Monday, March 24, 2008

TERM 2 of 2008

Tanya's Class -- Countries of the World and World Geography
Geonet -- a challenging world geography game

National Geographic

Infonation
This site is from the United Nations website and has information about every nation in the world.

Discovery Atlas
from the discovery channel. There are some videos about featured countries of the world. They are: China, Japan, France, Brazil and Australia.

The European Map Game
The Sheppard Software Company's game that lets you choose the level of play and tests your knowledge of countries and capitals. Explore around the rest of the site too.

Greatest Places

This site was created to supplement a film about seven of the most geographically dynamic locations on Earth. This site is rich with personal stories, videos, activities, and experiments as well as information on Greenland, the Amazon, Tibet, Namibia, Madagascar, the Okavango Delta and Iquazu Falls region in Brazil.

The CIA World Factbook
By the American Central Intelligence Agency this site has geographical information for every country. You need to choose the name of the country in the drop-down box to see a map and info about that country.

FactMonster World Atlas and Map Library
Printable maps, latitude longitude finder, country profiles, distance calculator, crossword puzzles. A real treasure trove! Sorry, ads on the side.

Geography World
a huge collection of links all to do with geography including GPS, maps, climates, population etc. You need to scroll down for the links headings, the ones at the top don't appear to work.

Classroom Resources on Countries around the World
Although this site is created for US schools, the information about the different countries can be used by primary school students anywhere.

Round Earth, Flat Maps
The issues that come with representing a 3D globe on 2D paper.

Global Sounds Live -- from the Smithsonian
Music videos and short explanations about the significance of the songs from every continent on the globe. You may need to give the videos a minute or two to stream.

World Newspapers
This is the Internet Public Library's site of newpapers from around the world. You will need to look for English versions for some countries.

Mary's Class -- Animal Families and Animal Functions

Kid's corner -- All about Animals
a collection of links to all kinds of sites - endangered animals, invasive animals, beneficial and harmful animals, types of animals -- you name it it's here!

Classifying Critters

from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Cool Science Site. Learn about the special system that scientists have for keeping track of plants and animals. Take the challenge!

Animal Diversity Web
This site is set up by the University of Michigan and can tell you about each of the phylums of the animal kingdom.

Goat Domestication -- this site is especially for Jack's project. You'll need someone to help you read it but it is very interesting.

Domestic Goats and Neolithic Revolution -- another very informative site for Jack. You will need some help reading this but the information is fascinating!

Creature Features
Done by National Geographic this has information about different animals but also includes habitat information. Lots of videos to watch.

Wild Kids
This site is from the Australian Museum Online. There's great Australian information about habitats and the animals in them. If you click on the explore tab at the top it will take you to a directory with other good stuff to explore.

National Geographic - All about Cats

This site covers the anatomy and physiology (how their bodies work) of cats and tells how they have adapted from the first sabre-toothed tiger.

Melissa Kaplan - animal-related careers

This is just a person's personal site but has an interesting list of animal-related careers, explore down the bottom of her page for a list of links too.
Trivia question - do you know what a herpetologist is?

Animals in Work, Sport, Recreation and On Display
This website is by the Gov't of South Australia, Animal Welfare Branch. It covers topics such as Service animals, racing, hunting, zoos, circuses, and rodeos.

BEEP: Animal ethics

This British site was set up for secondary schools so you may need a little help. It looks at the relationships that humans have with animals. This site asks lots of questions about what you think is the right thing in our use of animals. Lots to thinks about and discuss.

The Food Chain Game
find out what eats what!

All about Animal Homes
Pages put together by Eduscapes. This site has many links to explore about all kinds of habitats.

Dirtmeister: Animal adaptations

Use this website to help write about a particular animal and the ways that it has adapted to its environment.

Camouflage
This is a site from the Sacramento Zoo (a really famous zoo). Its all about the different ways animals can use camouflage to protect themselves from other animals. Includes a link that explains mimicry.

Names of Animals, Babies and Groups
Here's a great chart put out by Enchanted Learning that tells the names of baby animals (eg. Pigs and piglets, Bears and cubs) and also tells what a group of that animal is called (eg. did you know a group of pigs is called a 'herd' or a 'sounder'?) Fascinating stuff!

Edith's Group -- Pets

Some of the sites listed for Mary's group might be useful for you too.

BBC -- CBBC Wild -- Pets
This is a BBC site for children and the pets corner has lots of information including: stuff about animal breeds, a check list to find out if you are a good pet owner and how to care for pets.

World Almanac Online
This is an almanac for kids (American publication) and has a chapter all about animals - both domestic and wild. Click on the animal chapter then choose your beast!

Care for Pets
This site comes from the American Veterinary Medical Association and cover aspects of animal care like animal first aid, breed choice, pet safety and pet loss. Also a kids corner.

5 Min Pets
This website offers 5 minute pet care videos like: how to train your dog not to jump on guests, how to build a bird house, how to give your cat medicine. Excellent viewing but you'll probably find only one computer can run them at a time or they will slow down. It's our bandwidth.

Wendy's Group -- Toys

Moving Toy Mechanisms

Help Ergo build a better mousetrap! Learn about cams, gears, levers and other stuff that make toys move. Interactive but the kids will need help with the reading. Might spark some ideas for building.

History of Toys
From History.com
Videos, timelines, inventors, and try playing the toy shop game - find all the pieces to complete the toy before the cuckoo clock chimes.