Join your child guides, Zoe and Alex, as they travel to Animalia (an interesting world of talking animals). This CGI-animated series is based on the best-selling children's book by Graeme Base. At the Parents and Teachers link the site explains that Animalia teaches creativity, cooperation, persistence, world cultures, and language arts. Take a tour of Animalia, go to the Games and Activities link to find writing activities, art fun, creativity builders, and even mystery codes. There are also links to watch video clips! This interactive site requires Flash and Adobe Acrobat. You can get both from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

Use this site with your student. Take a tour of Animalia, visit the games and activities link, watch the video clips, and learn more about this fabulous show on PBS.

Pandas and dolphins and deer - oh my! This website, created by National Geographic, offers an eclectic mix of reference information about numerous animals: fish, invertebrates, bugs, birds, reptiles, and others. The site truly has something for everyone. There are video clips, interactive challenges, research information, music clips, photos, and current event news stories. There is a link for kids (designed for the elementary grades) with some age-appropriate interactives, news stories, and videos. This site requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

Animated English has a series of fairly high level English idioms for ESL students. Each idiom is illustrated first with a cartoon video. Then the definition of the idiom appears. Students can replay it or return to the first screen to see another idiom illustrated. After looking at the first two pages of idioms, they can then select idioms marked with letters. These exercises are drag and drop review of idioms learned.This site requires Flash. Get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page..

To be reviewed in August

Are you getting ready for your first year in the classroom or student teaching? Feeling a bit overwhelmed? This simple and useful site provides 100 tips for new teachers and student teachers to use in (and out) of the classroom. Topics include flexibility, planning, working with parents, rules, blogs for student teachers, links for lesson plans and classroom activities, classroom management, resume tips, and much more!

Treat your students to the image-rich stories available at this website. There are four interactive stories (sound may be turned off). All stories relate to the PBS Kids show Big Big World . Get your students excited about reading with these Flash-enabled stories. If you need Flash, you can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

Read these interactive stories together with your child. If you have an emergent reader, turn down the volume and have your child read the story to you.

Use this simple five-point rubric to grade students’ biography writing. Enter the scores, add your comments, and hit ‘print.’ It’s that easy to grade your students’ papers.

To be reviewed in August

Teacher's First edge Review: For those with average skills. Create your own TV channel using Boostcast! Boostcast is a user owned and user generated video platform that you control. Create and manage your own video site with your own chosen name. Boostcast itself is a user friendly web-based application that takes very little programming to operate. Note: Ads do run on the site, however some revenue made through those ads would go to you. Only through attracting visitors can people access the ads.

Create a family video place where only family members near and far can share and show their videos. Have your child create their own boostcast as a place to house all videos created for class projects. Easy access to the embed codes allow students to share their projects.

Need a calculator? No problem! Use calculator tab, an online calculator for computing needs. Calculator-tab is a simple interface with extra buttons appearing as side or top tabs. Click "open in pop up" to open the calculator in a pop-up window or "keyboard input" to use the number keypad on your computer. Click "Help" to view options such as "Quickstart," "Features," and how to perform the common computations on a calculator. Buttons are clearly identified in the directions as well as the proper way to use them. Links at the bottom of every direction take you back to the table of contents or straight to the calculator. A "Forum" tab does lead to a discussion forum. Registration and login is required to post to the forum, but can also be viewed without registering to obtain additional help. This site requires Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

Use the online calculator wherever you go. Learn the different keys of the calculator to better understand a traditional calculator or use in solving math problems.