Interactive Sites for Elementary Students

Plug-ins

One of the biggest obstacles to using web-based interactives is the need to have certain plug-ins installed. Plug-ins are software programs that extend the capabilities of a web browser in a specific way—giving you, for example, the ability to view animation, play audio samples, or view video movies from within your browser.

When trying to access an interactive, the web browser will usually inform you as to which plug-in is needed and where it can be obtained.

The best way to avoid frustration is to make sure you have the plug-ins already installed. The following are the most common plug-ins requested on the web.

These plug-ins are free and there are versions for both Mac and PC.

Apple Quick Time

The Apple QuickTime plug-in lets you experience QuickTime animation, music, MIDI, audio, video, and VR panoramas and objects directly in a Web page. Download QuickTime at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download

Macromedia Flash Player

The Macromedia Flash player lets you experience web pages, animation, and movies created with Flash, the web standard for graphics and animation. Download the Macromedia Flash player at http://home.netscape.com/plugins/get_flash.html

Shockwave by Macromedia

Macromedia Shockwave lets you experience quality interactive games, multimedia, graphics, and streaming audio on the Internet. Download Shockwave at
http://home.netscape.com/plugins/get_shockwave.html

RealPlayer by RealNetworks

RealPlayer lets you play streaming audio, video, animations, and multimedia presentations on the web. Download RealPlayer at http://www.real.com

General Sites | Fine Arts | Health | Language Arts | Math | Science | Social Studies | Financial Literacy

General Sites on a Variety of Subjects

Kids Click! Websearch for Kids by Librarians
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/
KidsClick! was created by a group of librarians at the Ramapo Catskill Library System, as a logical step in addressing concerns about the role of public libraries in guiding their young users to valuable and age appropriate web sites.

Interactive Learning Center
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/8112/learning.html
On this site you will find activities from pre-school through 4th grade as well as Advanced Math, Fractions, USA Capitals, and the Solar System. Also here are simple activates for Reading Maps and Reading Graphs.

Scholastic Online Activities
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/index.htm
Scroll down to the Activity Index and find activities in Reading & Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, and Math. Each category also has "Quick Takes," a daily riddle or question.

National Geographic Interactive Features
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/kids
Check out the Kids Magazine. Enjoy such educational games as "Go West with Lewis and Clark," "The Underground Railroad," or "Secrets of the Maya Glyphs." Enjoy Activities and Experiments, Creature Features, or the Cartoon Factory.

Enchanted Learning
http://www.enchantedlearning.com
Enchanted Learning is a treasury of sites and activities that run the gamut from Anatomy to Zoom Dinosaurs.

Educational Web Adventures
http://www.eduweb.com/portfolio/adventure.php
Here students can explore the world of art, science, and history through adventures such as The Renaissance Connection, PestWorld for Kids, or Shedd Aquarium Educational Adventures. Find adventures in Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Natural History, Earth and Space Science, Engineering and Technology, History, People and Cultures, and Economics.

Venn Diagram, 3 Circles
http://interactives.mped.org/preview_venn.aspx?id=28&title=
This interactive tool allows students to create Venn Diagrams that contain three overlapping circles. Students identify and record concepts that can be placed in one of the three circles or in the overlapping areas, allowing them to organize their information logically.

I Know That
http://www.iknowthat.com/com/
This site has activities for the Arts, Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Engineering, The activities encourage self-paced learning about each topic with brief facts, more extensive exploration, and cross-disciplinary knowledge.

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Fine Arts

Art Safari: An Adventure in Learning for Children and Adults
http://artsafari.moma.org/
Art Safari invites children to explore the painting and sculpture collection of The Museum of Modern Art. This site encourages children to learn about art by looking for animals in works of art. Children can also create their own artwork and print it or save on the computer.

Exploring Extremes in Music
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/xtremes/nso/artsedge.html
Through a variety of engaging online activities, this site will allow students to explore extremes in several key elements of music, while listening to musical selections from the Xploring Xtremes concert performed by the world-renowned National Symphony Orchestra (NSO)!

Eduweb Adventures: Art & Art History
http://www.renaissanceconnection.org/main.cfm
The Renaissance Connection is an interactive, educational web site for upper grade students that uses the Allentown Art Museum's internationally recognized Renaissance art collection as a foundation for teaching math, science, language arts, and social studies. The site is anchored on six core themes: Quest for Knowledge; Arts and Architecture; Patrons and Lifestyles; Everyday Life; Trade and Exploration; and Science and Technology.

