Wonder of the Day!

I'm linking up with Elizabeth at Fun in Room 4B for one final Fabulous Find Friday.  This week I found the most amazing website:  Wonderopolis!  This website if chock full of 2-3 minute videos perfect for enticing students.  There are over 650 videos on every topic from art to science to fairy tales to insects!

I am excited to use Wonderopolis in a couple of different ways this year.  I think videos like this:

will be great for hooking kids as we start a new unit.

Videos like this one:

are great writing or dicussion starters!  

Bonus:  Under each video is a few questions, "Have you ever wondered?"  Then there is a short article that gives some more information followed by "Wonder words to know and use."  Last there are usually links for more information.

I love this site and see all kinds of applications in the classroom.  Check it out and share your ideas!

Fabulous Find Friday - Symbaloo

This week I am linking up with Elizabeth at Fun in Room 4B for week three of her fun, fun, fun linky!

Do you Symbaloo?  This cool {and free!} site lets you keep all of your favorite links in one place and access them from anywhere.  At first I was all like, Isn't that what Delicious is?  Do I really need a new place to keep the same links?  Answer: Kinda and Heck, yeah!  There are videos on Youtube that show you the ropes, but quite frankly, it just ain't that hard.  

Here's a screen shot of a page (Webmix) that was already made .  I just clicked and added it to my Symbaloo page. 

See the tabs across the top? This screen shot is from the first tab: 3-5 sites.  Because this Webmix was already made, it is not editable.  But the others are Webmixes I made, and they are endlessly alterable.  (Is that a word?)  

Now for the best part: I made a webmix of the Language Arts links I already had on my classroom site, and then I embedded it into the site!!  It's so cool! Check it out here.  Or click the picture below. There's not much on it yet, but like I said, I can add new links whenever I want.  And when I change the webmix on my Symbaloo site, it instantly updates on my TeacherWeb site.

I really like that there is no Google search button in the embedded code.  So if I send a student to work on that page of the classroom site, they won't be tempted to google the White House or something.  

Symbaloo is great for visual learners like me.  Each little square's symbol is either the site's own icon or a picture that I choose.   Don't you just love Web2.0 tools?  I can't wait to see what others have found this week!