Intended Audience: Teachers, Librarians
In general, this site draws attention to poetry-related events, awards, programs, exhibits, and calendars of events. One link discusses the American Poetry and Literacy Project (APL) in its drive to distribute 100,000 free books of poetry in supermarkets, hotels, jury waiting rooms, schools, libraries, post offices, prisons, etc. across America. Another link highlights National Poetry Month events at 45 urban libraries.
Intended Audience: Elementary, Middle, Secondary School Girls
Contains sections called Read All About It, To Do Today (featuring a kitty with the days of the week), Help From You (e.g., contains responses from real girls to such questions as what if my teacher is really boring?), and You Said It. A fun site for girls who enjoy the magazine.
Intended Audience: Librarians
Provides news of the profession, action alerts, information on upcoming events, resources for library advocacy and support, information regarding library education and employment, and facts about the organization itself. Includes selected links to useful sites for library-related resources. This site is the equivalent of the town pump for librarians to gather information about the current state of their profession. It also contains a fun-to-browse section featuring ALA graphics, if one is inclined to shop!
Intended Audience: Teachers, Secondary Students
The University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative (HTI) is compiling American poetry prior to 1920 as an online electronic archive. This is an ongoing project, large in scope and scholarly in approach.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Students, General Public
Designed to assist in genealogical research, this site is a good way to help kids research their roots and, one hopes, to gain an interest in history. The site is the home page for "Ancestors," a PBS family history and genealogy series. Contains information on how to prepare and conduct an oral history interview. Also contains a teacher's guide to the TV series and family tree charts to download.
Intended Audience: Parents, Teachers, Elementary Students
A joy for those who love Arthur, the personable aardvark (not necessarily just kids!). Provides information on Arthur's family and friends, a schedule of Arthur programs on TV, a schedule of Arthur-related events across the U.S. in "Arthur Comes to You," suggestions on story-writing, an Arthur art gallery where kids can send drawings, a Dear Arthur section where kids can send letters, and a teacher's corner with activities for elementary students, accompanied by suggested titles of other books on related themes. There's also a nice selection of printable coloring pages.
Children's Television Workshop Online
Intended Audience: Parents, Teachers
Provides links for parents of Sesame Street watchers on such topics as activities, behavior and discipline, child development, education, family and community, health and safety, reviews, and products. Contains such good articles as "No-Rush Reading," by Judith Zimmer, on how kids learn to read and what parents can do to help. A helpful feature is the Parents' Choice Award lists of books, toys, videos, computer programs, TV shows, magazines, etc. The site provides many links to other education and learning web sites. Librarians will particularly enjoy Hazel Rochman's "Three Cheers for the Library!"
Intended Audience: Girls 8-14
Site includes a map with GIRL (a club for girls 8-14), activities, opportunities for suggestions, and a members-only area. Activities include what's called a crossword puzzle but is really a word search. There's a chat room with a "Mr. Censor," who does not like bad language. The Town Square has a sheriff's office, where the officers check to be sure there are no bad links on this site. There's a library where all the material was written by kids. I didn't find the graphics on this site particularly attractive (bejeweled people in costumes), but that's obviously a matter of personal taste. The site is part of a larger World Kids Network.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Elementary Students, Pilkey Fans
A funny romp through this popular author/illustrator's latest doings, with material about Dav, Dav's Page o'Fun, with games and printable coloring sheets, and boring teacher stuff (as opposed to stuff for boring teachers). This last section shows that, yes, there are a few redeeming qualities to this site.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Students
An encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and magic, with over 4200 definitions of gods and goddesses, supernatural beings, legendary creatures, and monsters from all over the world. Contains attractive illustrations in the Image Gallery.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Parents
Stressing the need for high expectations for girls from, especially, parents, this site offers suggestions for what parents can do at home and at school to help their daughters achieve. These suggestions include encouraging girls as well as boys to resist stereotypes and praising daughters for their skills and ideas rather than for their appearance and neatness. The site gives specific ways to encourage girls to explore classes and careers in math and science. There's a list of science questions to ask your daughter, questions which can be helpful in exploring/forming attitudes toward these academic areas. Also included is a list of summer and year-round programs for girls, especially in math and science and leadership. Other resources include institutions, a calendar of events, programs for adults, and publications. The information on this wonderful site was prepared by the Women's College Coalition; the site itself was brought to us by the Office of Communications at Mount Holyoke College, from which I am proud to have graduated!
