the lessons in sections, in addition to providing you with needed materials and resources. All the skills and strategies to choose from are very well organized.   http://www.readworks.org/

LearnZillion is a new site that contains lessons for all subject areas. They have already been positively mentioned in articles from CNN, ed Surge,  the gatesnotes, and npr.  I will be new to lesson planning with this but so far I am highly impressed.  It contains video lessons, assessments and progress monitoring resources!  http://learnzillion.com/about

Online Stories

These sites are a great alternative to traditional read-a-loud's.  They contain a wide-variety of literature, poems and informational text.

http://www.storylineonline.net/ 

http://www.speakaboos.com/stories

http://www.wegivebooks.org/

http://www.poetry4kids.com/

Community Builder - Inspiring Articles and Videos

This website has an eclectic variety of inspiring videos and articles from kids all around the world. These kids starting from the age of 5 and up, have all accomplished very inspiring things.

It is great way to elicit conversations about the community, helping others and positively encouraging one another.  I usually use this in the classroom at the end of the day, for a reflection and reminder of different life lessons (Being kind to one another, never giving up, you can accomplish anything, etc..)

http://inspiremykids.com/

Interactive Thinking Map/Brainstorming

This online tool allows you to create a "cluster of bubbles" to form an online thinking/map graphic organzier.  This is a great way to engage students for pre-writing brainstorming.

https://bubbl.us/

Word Clouds

This is a fun new way to use words!  These two sites allow you to build beautiful word clouds.  Tagzedo allows you to build word clouds out of fun shapes, objects, animals and people.  Wordle is a more basic word cloud tool.  You can change colors, customize looks, etc..  This tool can be used in all subject areas.

http://www.tagxedo.com/

http://www.wordle.net/

Classroom Management

This is a great interactive "monster avatar" classroom management tool.  It really reinforces positive behavior and keeps track of behavior trends through graphs. It also allows parents to monitor their child's behaviors and stay involved!  More importantly, parents can have a login and also stay up to date on their student's behavior in the classroom.

http://www.classdojo.com/