The 10 Free Education Web Sites That I Use Most Frequently
Some of these web sites I discuss in other hubs, so I apologize if any of this is repeat information for you. This list isn't exclusive to general education or special education nor to any specific academic area. It's simply the web sites in my bookmark list that I pulled up the most often when I was teaching. Although some of the web sites may have for sale items or member only (with a fee) sections, the materials that I will refer to in my descriptions are all free.
I taught elementary school, but many of these sites have resources for middle and high school as well. I may create more specialized education web site lists (i.e. phonics, autism, etc.) in the future. If there's anything that you'd like to see, let me know. For now, I hope that this list is useful for you!
1) SoftSchools (www.softschools.com) Typically I use this web site for their free math worksheet makers, such as this multiplication maker. You can use these sheets as review or supplemental materials. They also make perfect probes. I use them for IEP probes, but general education teachers can also use them for report card/conference scores, beginning/end of the year evaluations, or general skill assessments throughout the year.
Softschools covers a wide variety of academic areas. They have printable materials as well as online games and skill practice work.
2) Kidzone (www.kidzone.ws) This past year, I have primarily used this site for their Learning Letter Sounds section. I have a student who really struggles with all of her basic phonics skills and needs lots of supplemental work. The skill work provided at Kidzone is perfect.
KidZone covers Preschool-5th grade materials with a wide variety of subject areas. They also have worksheet makers, which make wonderful supplemental materials.
3) Starfall (www.starfall.com) Starfall is a great phonics web site. They have other preschool-kindergarten materials as well, such as calendars and seasonal materials. I frequently use the Download Center for their Reading and Writing Journals and Cut-Up/Take-Home Books. These are great supplemental materials for your regular reading/phonics curriculum. Almost all of their materials are available on the web site AND in a download form that you can print. You can pick and choose or use one set of materials to reinforce the other. For example, you can use a Cut-Up Book in a lesson and then have the students revisit the book online here later that day.
I have written my own comprehension questions for a number of the Starfall Cut-Up books. I will share more information about this in a future hub.
4) SEN Teacher (www.senteacher.org) I found SEN Teacher a few years ago when I was looking for clock worksheets. This is still one of the best resources for this concept that I've seen anywhere. They have two different clock worksheet sets on their Math Printables page. Both sets include customizable sheets for hour times all the way through minute times. You can see examples of how I've adapted these worksheets with Velcro on my telling time hub.
Honestly this is the only resource I've really explored at SEN Teacher. If others use this site and want to share their gems, please feel free to do so in the comments. I know that there are a lot of other great resources there.
5) Super Teacher Worksheets (www.superteacherworksheets.com) I have used this site regularly the past year for specific skill sets, such as elapsed time. A number of my students have difficulty with any kind of math problems that involve comprehension. I've struggled to find a variety of materials at their level. Super Teacher has a number of materials that I've been able to use. They also have great comprehension worksheets (under Reading & Writing Worksheets on the left sidebar), which are divided by grade levels. I've used them for IEP grade level comprehension probes.
6) Math Worksheet Wizard (www.mathworksheetwizard.com) This is another web site that has great higher level thinking math problems for 3rd and 4th graders. There are lots of computation resources out there, but it's harder to find higher level work. Click on the Third Grade, Fourth Grade, and Fifth Grade links at the top. All Make Worksheet links will generate different worksheets every time you click on them.
7) Have Fun Teaching (www.havefunteaching.com) I use the comprehension worksheets from this worksheet for additional IEP grade level comprehension probes. Both Super Teacher and Have Fun Teaching have varied genres (poems, non-fiction, plays, etc.) and question formats (fill in the blank, short answer, etc.) for their probes. For those who teach middle school students, the probes on this site go up to 8th grade. I haven't explored any of the other resources on this site, but there are lots of resources for additional academic areas, too.
8) Toy Theater (www.toytheater.com) In addition to Starfall, this is one of the web sites that I had my students visit regularly. I actually discovered it during an in-service. It has a wide variety of online games and activities, many of which have academic tie ins or work on skills such as problem solving. This site is perfect for 5-10 minute break periods.
9) Do2Learn (www.do2learn.com) I didn't use this as regularly as a lot of the sites on the list, but I had to include it for their feelings game. I would not have been able to create my Velcro feelings materials without this web site. These materials have been a huge asset for my feelings/emotion lesson plans. Do2Learn is an excellent resource to give to parents who are looking for autism resources that they can use online and/or purchase for home use.
10) First School Preschool Activities and Crafts (www.first-school.ws) I particularly like the handwriting paper on this site. Many of my students need this large format writing paper for a longer amount of time than their peers do. It's very easy to print what you want and run off copies for a wide variety of writing assignments and written work. Looking for customizable handwriting pages? Check out this site.