San Francisco's Symphony for Kids
http://www.sfskids.org/templates/home.asp?pageid=1
This website provides a great way for people of all ages to hear, learn, and have fun with music, become familiar with the different instruments of the orchestra, and learn music concepts in the music lab.

AccessArt: Visual Arts Online Workshop
http://www.accessart.org.uk/online_workshops.html
Animated, interactive workshops covering topics such as photography;photography, drawing, installation art, photography, and color.

ArtGames
http://www.albrightknox.org/artgames/index.html
Kids 4-12 can learn the building blocks of art and creativity through this interactive website from Albright-Knox. They can learn about portraits, still-lifes, landscapes, color, and materials, as well as create their own works in the interactive studio.

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Health

5 a Day—healthy eating
http://www.dole5aday.com/
This site is packed with fun activities designed to motivate people to eat more fruits and vegetables and be physically active.

All Systems Are Go!
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/interactives/systems.html
Arnold is missing a number of body parts. Students are presented with a body system and a variety of organs. Students drag and drop all the organs that belong in that particular body system to Arnold's body. Once all four systems are complete, a clothed Arnold will appear. But if students drag in an organ that doesn't belong, all the organs pop out and students have to start that system over.

HyperHeart
http://www-medlib.med.utah.edu/kw/pharm/hyper_heart1.html
HyperHeart is an interactive animation/movie developed for Dr. Blumenthal's pharmacology course detailing blood flow, aortic/ventricular volumes, and pressures present in a normal cardiac cycle. Also included are an electrocardiogram and heart sounds graph.

The eSkeletons Project
http://wnt.utexas.edu/~eskeletons/
This site provides an interactive environment in which to examine and learn about skeletal anatomy. Students can view the homes of a human, a gorilla, an orangutan, and a baboon and gather information about them from the osteology database.

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StarFall
http://www.starfall.com/
This outstanding site to help children read is perfect for K-2 students. It contains exciting interactive books and phonics games.

Flip a Chip
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/flip/
Students will see how different affixes and roots can be combined to make words and then place them into a context-rich paragraph.

Grammar Gorillas
http://www.funbrain.com/grammar/index.html
Our friends, the Grammar Gorillas, need help identifying parts of speech. If you click on the right word in the sentence, our friends get a banana. And you know, a gorilla with a banana is a gorilla with appeal.

Wacky Web Tales
 http://www.eduplace.com/tales/
Wacky Web Tales is an online version of MadLibs that allows students to have fun with the parts of speech.

Stay Afloat
http://www.funbrain.com/hangman/index.html
Stay afloat is similar to Hangman.
Choose a category. The site will show you a word. The player will guess a letter. If that letter is in the word, it will appear. If the letter is not in the word, one object is placed in the boat. The player must guess the words before all the objects are loaded and the boat sinks!

Letter Generator
http://readwritethink.org/materials/letter_generator/
The Letter Generator is designed to help students learn to identify all the essential parts of a business or friendly letter and then generate letters by typing information into letter templates.

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Math

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives for Interactive Mathematics
http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/nav/vlibrary.html
This is a three-year project to develop a library of uniquely interactive, web-based virtual manipulatives or concept tutorials for mathematics instruction for grades K-8. This site is organized by standard and grade level.

i-Math Investigations
http://illuminations.nctm.org/imath/index.html
i-Math Investigations are online, interactive, multimedia math investigations. All i-Maths are built around interactive math Java applets, and some also include video clips. There are two lengths of i-Maths: single-day and multi-day, as identified below.

Interactive Math Tools
http://illuminations.nctm.org/mathlets/index.html
Interactive Math Tools are Java applets students can use to explore math
Find a wide variety of tools such as Bobbie Bear (counting strategies), Cubes, and Fraction Pie.

Experience Math and Science with Gizmos
http://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm
ExploreLearning offers a catalog of modular, interactive simulations in math and science for teachers and students in grades 6-12. These simulations are called Gizmos. Gizmos are fun, easy to use, and flexible enough to support many different teaching styles and contexts designed as supplemental curriculum materials.

