Good morning! Hope your weekend was fabulous! One of my favorite sites, MightyBook.com, is offering an eBook and a matching game for President’s Day. Check it out!

Happy Friday! I want to share another site with you in honor of President’s Day. Discover George Washington provides an interactive timeline of George Washington’s life. The timeline includes videos, images, and even battle maps! You can narrow down the timeline events by choosing a category from the drop down menu (e.g. family life, slave owner). This is a really cool way to learn about George Washington! Enjoy!

Tomorrow some of our 5th grade classes will be participating in a virtual field trip called “Exploring Mount Vernon” provided by Alabama Public Television. While trying to find companion sites, I ran across George Washington’s World for Kids. This is a neat site that offers three interactive games, as well as a memory and puzzle activity. Just in time for President’s Day, too!

On this wonderful Friday I’d like to share something fun with you! It’s a Facebook Page Template for SMART Notebook! I’ve seen the idea before around Twitter and on this blog, but I’ve never seen a template using SMART Notebook. So I decided to make one! Your students can create a Facebook page on a famous person, an artist, an inventor, or a character in a book or movie! Every year our 4th grade students do a project on a famous Alabamian. They normally complete a project using PowerPoint or Publisher, but this year I hope to use this template. I have a feeling they are going to LOVE it! This template can also be used to teach students how to safely use Facebook or just about the “purpose” of Facebook (without being blocked by your school filter!). I tried to make this template as simple as possible, so students should only edit the photos and the text in black. I’ll be adding my project guidelines once I complete them, so more details are to come. Download it now. Enjoy!

Update: I’ve included a worksheet to be used in conjunction with this activity. Please download the updated version to access the worksheet. You will find it in the Attachments Tab of the SMART Notebook file.

Hope you had a wonderful Labor Day holiday! I know I did! Check out the American Symbols game from the Texas Law-Related Education site. Simply match the symbol to the correct description. The site offers many other history games as well, such as Pirates of the Preamble and Declaration Clarification.

Gullah Net from Knowitall.org is a great site to learn about the history and culture of the Gullah people and language. The Gullah people are members of communities in South Carolina and Georgia who are the descendants of enslaved Africans. This site contains a wonderful set of folk tales, music, and teacher resources. Check it out for something a little different.

It’s great to be back after a wonderful Spring Break! Today I’d like to share with you a site called Winged Sandals. This site contains wonderful interactive material that can be used to learn about Greek mythology. There are animated stories, games, activities, a Who’s Who section on Greek gods, mortals, monsters, and more things like desktop backgrounds and ecards! Check it out!

Sphinx Kids is an awesome interactive site that is an extension of the Sphinx Organization’s Classical Connections program which brings classical music into undeserved schools. On this site, students can learn about classical instruments, composers (awesome section on minority composers, too), and even create their own rhythm band! Check it out!

Harvest of History is a really neat site that lets students explore the history of New York State agriculture.  Explore the Village to watch videos and learn all about life and farming in 1845. While exploring the village, you can save some of the videos you watch to create your own video using the Village Videomaker. You can add text, music, and then you can download or share the video when it’s completed! This would be a great whole class SMART Board activity. Tip: If you wish to save or edit the video later, you will need a “Harvest Code”, which can be obtained by  clicking on the Harvest Code section at the top. This site was designed for 4th grade students, so keep that in mind if you decide to use it in the classroom. More information:

The Jamestown Online Adventure found at HistoryGlobe.com is an interactive activity that let’s you create your own colony. You will be scored based on several factors, and then you can compare your colony to Jamestown at the end to see how well you did. From the site: You are the Captain of the Jamestown Colony: Can you do any better than the real colonists? You will have a copy of the London Company’s Instructions to help guide you. Also, you can ask your fellow colonists and the Native Americans for advice. Be careful, though, because some advice is better than others! Check it out!