National Geographic-Kids (E) 

This is the National Geographic site  for grades three through six. The mission of the site is to  invite students to explore the world and all that is in it. There are archived articles that go back to 2001 with many interactive activities for kids including videos, games, experiments and the online version of NG kids' magazine.

Homework Helper (E) 

This web site was developed to help students improve their math skills interactively.  Try this site to check your homework solutions  to math problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, division or division with remainder. Homework Helper will allow you to input a problem and your answer. It will then figure out if your solution is correct.

Book Adventure (E) 

"Book Adventure" is a free reading motivation program for children in grades K-8. Children create their own book lists from over 7,000 recommended titles and can take multiple choice quizzes on the books they've read .Developed and initially funded by the Sylvan Learning Centers and Sylvan Learning Foundation in April of 1999, Book Adventure is designed to encourage students  to read more often, for longer periods of time and with greater understanding

Early Kindergarten (E) 

This is a site where interactive educational games geared for the beginning of the school year or preschoolers are colorfully presented. Students practice their colors, shapes, letters and numbers. This site is completely audio and children can work at their own pace independently.  Children need to know how to use a mouse to click on shapes unless aided by parents.

Story Online (E) 

This site provides an on-line streaming video program featuring Screen Actors Guild members reading children's books aloud. The stories are geared toward a Pre-K-5 audience and are read with a great deal of expression. 

Children's Storybooks (E) 

Created in 1996, Children's Storybooks Online was given a 4-Star rating by NetGuide's Best of the Web in 1997.  There are 26 original stories with color illustrations for young children as well as older children and young adults. The site seeks to combine education and entertainment to  both amuse and engage children's imaginations. The stories for young children probably need some parental help in reading. The site also includes riddles, mazes, coloring book pages and a page with children's links that have won Children's Storybooks Online Award for excellence. The stories can also be printed out.

Nursery Rhymes (E) 

This is the nursery rhyme page and has all the rhymes young children may or may not be familiar with. There is musical background to all of the rhymes. PreK-1

Department of Interior-Children's Page (E) 

Developed by the US Department of the Interior this is an interactive site where kids from 6 years of age and up can learn about the the Department's many activities involving national parks, fish and wildlife services and land and and mineral management work. This is a highly educational site and invites kids to play a variety of different "games" in the learning process.

Instant Poetry (E)

This is an excellent page, Instant Poetry Forms,  for  creating your own poem. Choose from a list of possible poem titles (like "I once knew", "Hello Spring," "Me and my shadow," etc) and follow the line by line instructions given on the screen. Finally click on "Create My Instant Poem Now". 

Kids' Yahoo (E) 

This a Yahoo kids' site and focuses on games, movies, jokes and sports. Kids can read jokes, learn about science, send "ecards" for special occasions, look up words and even get homework help.

GoKidding (E) 

Learn about telling time, continents, world flags, math, cursive writing, and lots more. Also includes games, worksheets, quizzes, rhymes, and greeting cards to print out. Site is geared to Pre K-2.   There are worksheets that can be printed out.    

Stone Soup (E) 

Stone Soup is unique among children’s magazines — it’s the only magazine made up entirely of the creative work of children. Young people from all over the world contribute their stories, poems, book reviews, and art work to Stone Soup.   There is even a special section on the site where some of the authors  read a story he or she wrote.   Go to the  " Listen" link on the home page for this and you can  either listen to the author read or  both listen and read along.

Reading Preparedness (E) 

Primarily designed for first grade students, this site is also useful for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and second grade  Teachers often use materials set up on this site as an inexpensive way to make the classroom more fun and to inspire a love of reading and writing.   There are 4 distinct levels of reading readiness that are focused on: "Introduction to letter sound,"  "Early beginning readers,"  "Intermediate beginning readers,"  and "Beginning reader to advanced. " Plays, nonfiction pieces and comics are part of the latter level.

Pre K-3 Educational Games (E) 

This is a preK-3 site and is composed of 25 different educational games that involve letters, numbers, colors and shapes, beginning sounds of words and figuring out how much different coins add up to. The games have sound effects and  require the Shockwave plug-in to view.

Elementary-Skill Practice (E) 

This is the British Broadcast system's homepage for schools. English, reading, writing, spelling and grammar, math and science educational activities are set up in game-like exercises. The exercises presented are highly entertaining.  The site most likely will appeal to the early or middle grades of elementary school. 

