Great History Sites for Kids

Whether you are interested in exploring the new America, a 1900 historic home, or countless other historical topics, this site will get your students/children engaged.

http://www.kidsites.com/sites-edu/history.htm

Have a Little Faith

Albom delivers a command audio performance. He brings his two clergymen-protagonists-an elderly rabbi from Albom's home synagogue and an African-American pastor leading a ministry to Detroit's homeless population-to vivid life and conveys their messages of faith with sensitivity and respect. The audio's most memorable moments feature the humility-and eccentricity-of the two spiritual leaders who, despite their deep religious commitment, refuse to be placed on a pedestal. From the ail-ing Jewish leader breaking out into whimsical songs in the middle of his grueling medical treatments and his Christian counterpart savoring the joys of barbecuing, Albom's characterizations brim with humor and compassion.

Heaven Is For Real

Just two months shy of his fourth birthday, Colton Burpo, the son of an evangelical pastor in Imperial, Neb., was rushed into emergency surgery with a burst appendix.

He woke up with an astonishing story: He had died and gone to heaven, where he met his great-grandfather; the biblical figure Samson; John the Baptist; and Jesus, who had eyes that “were just sort of a sea-blue and they seemed to sparkle,” Colton, now 11 years old, recalled.
Colton’s father, Todd, has turned the boy’s experience into a 163-page book, “Heaven Is for Real,” which has become a sleeper paperback hit of the winter, dominating best-seller lists and selling hundreds of thousands of copies.

For more information, click here.

Book Ads 1962-1973

Book ads, 1962-1973

A collection of old book ads from the NY Times.

We're going to begin this project with a look at the country's golden age of book advertisements, which ran from roughly 1962-73. Why those dates? The books - and the ads for them - were terrific: fresh, pushy, serious and wry, often all at the same time. There was a new sense of electricity in the culture and in the book world.

The authors featured include Alice Walker, Cormac McCarthy, Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, and Susan Sontag.

I Will Read

Barnes & Noble Nook Color Ad Celebrates Paper Books [VIDEO]

Tail Waggin' Tutor

Check this out:  http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2011/03/22/dnt.nc.dog.helps.read.wbtv?hpt=T2

Character Scrapbook

Ever wish you could create a scrapbook of book characters so it's easier to remember while you read? Need a discussion tool for your students? Here's a real neat teaching tool to try with your students.

Use this reader's response activity to analyze the characters in any book. Print and collect your scrapbook pages.

Big Universe

 

Big Universe has been a huge hit with our students. The Media Center funds purchased this service for all students in Grades K4 - 12. Students have been using the site to develop their own reading logs with online books. Each student can choose books that interest them, take quizzes, write their own books, and keep a personalized bookshelf of all the books they've read. Access is 24/7 from home or school.

100 Top Kid Sites

The searching ends here. Everything to keep your student/child busy for hours. Check it out.

The Food Revolution

What can we do to help stop global warming, feed the hungry, prevent cruelty to animals, avoid genetically modified foods, be healthier and live longer? Eat vegetarian, Robbins (Diet for a New America) argues. Noting the massive changes in the environment, food-production methods, and technology over the last two decades, he lambastes (in a manner less tough-mindedly restrained than Frances Moore Lapp‚'s classic Diet for a Small Planet) contemporary factory-farming methods and demonstrates that individual dietary choices can be both empowering and have a broader impact. Robbins, heir to the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream empire (he rejected it to live according to his values), takes on fad diets, the meat industry, food irradiation, hormone and antibiotic use in animals, cruel animal husbandry practices, the economics of meat consumption, biotechnology and the prevalence of salmonella and E. Coli.

Some details are downright revolting (euthanized dogs and cats often are made into cattle feed), horrific (some 90% of cows, pigs and poultry are still conscious when butchered) and mind-boggling (it takes 5,214 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef).

10 Best Book Websites

 

 The 10 best book websites

On the internet, you can download page after page of free material, post your work online and even catch a publisher's eye.

Best Books Ever

The goal of Best Book Ever is to find what readers consider to be the best books of all time. It is also a place to discover new books to read.

Check it out and post your favorites.

What's the Future of Books?

Check out Jason Kelly's site and his article, "The Future of Books?" Are you part of the growing society turning to digital formats or still prefer the paper copy in hand? Borders.com recently declared bankruptcy as consumers lose interest in print copies.  Other publishers are sure to follow as people prefer interactive technology and shortened summaries on topics to lengthy text. As easily accessed free downloads of books become more readily available via the internet, and the simple fact hundreds of books can be stored on a reading device, why would people still choose to cart around hundreds of heavy paper copies? The future of books lies with the preference of consumers and what is a more enjoyable reading experience. To read his entire article, click here.

600 Year Old Book

600 Year Old Book Found