Curriki

Amaral - "Revolucion"

Curriki is a web community of K-12 educators sharing lesson plans and projects in a central location. Although the site materials vary in quality, Curriki has a bit of funding and is pitched by Scott McNealy, former Cisco CEO. Homeschoolers in particular might want to check out this site over the weeks to come.

Public Radio Podcasts

PublicRadioFan has a pretty extensive list of public radio shows available as podcasts. The shows are organized by category so it's easy to find stuff you know (i.e. Car Talk) or new shows on music, foreign languages, literature, sports or dozens of other topics. There's so much informative and entertaining material on public radio - thanks for this index.

Free Touch Typing Program

Are you looking for an online touch typing program for yourself or your students. Check out Touch Typing. You can use the program online or you can download it for offline use. There are some lessons to get you started and once you get comfortable with the program, you can easily create your own.

Quintura for Kids

You just gotta love this country.....for the past two days we were in the grips of a prairie wide blizzard that had all of the school buses shut down and this morning, we woke up to wind chill warnings in the -47 C range and once again, no buses. Snow, wind, cold......we think it builds character. And one more benefit.... there has not been so much as a mention of global warming around here for the past couple of day.

The search engine Quintura has been around for awhile now, but just recently, Quintura for Kids was released. Quintura for Kids has some unique features including Tag Clouds to help your kids find the information they are looking for. Check it out for yourself.

K12 Hotlinks

If you're a K-12 teacher or a parent of a K-12 student (ages 5-18), these Hotlinks are great for you. K-12 Hotlinks posts valuable links for teachers to manage their class, parents to help their kids, or students to come up with an idea for the science fair (great link here). Don't you just love tags? Come on Blogger, I'm waiting for the upgrade...

This site is going in my RSS feed (yes, Lorne, I'm part of those 2%ers). For the other 98% it's also going on our list of suggested links.

Personalized Book Plates

Via Lifehacker, here is a cool collection of artistic bookplates to print and personalize. For people who like to print things, also see the OrganizedHome library of pdf calendars, agendas, and miscellaneous planners.

Google for Educators

Along with the YouTube announcement, Google introduced a new site for educators. The site groups the many free Google tools alongside teacher testimonials and demonstrations of how to use them in the classroom. Some of the sketch-up examples are pretty cool. The site also includes lesson plans from Discovery Education and a series of podcasts at the Infinite Thinking Machine. See the full announcement from the Google Blog.

More Toys, Recipes, and Animal Noises

Another great band from Argentina, Villanos - "Sin Mi"

Following yesterday's post, Lex from OOG voor Ghana sent me this great site containing dozens of brilliant toys literally made from trash. I particularly like the climbing butterfly, the colourful fish, and the coke can airplane (pictured). Among the toys, Advind Gupta also has some interesting science experiments. OOG voor Ghana, or "Eyes on Ghana", is a small Dutch organisation devoted to supporting education in Ghana (the guys were also nice enough to include The Stingy Scholar among "What's New" for August).

Check out this compilation of 57 pdf recipe books available at mininova. I think the majority of the materials included are in the public domain.




Here's a site posted on Boing Boing a few weeks ago that compiles animal noises from around the world (i.e. a dog says "woof woof" in English but "vov-vov" in Sweden).

Here's an even better site with people actually making the noises.

Paper Toys

From the Toy Maker, here are some handsome toys made entirely of paper. Toys include a unicorn pop-up box, tea bag envelopes, a circus storybook, the anxiety dream theater, a bug box, and a fearsome TRex greeting card.

Kiddie Records

Both nostalgics and retro hipster will love the Kiddie Records collection of old 78's converted to high-quality mp3's and jpeg's. This 2-year project has already posted an ample number of classic albums from the 40's and 50's including major productions from Disney. Sounds to me like a good way to pass long car trips.

The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments

The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments is posted as a torrent on Mininova and is currently very well seeded. This classic from the 60's contains hundreds of experiments and great art. Direct link to torrent.

Wayne Coyne Commencement Speech

Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips was asked by his former Oklahoma City high school to give a commencement speech to the graduating class. Much like their music, the unusal speech tends to meanders a bit, but contains some entertaining and clever moments: Wayne encourage graduates to combine their knowledge with experience and to view their future selves as a product of each action they take: "We cannot know what we will become, but we can control what we do".

Part 1:


Part 2:


Also check some of these other Flaming Lips gems on You Tube such as their appearance on Beverly Hills 90210 and this 1992 live footage of Talking 'Bout the Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues.

Kiddley

Readers with children will enjoy the new blog Kiddley Although Claire Robertson and Co. just started two weeks ago, the site is already brimming with fun activities to do with kids. With posts such as growing a pineapple plant, DIY juggling balls, and 5 Minute Potato People, Kiddley looks like a site with a ton of potential.

Links for the Little Ones

Some fun links for kids:
Incredibooks has book reviews for kids, written by kids (and probably a few creepy middle-aged men).
Story Nory makes iPod ready, free narrated kids tales. Pass long car rides with these fairly tales and modern classics. Also some good reviews in the archives.
PBSKids has games, stories, and music based on the programs.
Learn to Draw with these instructional books. The whole books are free on-line.

Also, look at this trippy alphabet clip. Think this is from the 70s?


Thanks to Chris Watk for the pic!