Reading Beginners (E) 

This is a site created by Scholastic for beginning readers.  Students hear and see a sentence made up of elementary words ("She eats yellow apples").  They then are asked a question like click on "yellow."  Students need only know how to use a mouse to click on words

Invention At Play (E) 

This is a marvelously creative and challenging site for students of all ages. There are 4 basic activities and experiences  that a user is presented and involve mechanical tinkering with everyday objects, fiddling with construction toys, reflecting about nature by designing a cloud, and drawing or engaging in visual modeling.  This is the kind of imaginative site that really challenges, as its name promises, inventive thinking.

Children Books Read (E) 

This is where you can find many Children Books and hear them being read aloud. Some of the books: A Christmas Carol, Robinson Crusoe, The Adventures of Huck Finn, Pinocchio and many others

Silly Books (E) 

This site uses the Internet to make learning fun. When the site was first developed 3 years ago, it focused on developing animated musical cartoon books, story songs, games and puzzles to help  kids  become involved in  reading. The goal of this site, through the various activities presented, is to entertain while promoting child literacy. 

History For Kids (M)

"History For Kids" is largely a world history site and is  intended for middle schoolers (young teenagers). The site advises readers that every effort is made to provide material that, while accurate and complete, is appropriate for children to read.  A nice feature of the site is  the "Site Index" page where individual ideas, people and places are listed and linked to more information. About 30,000 people a day use this site.

Government Information Page for Kids (M)

This is  the U.S. government interagency Kids' Portal. This site was developed and is maintained by the Federal Citizen Information Center. It provides links to Federal kids' sites along with some of the best kids' sites from other organizations... all grouped by subject.  This site has a wealth of information to draw from and most likely would benefit middle schoolers and older.

Middle School Library (M)

The value of this site, called the "Virtual Middle School Library" is the number of links to valuable sites that can be used by students to find information about art, music, science, social studies and other subject specific material...very useful if looking for information for a school report.

Countries A to Z (M)

This is a site where a reader can quickly gain some basic facts about any country in the world.  Categories of information include location, climate, people, demographic statistics, religion, language, education and a paragraph or two about a country's modern history.

Learning Games (M)

Children's Web Sites (M)

This site  simply' called "Great Web Sites For Children," is sponsored by The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC)  which is a network of more than 4,000 children's and youth librarians, children's literature experts, publishers, education and library school faculty members, and other adults committed to improving and ensuring the future of the nation through exemplary library service to children, their families, and others who work with children. What is quite valuable about this site is, through color coded pencils before each link, an attempt to delineate what age group would most benefit from material in a given link,

Fact Monster (M)

Fact Monster is a hard site to describe since it is so all inclusive. It is part of the larger "Information Please" site and was formerly called  "InfoPleaseKids."  It has received national recognition for its  reference material and has been called a "... mega-reference site for young students."  As Time magazine describe the site in a 2001 review, "No one really looks forward to the first day of school, but at least the Fact Monster   can ease the pain. It's a funky, cartoon-style website for kids, with features like the math-themed Bug Splat game, a dinosaur quiz and a learned essay on the history of the lunch box. Oh, and it also has an almanac, an atlas, a dictionary and an encyclopedia. It's so cool that kids will forget it's educational."

Authors/Illustrators On The Web (M)

The Internet has become a great source of information about a great many children's writers and illustrators. The websites listed here include authors' personal websites and websites maintained by fans, scholars, and readers. What is valuable about this site is the way the various children writers (or writers who write about children in their stories) are set up alphabetically.  So, if you know the last name of a writer you're looking for or are fond of, you will probably find that writer easily on this site.

Synonyms  (M-H)

Writing a paper and looking for synonyms for some particular words and need to find different ways of expressing your ideas?  This is the page to go to.  Since the list of synonyms is set up alphabetically, click on "Soule's Synonyms" and then  click on the first letter of the word you wish to find a synonym for.  

Merriam-Webster (M-H) Dictionary  

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is based on the print version of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. The online dictionary includes the main A-Z listing of the Collegiate Dictionary, as well as the Abbreviations, Foreign Words and Phrases, Biographical Names, and Geographical Names sections of that book.  This online site contains a dictionary, thesaurus and English-Spanish translations It  also has an audio pronunciation feature.

Writing A Paper (M-H)

This site  outlines the logical steps to writing a good research paper from choosing a topic to typing the final paper.  In addition to describing how a good paper is organized, the site also offers links to reference sources a student might use in finding useful material for a paper.