Exploring Ancient World Cultures
Intended Audience: Teachers, Older Students
Contains information on the cultures of the Near East, India, Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, Islam, and Europe. The general level of writing and the vocabulary are quite sophisticated, with the material on Europe, for example, containing links to college-level resources on the Middle Ages. Contains quizzes which are a good source of review material, and teachers and students both should appreciate the chronologies.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Middle and Secondary Students
Stated goal is "to provide women with a comprehensive, searchable directory of links to female friendly sites and information on the World Wide Web." Categories of sites include arts and humanities, business and finance, computers and science, education, entertainment, family and motherhood, girls, health and wellness, media and publications, regional, recreation and leisure, and society and culture. Each of these areas provides links to others. For example, following the education choice led to a page for school librarians. The site features a Site of the Month, which in turn provides links to other sites. Note: the Society and Culture category has prominently displayed links to resources for lesbians and bisexuals; the Health and Wellness one has links to resources on sexuality. Elementary schools should note: not everything here is for everyone.
Intended Audience: Elementary and Middle School Girls
On April 23 this Web site became 2 years old. There's a birthday scavenger hunt and a special patch to be earned on completion. A fictional character, DD, keeps a diary girls can read. Auntie Em gives advice. DD pays visits to places like NASA and meets some of the women who work there. The search engine at this site enables kids to search for "girl-related" links. A search on books turned up a link to an Encyclopedia of Women's History made by kids. There are also sites with book reviews by kids, favorite and recommended books, and a Girls' series Web Page, featuring such series books as Nancy Drew titles, Little House on the Prairie, etc. There is also an interesting account of why the word "chick" is used in the "Chick Chat" section.
Intercultural E-Mail Classroom Connections
www.stolaf.edu/network/iecc
Teachers, Students
Sponsored by St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, this site provides an e-mail service to enable classrooms to link up with partners abroad as classroom pen pals. The Books of Interest link is a source of recent publications providing information on using e-mail and the Internet for classroom activities.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Students
Jan Brett's carefully detailed illustrations highlight this site in which students can find out about Jan, send a Jan Brett postcard to any friend with an e-mail address, download and print coloring pages and do various projects including drawing an armadillo and a hedgehog, making an armadillo from a milk carton, and trying various recipes. A delightful site.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Students
Provides for a global dialogue for students through age 15. Kids are networked through e-mail, through Real-Time Interactions (chat), and an online art exhibition site, as well as other methods. Over 100,000 kids from 117 countries have participated since May 25, 1990.
Learner Online Exhibits Collection
Intended Audience: Teachers, Intermediate, Middle and Secondary Students
Features interactive learning exhibits based on the video series in the Annenberg/CPB multimedia collection. This month's feature is "Garbage." It explores such questions as what effect garbage is having on our environment and what kids can do in their own community to help out. Next month's topic: South Africa. Previous features have included medical ethics, Russia, literature, statistics, volcanoes, and the Middle Ages. A great site!
www.nationalgeographic.com/features/97/west/main.htm/
Teachers, Intermediate Students
Students can trace Lewis and Clark's journey westward on an accompanying map as they answer questions and make choices on how to handle each situation that occurs. Similar to the Oregon Trail software.
Library of Congress: Country Studies
Intended Audience: Librarians, Teachers, Middle and Secondary Students
Provides information on 85 countries, with photos, tables, glossaries, and bibliographies having been added. For each country, the political, economic, social and national security systems and institutions are examined. Factual material is presented in outline and chart form that might be accessible even to some elementary students. An important resource.
Intended Audience: For "educators and students, librarians and their patrons, families, businesses and just about anyone exploring the Web for valuable research information."
Published by Startspot Mediaworks, Inc., this site aims to bring together the best library and reference sites. Includes references with biographical information, with links upon links to such fields as American authors, famous women, celebrities, etc. There's a range of reference sources (e.g., dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, directories). Maybe I caught it on a very heavy day, but I got stuck for what seemed like forever on a screen depicting an illustrated summary of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Still, this site is definitely worth checking out.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Younger Children
This is a picture dictionary with versions in English only and English with French, German, Portuguese, or Spanish. Clicking on a letter brings up an interesting variety of words beginning with that letter. This site was chosen as one of the "Top 50 Educational Web Sites for Kids" in Computing for Kids, Summer 1997 issue.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Students
Students may search by keyword for information on holidays around the world-information written by other students. Indexes are by month, holiday, country, and author.
