Busta Rhymes

Have you ever got stuck trying to find rhymes for your poem or trying to make bars in your new mixtape? Write Rhymes is a FREE website to help find words that rhyme with other words! It's simple, all you have to do is write a word, then click on it while holding the alt key. It will then show you a list of different words and different syllables. Also, users can print, save, or copy their work. No more brain farts!

SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a FREE survey site! Users are allowed to create surveys and then can set up a link to send out to people. Also, it is a great tool if you have paper surveys to input. There is no limit to how many you can create! SurveyMonkey will then analyze all the data for you! Depending on what style of questions users use, the website will make a chart to show you how many people said what. I personally love this site. It comes in handy to make reports for my work. I would hate to manually calculate the data. However, SurveyMonkey does everything I need for FREE!

Jeopardy Rocks!

Jeopardy Rocks  is based off the television show Jeopardy. It's easy to go in and set up your FREE account! One can simply click on the amount of money and add their questions/answers. The amount goes from $100-$500. After you complete your questions and answers, you are taken to a screen that asks how many teams are playing. You are allowed to pick up to 6 teams and you are able to pick different characters to represent the team. The game keeps scores, too! Under a team's character, there is a check mark and a red, "X." The check mark will add money, while the "X" takes away the specific amount clicked on! After all the questions are answered, it is time for the final questions. Teams can wage any amount they would like to. Jeopardy Rocks is a great tool to use in a class to review for a test!

Gear Set

The Maker Studio Gears Set is a super awesome set that a teacher could get to have in their classroom.  It gives the students a chance to experience with torque, friction and propulsion while also encouraging creativity with building different types of cars—motorcycles, three-wheeler, cable car or a race car for just a few possibilities that the students could build.  This is really great because it gives the students a chance to not only build the car but they also get a chance to see how everything in the car works altogether.  This gives them a chance to see how different gears work together which will also give the students a good view of what might be wrong if the car doesn’t move like its supposed to—are the gears able to fully turn?  Can the wheels move on the outside of the car?  This set helps pull in engineering, science, and physics and to a degree math.

Plickers!

While assessing students and checking for their understanding of a topic is essential in the academic world, it is also important not to make that something that students come to hate. Many times, students hear the word “test” and automatically begin to panic. They start worrying how much time they will have to study, how much information they will have to try and memorize, and how much information there is that they thought they knew, but actually don’t. With Plickers, the instant anxiety of test taking goes away because here, taking a “test” isn’t really taking a test.

Plickers is an extremely simple tool that allows teachers to collect a real-time formative assessment from their students, without the hassle, and without the anxiety. With Plickers, a question is displayed on the screen, and students answer individually buy turning their individual card in the direction of the answer that they believe is correct. The teacher then walks around the room with their phone, iPad, etc. scanning and automatically recording everyone’s individual answers. By doing so, no one will know who got an answer wrong or right, except for the teacher, allowing students to feel comfortable answering questions, even if they are not completely sure of the correct answer.

The use of Plickers is great for student of all ages, is easy, and free to use! 

Better Ears

Better Ears Beginner is the free version of Better Ears. An educational music and ear training app, which helps you grow your musical skills and enhance your hearing capabilities. There are ten different exercises included, starting from interval recognition all the way to chord progressions - Better Ears Beginner has all the features of Better Ears, but is limited to one level. Better Ears Beginner includes 10 different exercises: • Interval recognition • Scale recognition • Chord recognition • Chord progressions • Pitch recognition • Tempo recognition • Key Signature recognition • Interval music reading • Scale music reading • Chord music reading. Available on iTunes.

TechRocket.com

TechRocket.com is an interactive website where students learn how to do programming, game design, and graphic design. They have different courses available for kids ages 10-18. The site is user friendly, easy to maneuver and well organized. Each course has supplemental videos which give instructions and examples to students. There are also cool challenges and tasks in which upon completion students gain badges, and gain points. Through theses programs students will become familiar with Python, iOS, Java, Minecraft, and even 3-D printing.  Each course has lessons and support materials. They also have camps, and other opportunities in partnering with schools! To find out more about this source click on the link below. 
/https://www.techrocket.com/

Iomega

Who has the problem of not having enough memory on your computer?  What about if you have something saved in the cloud, (i.e. onedrive or google drive) but currently do not have access to the internet?  I know this seems rare, but this problem could exist.  You may only have a Lifeline phone that does not have internet access.  What are you to do?  Luckily there is some retro tech that can be utilized with all computers to transfer "large files."  Most people are thinking of a flash drive.  They are always available and work without the internet, but the they are easily broken and often misplaced because of their size.  So what am I to do?  Well, you have an option!!!  It's the iomega drive.  They are available at discounted rates now.  Grab them while they are still available, because you never know when you will need it.

"It's better to be safe than sorry." - English Proverb

Fakebook

Did you ever think of what Abraham Lincoln would do if he had a social media account? Well, I’m sure students have thought deeply about this. Now, students can actually pretend to be a historical character and interact with other ‘historical characters’. On Fakebook, a student can choose a historical character that they want to portray, add other characters as friends (from their class), and go to town. The student can add posts and like and comment on other students’ posts. This is a wonderful tool for teachers who want to teach famous historical characters and want the students to embody their entire person. To know how they lived and what they would have been thinking in those times. This can create an alternate reality for the students and the students, I guarantee, will love it.  

Teachers paying Teachers!

It is a website used by many teachers! It is a very informational website used by many teachers. It has many features. They have different subjects with lesson ideas. They have many references for common core, assessments, bulletin boards, and helpful videos. 

There are many things you can receive for free on this website. The help this website gives so much help and is always changing and updating. You can even follow teachers and see what they do in their classroom!  

Here is a video to help you learn how to use the website;

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Signup/referral:mamakela

Storybird

Storybirds are short, art-inspired stories you make to share, read, and print. Using the images provided by artists and illustrators, students can write and design their own online books working alone or collaboratively with classmates. They can even spend time enjoying the published library of Storybirds. The Teacher functionality allows you to create a private group, manage students' assignments, and grade work. Storybird can boost literacy for reluctant readers and writers and break out of the paper and pencil construct; try online reading, creative writing, and graphic design. Guess what! It allows free access forever for 30 students and their assignments. This is a creative way to let students use their imagination and is even a good distraction for children that a Child Life Specialist may endure! Find out more here....

Starfall

Starfall is a website targeted for kindergartners to second graders. This website helps teaches students the basics of reading, writing, and math. They accomplish this by playing educational games. Also, students have the chance to learn how to read a calendar and different holidays. If students are unsure of the words on the screen, they can simply click on the word and the website will repeat it. As a former tutor, this was a great way to spend some of the students' down time while they waited for other students to complete their test. It kept them busy, but at the same time they, were learning.  However, students can become over excited and create a lot of noise in the classroom. Also, if without headphones, it can become overwhelming. Overall, I do recommend children in kindergartner through second grade to use this.