Google Maps  (M-H)

This is an extraordinary technological tool. When the map pops up (and by default a map of  the US appears first) the cursor turns into a hand by which the map can be dragged in different directions up or down or side to zoomed in or out. With the satellite photo zoomed all the way in, a viewer can literally see not just streets but individual buildings. The area focused in on can be viewed as a street map, a satellite photo or a hybrid of both. 

Works Cited Form (M-H)  

This is the place where a downloadable works-cited form for research can be printed out. The page lists the important data that must be gathered from sources (books, magazines, interviews as well as internet sources) in order to footnote a written research paper properly.

Yahoo's Literature Page   (M-H)

This is Yahoo's literature source page and is the place to go to for literary works of all sorts, for literary criticism and theory and just about anything that is related to literature including blogs.  This is the site to go to when you need some background info about a writer or forgot to bring home to read some literary work you have been assigned.  Chances are it can be found  on this site.

Classic Short Stories   (M-H)

If you are looking for a classic short story that you can read and then write about for a class, this is a good site to look at.  It has around 100 short stories from famous writers...Poe, Twain, Jack London, Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens and more.  An added bonus on this site is a convenient dictionary of words whose meanings might not be know but that appear in various stories.  The word "ineffaceable," for example, is used in a Guy de Maupassant short story and is then defined in the dictionary section of the site as "indelible." 

Guidelines to Writing (M-H)Papers   

Basic Steps in the Research Process is a useful set of guidelines to follow when trying to put together a report based on your own topic and area of interest. From selecting a topic to making note cards, developing a thesis statement, drafting an outline (with the use of an online outline maker that can be printed out) and finally writing a first draft of a paper using the  note cards accumulated, this site offers valuable advice throughout the writing process.

Internet Public Library (M-H)

The Internet Public Library, with probably the most comprehensive collections of resources on the internet,  was founded by a class at the University of Michigan’s School of Information.   Students almost exclusively generated its content.  It is a massive, comprehensive site with links to rich and varied resources available,  including the worldwide newspaper collection, the blogs index, special multimedia exhibits, the research and writing guide,  and special pages for teens (TeenSpace) and younger kids (Kidspace), and much more. Find out how our reference service works with students and teachers and where to submit your own questions.

Online Rhymes (M-H) 

This is an Online Rhyming Dictionary for poetry and songwriting.   Type in a word you want some rhyming possibilities for. Choose the kind of rhyme you need--End rhyme, last syllable, first syllable, double rhymes and then click on "Rhyme" button and a list of possible rhyme words appear.  

Harry Potter (M-H)

This is the site to go to if you are interested in all things Harry Potter. There are trivia quiz games here on selected Potter books, but perhaps the best part of the site is the links it provides to "official" Potter websites including one called  "Wizard Crafts at Kidsdomain" where there are easy to follow instructions on how to make kid-friendly crafts like Edible Wands, Chocolate Covered Frogs, Brooms and Cauldrons. There are even instructions on how to make a Harry Potter costume.  

Online Books Page (M-H)

The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable (no copyright problems)  over the Internet. The online books listed on this page have been authored, placed online, and hosted, by a wide variety of individuals and groups throughout the world  .The site is hosted by the the U-Penn library.   Nor need the search only be for literary works.  By choosing "Subjects," material can be found for just about any subject being studied in school.

InfoPlease (M-H)

"Information Please" has been providing authoritative answers to all kinds of factual questions since 1938—first as a popular radio quiz show, then starting in 1947 as an annual almanac, and since 1998 on the Internet.  This is a site that middle and high school students will find invaluable when seeking reliable, factual information on world and news, United States, history and government, biography, sports, arts and entertainment, business, society and culture and health and science. The site also features an atlas, an almanac, an encyclopedia and a dictionary that can be quickly accessed.

     Strunk And White:Elements Of Style (H)

This is a shortened web version of Strunk's classic book on the principles of English style and grammar, The Elements of Style.   It aims to give in a brief space the principal requirements of plain English style and thus covers the basic  rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated.  This is the kind of text that is useful to students when questions of comma usage or questions about  the rules for punctuating possessive nouns comes up.

Guide To Critical Reading (H)

This is a site for secondary school students who are looking for ways to analyze literary works and to perhaps discover ways to write about literature (imagery, thematic structure, etc)  This page, written by a college professor,  seeks to show students not only the language of  literary analysis but the critical ways a literary work can be looked at and understood. 

