Candor Elementary School 
Back to School Technology Tips
Nancy Riggs
                             September 2004


This page is accessible from my index page under the words Teacher Resources so you can easily get your kids on the math sites.
EdHelper.com and abcteach.com are also listed on my Teacher Resource page if you want to explore them for further ideas. 
Back to School Theme

Back to School Theme Activities
Ask Nancy or someone else for the passwords for BrainPop and Enchanted Learning, then try these sites!

Get your kids excited about being back to school with this short online movie from BrainPop

From Enchanted  Learning:
Back to School Book   for students to make
Back to School Scavenger Hunt

From Teaching from the Heart:
Class Information Sheet

Here's a collection of back to school themes from EdHelper.com
       "About Me" fill-in
       Interview 3 students
       Back to School Reading Comprehension
             Passages for Grades 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6   
      Math Mixed Review Sheets
             Scroll down the page to find Math
             Review of previous year's math for Grade 2- 7
       Language Arts Mixed Review Sheets
             Scroll down the page to find L.A.
             Review of previous year's L.A. for Grades 2 - 8
       Back to School Math Word Problems
              Scroll down the page to find word problems
              Worksheets for Grades 1 - 8
       Back to School Printables
               Scroll down the page to find printables
               Word searches, mazes, spelling, vocabulary
       September Theme Units


Here are some of the many pre-made activities for Back to School from abcteach.com.  Go to the site to see the
extensive list of available resources.
         All About Me
        Classmate Graphs
        First Day of School
        Handwriting Samples
        Name Projects
        Patterns
        September Activities
        Shape Books
        Writing  Plans
        Word searches
Teacher Tools
4 Blocks Goodies  -  A gigantic collection of  4 Blocks Literacy materials for anyone doing any part of the 4 Blocks program.  There are  ready-made word wall cards,  most common misspelled word lists, reading logs, conference logs, spelling activities, writing activities, etc. all related to the 4 Blocks method.

Classroom Helpers
             assignment and behavior forms
             bookmarks
             certificates
             classroom helpers cards primary
             classroom helpers cards intermed.
             fall shapes
             passes
             reading logs
             rewards
             September Calendar
                    
Class Set-Up Tool from Scholastic.  Move furniture, try different seating arrangements, and design activity centers without lifting a finger.   Scholastic has many more teacher resources.  You may need to register in order to use some of them, but registration is free.

 Graphic Organizers  -  Here is a huge collection of graphic organizers for every subject. You'll find several for reading and writing (i.e. story characters, main idea, supporting details, prediction, cause-effect, sequence, problem/solution, fact/opinion), math (pie graphs, bar graphs), and science and social studies (cycles, time line).

Computerized Plan Book - Do you want to keep, or at least print, your plan book on the computer?  If so, go to this site and download the plan book template for Microsoft Word.  When you use it, save it with a new name, and you'll always have the template.

Back to School Clipart  -  Here are several sites for finding school related clip art.  You can right click on the image, choose "Save Image As" giving it a name you will remember, file it in a clipart folder on your computer, then access it to place in a word document when you need it.
Math Websites to Try

Math - All these are available on my Math page, too.

            Create a Graph  -  Students can create a bar graph, line graph, or pie graph using their own data.

           Mathdrill.com - There are all kinds of math
activities here, and many of them have a little instruction
along with the practice activities.  If the student and the
teacher both register, the teacher can use the site to assign homework to the student which will be graded by the computer, and the resulting score will be sent to the teacher.  This might be useful for the occasional student whose parents are asking for work to do at home.

            Place Value to Thousands - This is a great game to review place value, and the kids love it because they get to shoot!

            Math Fact Review -  These are great games that the students absolutely love.  On Spacey Math you can choose addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division.  If the game does not load, it's because too many students from all across the country are on the site, so go to my math web page and choose something else, like Alien Math.  A wonderful game for multiplication facts is Multiflyer.
                        
Tech Tips

 Right Click -  Do you know that there are many commands hidden on the computer that show up when you click your mouse on the right side? You can right click in word processing programs  and depending on what you are doing at the time, and where on the page you click, you can access different menus, like specialized fonts, paragraphs, cut, paste, properties, etc. 

If you are on a webpage and want to save the background or a picture, right click on what you want to save, then choose "Save background as," or "Save image as."  Just remember where it is on your computer that you are saving it so you can find it later!

Find  - If you can't remember where you put something on your computer, you can do a search to find it. Right click on the start icon in the lower left corner, and choose "Find," or "Search," depending on your computer.  Then type in the name of the file, and choose the approximate date you filed it, and your computer will come up with a list of possible matches.