Free or inexpensive learning materials, activities, information & more
eLearning Resources
Learning for Families & Adults
The National Center for Educational Achievement (NCEA) is the national sponsor of Just for the Kids (JFTK), which provides school, district, and other education leaders with essential system performance and best practice information they need to make sound decisions.
This is a wonderful site that explains educator terms. You can find definitions from ability grouping and achievement gaps to zero-tolerance. A great help to any educator!
Rethinking Schools is an activist publication, with articles written by and for teachers, parents, and students. Yet it also addresses key policy issues, such as vouchers and marketplace-oriented reforms, funding equity, and school-to-work. The publication emphasizes problems facing urban schools, particularly issues of race.
Learning Games, Activities & Apps
Literacy
Materials on writing for ESL teachers and students
This website includes links to organizations and journals for language teachers and language policy developers, as well as to online teaching and reference materials.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/586/01
Bilingual Education & ESL
Information on research, resources and other services offered by CAL
Marty Levine, Professor Emeritus from California State University – Northridge provides resources and lessons for bilingual educators contributed by teachers from around the world. Career opportunities for bilingual educators are listed as well.
The professional organization dedicated to advocacy for English language learners in the U.S.
An organization that is working to advance professionals that teach English to ELLs
This website provides information for students, parents, teachers, and administrators. There is also a link to information in Spanish.
Dyslexia
Build a solid educational foundation for students with dyslexia
and develop their rich potential.
National Center for Learning Disabilities - The mission of NCLD is to improve the lives of the 1 in 5 children and adults nationwide with learning and attention issues—by empowering parents and young adults, transforming schools and advocating for equal rights and opportunities.
Academic Content
Language Arts
Mathematics
Science
History
Geography
Economics
Arts
Arts & English for young students. A tool for achieving knowledge and sharing experiences around Arts.
Become a detective and identify the artist of a mystery painting. Teaches the concepts of composition, style and subject needed to solve the puzzle.
Contains a nice variety of fun and educational artistic activities for grades 1 through 5.
Offers dozens of cartoons to print and color, and coloring books with pictures that you can color online. Also includes graphic step-by-step instructions on how to draw cartoons, online games you can play, and crafts.
Budding artists and anyone interested in color will want to see how color affects our mind and body, its use in design and art, plus lots more. Explains additive and subtractive color systems, how the eye sees colors, and how other cultures view and use colors.
Easy-to-follow lessons teach young artists how to draw animals, cartoons, monsters and more, using circles, squares, and other simple shapes. Also included are coloring pages, an online drawing app, and games.
Artist Keith Haring was devoted to kids. At this site, he shares his vision of art with them and inspires them to discover their own creative side. Activities include games, puzzles, pictures to color, stories and more. Lesson plans for each section are available to teachers.
A game which explores a painting from the inside out. You 'escape' from the painting after answering ' Who? / What? / Where? / How? ' questions.
You'll find lots of great ideas for quality art and craft projects at KinderArt. Be sure to check out the sections for younger children, and seasonal crafts too!
Kodak offers a wealth of information on ways you can improve the artistic quality of the pictures you take while helping you understand the technical issues of photography as well. Recommended for the serious beginner to intermediate photographer.
How many colors can you make by mixing red, yellow, and blue? Color William, the hippopotamus, to find out.
Using color theory to enhance your room.
Music
http://www.mtna.org/
World Music With DARIA is a website from this multiple award-winning educator and musician. The website was given a 2009 Parent's Choice Award for its family-friendly introduction of world music to young people and it's resources for teachers, parents and special education professionals. The instrument section allows children to color, hear and find pdf instructions on how to make world music instruments such as cajónes (box drums), didgeridoos, shekeres, pow-wow drums and guiros along with cultural background information.
The From The Top website is designed for young classical musicians. This clever website has: The Green Room blog, information on both the radio and television program. Based in Boston, From the Top is an independent non-profit organization that celebrates the power of music in the hands of extraordinary young people, reaching more than one million people each year.
JazzKids was created for children of all ages. The website offers teachers, parents and even the youngest students the opportunity to be introduced to jazz. The interactive audio, video and curriculum are not intended to replace a teacher!
The new SFSKids presents an updated online experience entirely different from the original SFSKids. Some of brand-new features and content throughout SFSKids include: a fun and playful series of educational modules presented as immersive environments and using animal avatars as guides; the ability to explore various linkages between composers, instruments and music compositions; the use of some game-based techniques to motivate repeated listening and engagement; gesture-controlled simulation scenarios using the mouse and keyboard to provide “hands-on” experiences of playing instrument and conducting music; interactive online tutorials to learn about music basics; the opportunity for users to compose and notate their own original music; and much more.
Great graphics and fun games-like the clarinet scavenger hunt-make this New York Philharmonic website great, especially for instrumental students.
This website contains hundreds of learning games of varying levels, all carefully planned to gain mastery of the elements of music theory, ear training and rhythmic skills in an exciting, challenging environment.
This site is just for kids—to talk to other kids about piano, listen to the Taz-man, jump to other cool places, time travel to meet a famous composer or pianist, get a great tip to help withlessons, get help with writing piano or music reports or even ask aquestion!
Funbrain offers games on composers, instruments, reading and vocabulary.
Learning about and listening to different instruments, reading music, musical genres and links to additional sites are the features of this site.
This is a great site for music theory.
"Name That Tune," a link to the American Symphony Orchestra League, Instruments, lesson plans and games all can be found on this website.
This site offers ninety-nine additional sites for music and learning.
This site offers many links to quality classical music sites.
Features online, interactive piano lessons that can be used in conjunction with traditional piano lessons.
Includes quality theory tutorials, and interactive identification and ear training drills in note reading, key signatures, intervals and triads.
Students can test their music knowledge with quizzes, matches, concentration card games and other activities.
Elementary-age students can enjoy exploring, creating and manipulating music.
Enable students to compose from a MIDI keyboard and add voice-overs or other audio recorded through a microphone.
Access online accompaniments that function as virtual accompanists.
This site is devoted to ear training and theory skills.
This site offers ear training and theory skills.
This site contains lots of free music resources for elementary music classroom teachers, private music instructors and homeschool parents, for the purpose of building kids up in positive ways and enriching their lives with an appreciation for music and learning.
Happy Note! music games (shareware and freeware) are both amusing and educational. They offer a way to learn to read music notes in treble clef and bass clef the fun way.
A music educational portal designed especially for kids and music beginners. Primarily focusing on the piano basics, they produce games to learn music easily with fun.