1000 SAT Words (H)  

From "abase" to "zephyr"  this is a list of the most common 1000 SAT words. A word, its part of speech, its definition and finally a use of the word is given in a sentence.  At first the list seems daunting but looking it over a few months before taking the SAT rather than trying to memorize the list from A to Z  could really be quite helpful.

College Board (H)  

This is the official site of The College Board and will answer just about any question you have about the SAT.  The site also offers practice tests that can be taken online (once a free registration is completed) and a student can register on line for the SAT and print out an admission ticket.  A valuable service that the site also offers  is a search engine for finding a college (more than 3600 available) that suits a particular candidate's needs.

SparkNotes   (H)

Best site to go to if you are having trouble understanding a Shakespearean play (just about all are included on the site), are having trouble in any area of math from pre-algebra to calculus, need some help in biology, chemistry, physics, history, psychology or economics.  One of the better features of the site is the Test Prep pages where explanatory help, as well as  practice tests on the SAT or subject matter AP tests are available.

MLA Style Guidelines (H)

This is a shortened version  of  the  MLA (Modern Language Association)  Handbook for Writers of Research Papers MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers formal and cite sources.  The site offers many useful examples for the general format of  research papers including in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the "Works Cited" page. This is a very comprehensive site in that it not only deals with research writing but has sections about job- search writing and literary analysis.

Writing Effectively (H)

This site offers 10 tips about how to write effectively and convincingly offers (with examples) such advice as: "Avoid trailing modifiers, Avoid repeating vocabulary and grammatical structures and perhaps most importantly, Throw out any sentence that does not flow logically from the previous one, lead logically to the next one, or sound right." Much of the advice offered on the site emerges from Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.

Literary Terms (H)

This is the place to find a description (and good examples) of what is meant by particular literary terms like "allegory," "verisimilitude," or "subplot."  If you are puzzled by a term used in an English class, this is the site to consult.  Site is probably most  useful for high school students.

American Heritage-English Usage (H)

This is the site of a modified "The American Heritage Book Of English Usage"  If unsure about a potential word usage problem, this site gives a detailed look at grammar, style, diction, word formation, gender, social groups and scientific forms.  This is a is valuable reference work  and is ideal for students  concerned about proper writing style.

Spanish Dictionary (H)

This Spanish-English dictionary has over 56,508 entries with over 10,369 audio pronunciations.  Easy to use.  Type in an English word, click button and Spanish equivalent word appears with a clickable audio pronunciation. Conversely, type in a Spanish word and its English equivalent appears.

French Dictionary (H)

French to English.  Enter the French word that you want to look up, then click Search. There is also an English-French feature so that  when you enter  an English word, you will be given a list of the French words that match that entered word. 

Learn Spanish (H)

This is a free but somewhat limited tutorial on learning how to speak Spanish. It is aimed at a beginner's level.. It might give 6 Spanish words for various colors and then present oral pronunciations of those words so that a student can hear how words sound.  A "Repeat Pronunciation" key is also given.   Whether you are a beginner who is just getting started, or a more advanced student with weak speaking skills, this site may be valuable.

Language Translater (H)

Users of this site can translate passages of text or entire web pages among nine languages, or  can quickly translate any page into their language of choice. So, if you are working on a Spanish or French homework assignment, using this site's services can be quite valuable. In addition, to see what  an English language web site looks like in a different language, simply type in the http address, choose which language to translate into and click on "Translate."

Literary Writers Index (H)

This directory is an index of indexes about literary writers.  It contains pointers to individual author guides or other cumulative documents that deal with specific writers. It is not, however, a catalog of every single text available on the net, but still the site is very useful to a student looking for information about a particular writer being read in class.  Clicking on Edgar Allan Poe on this site, for example, will bring you to the web site of the Poe society where material about his life, his works and critical reviews of his works can be found.

American History (H)

This is an excellent location  for high school students studying American history. This site provides interactive timelines, essays, visual histories, and a reference room  of primary documents with speeches, music, images, maps, and more from various periods of American history.   An added feature of this site is the streaming videos of historically important films made in America from 1919 to 2004

Biology Concepts (H)

This is an excellent page for students who might be struggling in a biology class or who wish to brush up on some concepts before a test.  Produced in consultation with the chief examiner of AS Level Biology (This site is from Britain and thus course titles may not be familiar to American students)  and specialist teachers, AS Guru Biology online focuses specifically on those parts of the core curriculum that have proven the most difficult for students to deal with. The site focuses on cells, biological molecules, organs and systems and genes and genetics.  Be sure to go to the "Select A Topic" pull-down menu to find a specific area of biology.