New York Public Library's "On-Lion" for Kids
Intended Audience: Librarians, Teachers, Parents, Students
James Daugherty's Andy and the Lion lions highlight this homepage. The site has links to other library resources. Its reading lists are just wonderful! Contains such lists as 100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know, "Love to Read"-Recommended Titles for the Third Grade, lists from NYPL summer reading programs with coloring book pages that can be downloaded and printed out. Their listing of Jack London's The Call of the Wild led me to another good site: Women in Alaska's History (http://library.advanced.org/11313/).
Nine Planets: An Interactive Tour of the Solar System
Intended Audience: Teachers, Intermediate and Secondary Students
Fine graphics illustrate this challenging and yet accessible resource for young astronomy students. The author, Bill Arnett, notes that the discoveries of the space program made much of this material possible. For each planet there is factual information along with historical background and notes on that celestial body's appearance in mythology. The full tour takes 60 pages, but Express links are available for an abbreviated version.
Nueva School Library Home Page
Intended Audience: Teachers, Elementary and Middle School Students
This site was started by school librarian Debbie Abilock, in Hillsborough, California, to provide research help to her Pre-k through 8th-grade students. It contains a materials selection policy and AUP, as well as their procedures for handling complaints about materials. It also contains interactive forms for using the MLA Bibliographic Format. Students can cut and paste citations into their own writings. A very helpful chart gives advice on choosing the best Internet search engine for your particular information need (e.g., "I know the date of an event and am looking for more information" leads the student to HotBot). Also available is a list of special bibliographies, including a good one on corn. This site was the School Library Journal Web Site of the Month for January, 1998.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Secondary Students, Poetry Lovers
Contains links to recommended sites, individual poets, interesting sites, and PSA members. A postcard feature enables users to send cards as "poetry in motion." The individual poets are represented by their actual works as well as by critical studies, background material, and time-lines.
Intended Audience: Girls 8 - 14
Colorful graphics liven this site which contains links titled Rockett's World, Secret Paths, Share Central, Shop, and Goodies & Games. Girls can interact online and have their own personal page. This is a more commercial-product-oriented site than most of the others noted here.
Intended Audience: Librarians
Contains dozens of links to resources for school librarians. Brief annotations give enough information about each site to give a sense of what can be found there. Includes "Great Sites from ALA"; "Follett's MARC Tags" (useful for librarians in the Paradise Valley district); "Children's Literature Web Guide," said to be the BEST SITE to begin with if you are an elementary school librarian new to the Internet, and others too numerous to mention. The site was developed and is maintained by Kathleen Gentili, a library media specialist in Peoria, Arizona!
Intended Audience: Teachers, Preschool and Elementary Students
Contains interactive stories, coloring pages, sounds and movies, Theodore Tugboat T-shirts, ballcaps and sweatshirts to order, and links to other child-related sites.
Virtual Renaissance: A Journey Through Time
Intended Audience: Teachers, Intermediate, Middle School, Secondary Students
Students and teachers at Twin Groves Junior High School, Buffalo Grove, Illinois, created this site, which takes one back to the days of Shakespeare and the Renaissance. An impressive list of sources and acknowledgments is included, with many links to other Renaissance-related sites. For example, the material on the Black Death (bubonic plague) will probably attract the typically morbidly curious teen-ager, while the more aesthetically inclined may gravitate toward the section on the Sistine Chapel. The section on the Town takes one to material on such topics as clothing, school, tavern, food table, traveling musicians, wedding, and children. Students in need of material for reports on the period will welcome this site, as will teachers looking for additional resources.
Intended Audience: Teachers, Secondary Students, Librarians
The subject of this site is cross-cultural communications. It was developed at the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird) to expand educators' and business professionals' communications with people of differing cultures. The site contains links to material on capitals, consulates, embassies, languages, jobs, and resources. The "cuisine" link contains recipes for such foods as Irish Dublin Coddle, Russian Black Bread, French Dandelion Salad, and Chinese Lion's Head Meatballs. The section on gestures alone is probably worth a visit, given the potential consequences of making inappropriate gestures in a foreign country.
World Book of Holiday Traditions
Intended Audience: Students, Teachers
A site where people can contribute their own holiday memories. The authors are especially interested in people's feelings regarding the holidays and traditions about which they write.