AAA Math -  Interactive Practices and Challenge Games
http://www.aaamath.com/index.html
Interactive lessons are conducive to learning math skills than traditional textbooks and work sheets for the following reasons:
* The ability to animate illustrations of concepts.
* Interactive exercises provide immediate feedback with the correct answer if a mistake is made.  This eliminates repetitive practice of incorrect methods which is typical of traditional homework assignments.
* The ability to have interactive games that reinforce the concept.

Tic Tac Toe Squares
http://www.funbrain.com/tictactoe/index.html
Students use the traditional game of Tic Tac Toe to solve problems in • addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, squares, cubes, square roots, and all operations.

Math Baseball
http://www.funbrain.com/math/index.html
FUNBRAIN gives a math problem. Enter the answer to the problem and hit the "Swing" button. If the answer is correct, they will get a hit which will be a single, double, triple, or home run based on the difficulty of the problem.

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The Yuckiest Site on the Internet
 http://yucky.kids.discovery.com
This site lets children explore Worm World, Gross & Cool Body, Roach World, as well as games and mad science.

How Stuff Works
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
Students find out how things work in the areas of computers, autos, electronics, science, home, entertainment, health, money, travel, and people.

Monster Bugs
http://www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/games/bugs/index.htm
Students will have fun making their own virtual bug at the Monster Bugs section of The Magic Schoolbus website. Students select from various wings, legs, and heads to create a virtual bug found in nature or they can put together parts from different bugs to create a fantasy creature.

Bayer Periodic Table
http://www.bayerus.com/msms/fun/pages/periodic/
Molecule Man introduces students to the Periodic Table of the elements, which features a colorful and intuitive interface. As students interact with the table, they see brief descriptions of the elements. Clicking on the element provides information about the element's history and materials in which it is commonly found.

Building Big
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/index.html
This site brings bridges, skyscrapers, tunnels, and dams to the Internet for those who want to learn more about man-made giants that fill our communities. It features introductions to the engineering of structures, interactive engineering labs, building designs challenges, a databank of large structures, and interviews with engineers.

The Space Place
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/
At this award-winning site, a joint effort of NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and others, students can learn amazing facts about space, Earth, and technology, view animations that show how the world works, and participate in activities that teach them more about space.

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Social Studies

A Day in the Life of Colonial Williamsburg
http://www.history.org/History/teaching/Dayseries/webactivities/
Experience the Life in the 18th Century
http://www.history.org/Almanack/life/life.cfm
Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, the definitive living history museum of colonial America, presents this comprehensive resource on daily colonial life. Students will enjoy browsing the Almanack, in which they meet colonists and learn about their lives and their history, and a Day in the Life of Colonial Williamsburg.

Seven Wonders of the World
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sunken/wonders/
The notion of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World can be traced back to the fifth century B.C. These creations rivaled many created by nature in their size, majesty, and beauty. Six of the seven wonders no longer stand, having been destroyed by natural disaster or by humans.

Digital History Timeline
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/timeline/timelineN.cfm
Move the gold Life Span Bar at the bottom to navigate through social, political and cultural events. from 1590 to the present day. Rollover a circle, triangle or square to get event details. Click on these shapes to find out more.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition
http://www.lewis-clark.org/index.htm
A detailed synopsis of the expedition by historian Harry Fritz is enhanced by photographs, interactive maps, audio files, and illustrations from the expedition journals.

Pyramids
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/explore/
Jointly designed by NOVA and PBS, this site gives elementary and middle school students an overview of Egyptology and the continuing archaeological excavation of the Pyramids at Giza. Take a virtual tour through the pyramids.

Expedition Hall
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/hall/
Welcome to the interactive "museum" that takes you on geography journeys. Here students climb a mountain, hover over the Earth, speed across Europe, visit an archeological dig, and even order sushi—plus, games, animations, and more.

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Financial Literacy

Bank Junior
http://www.bankjr.com
Did you know our spending patterns as adults are for the most part determined by age 10? Give your K-6 students a head start in responsible financial literacy as they use this interactive site.

History in Your Pocket
http://www.usmint.gov/kids/flashIndex.cfm The History In Your Pocket (H.I.P.) Pocket Change site showcases the connection between this country's coins and its people. Through games, stories, and other engaging activities, the site brings to life both the extraordinary individuals who appear on U.S. coinage and the generations of citizens who've used this pocket change.