Cool+Websites

CHECK IT OUT!

Hey kids I will be attaching websites throughout the school year feel free to check it out. Parents feel free to look around as well and please encourage your children to look around.

Lesson 1: Let's Find A Region Websites

Students: Here are some additional websites to go along with the Word Document that I have given to you. You can also use these websites to complete our first scavenger hunt if you can not find the answers in the Word Document or in the Websites I linked to the first scavenger hunt.

Weather Eye: This is a great website that you can explore your regions. It shows the regions for the United States. I encourage you to look through the different places that you have visited and read about the climate there, and compare it to what you already know.

[|Enviropedia]: This website has an excellent explanation of what climate is. Go ahead an flip through it, it talks a lot about the climate change and the environment. Reading through this is a good way for your children to make applications of how the weather effects us.

ScienceProject.com: This is a fun activity to do with your children even if they have not chosen to study the tundra for their region. In fact it would be great if the students created their own region using their imagination, and including what they know is in the region.

[|Division of Planning]: Parents I know how much your children love animals, and I think that it is important that the students are able to make connections in life to what they are learning. This website talks about some of the climate change in the Southeastern region and how it is affecting the animals. This is something that will interest the children, and help them to understand why we are studying what we are studying.

[|NOAA Satellite and Information]: I love fun facts, and I know that the children like to hear these facts themselves. This website has fact and data about the climate around the world. The children can explore the different links in this website and learn all kinds of new information about climate that we will not be going over in class.

Lesson 2: Clouds, Clouds, and More Clouds! Websites

Students: If you are having trouble with your scavenger hunts these websites might also be useful to help you get through all of the clouds. There are also some fun games, and websites that you can check out.

Strange-Facts: Fun Facts! I love fun facts, and so do the children. This has all sorts of fun facts about clouds that we might not have learned about in class. It includes facts like "The biggest clouds are cumulonimbus, climbing up to 9.7 kilometers (6 miles) high and holding up to half a million tons of water." Look through it and then you and your child can inform everyone around you of the new facts that you have learned!

Clouds Website: I really like this website, but it seems kind of advanced, yet simple. There is a lot of big words that the children may not understand, but it also has explanations that would be easy for the the children to understand. It often uses simple words that the children will know and can use. For Example: It describes one of the clouds as cauliflower. A lot of the descriptions are like this in this websites. Also it includes very simple illustrations on the side that the children can look.
 * Kiwi Kids: I know that this seems like an overwhelming amount of information, but I am not asking that you read through all of it. It has a lot of good explanation of the clouds. Flip through the different pages, it has some different valid information. It is also written in more simple terms that I think are easy concepts for the children to grasp. If there is an idea, or an explanation that your child does not understand look for it in here, it might be helpful for child to understand.

KidzWorld: I thought this was a good website. While it has a lot of non-school related stuff going on around it, it did include the information that I thought was important for the children to learn about clouds. I also thought that once the children have read the valuable information, then why should they not be able to explore something that interests them, or if they just go to the website to explore, then maybe they will read the information in passing. Web Weather for Kids: This is a fantastic website! It is full of the information that is important for the children to know about clouds, but it also has fun graphics and different ways for the children to apply what they learn. The children can explore the different links, and then scroll down and play a couple games. Also you will see down at the bottom there is a tool bar that contains different links. When you click on the activities link it will lead you to some excellent lab activities that are simple, but demonstrate the weather systems.

Plymouth Website: This website is bursting with information. One of the things that I really liked about this website is that it gives the children the name of the cloud, it describes what the cloud will look like, and then the children can click on a link that will lead them to a picture of the cloud. This is a very common way for children to learn. They need to see the word, then see it describe, and also see a visual of it. It helps them to apply the descriptions and the word to the picture when they see this representation.

USA Today: This is a very clearly written and easy to navigate website. It contains the more of the information that we have been learning about clouds. It gives a very clear and concise explanation of the levels in very easy to read English. It talks about the main types of clouds that we will be studying, and then it includes some of the "sub"-clouds that we will not be studying in as much detail.


 * EHow: This is a great website for the application of what we have learned about clouds! It gives step by step instructions about watching clouds! It explains what to look for, and also what you are looking for. Read the instructions and give it a shot it will be a fun activity for you and the children!

Espere: This website has a very clear explanation for the different levels of clouds in the sky.

[|Kidipede]: This is a fantastic easy to understand website for the children. They can explore the links and get very clear information and descriptions about the clouds.

This is a fun website for the children to explore. It is looking at the clouds, and it shows different shapes of the clouds, and describes what they look like. For example they describe them looking like animals, or looking like food. This is fun for the children because they get to explore the shapes of clouds in a different context. Can you guess what type of clouds they are?
 * Cool Clouds:

Lesson 3: Climate Change Catastrophe National Geographic: This website talks about the causes of global warming. It talks about the effect of the different types of gases that are put out into the environment in our day to day lives. It also talks about how these gases effect our environment. [|DoSomething.org]: This website includes ways that we can slow the effects of global warming. Click through the links for some different ideas that you may want to include in your proposal. Just remember that I want your ideas to be your own, but it is always good to look at other people's ideas. [|EHow]: This article includes more ways that people are putting out harmful gases into the environment. It also includes some ideas that you may want to include in your argument. [|EDF]: This website addresses the issue of cost. Money must always be considered when addressing issues like global warming. Remember to include information about money in your proposal because it is always a concern for people.

Lesson 4: Severe Storms [|National Storms Lab]: This is an informational website that I have used for some of the information that you have seen on the PowerPoint presentation. It has some great information about severe storms. Weather Wiz Kids: This is an excellent website with a ton of information about all sorts of different types of weather information. It had links about severe weather: what it is, how it is formed, and the damage it can cause.

Wikipedia: This website gives a definition of what severe weather is.

Flu Prevention for Parents and Students

[|Kids First for Health]: This website is excellent. It has fun facts for the children, but it also teaches them how to take care of themselves and stay healthy I would recommend they look around a little bit.

[|About.com]: This website is about the flu virus, different things that can be done to prevent the flu, and it also teaches about some of the different types of medications that your children may be put on if they get the flu.