ReadWriteThink

Here is a good resource for both teachers and students alike.

Providing educators and students access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction.

Visit ReadWriteThink.

Google For Educators

Google is more than the greatest search engine. Google believes in teachers. They have one central hub with tools for your classroom, classroom activities, classroom posters and a teacher community.

At Google, we support teachers in their efforts to empower students and expand the frontiers of human knowledge. That's why we've assembled the information and tools you'll find on this site.

If you are a teacher and you want to know more about what Google's tools and what they can do to help you, check out Google For Educators.

iKnowthat.com Science Lab Games

With a multitude of subjects from Gravity, Atoms, Vision, Volcanoes, Human Body, Earthquakes, Sound, Cells, Matter, Solar System and Weather, iKnowthat.com's Science Lab Games has everything you want to know.

Halloween Hangman [.swf]

Halloween is coming very soon. Here is a great game of Hangman with a very spooky twist. There is creepy music and a skeleton that talks to you!

Give the game a try!

Photo in the News: "Nonexistent" Flying Fox Discovered

Scientists are discovering new species of animals every day. Even some experienced biologists will be surprised when they come across an entirely new animal they thought did not exist.

This unusual species of flying fox was recently discovered in the Philippines not long after it was deemed not to exist.

Jake Esselstyn, a biologist with the University of Kansas, was among a team of researchers that found the animal, a type of fruit bat, last year while surveying forest life on the island of Mindoro (see Philippines map).

Read more about it on National Geographic.com - "Nonexistent" Flying Fox Discovered.

Photo in the News: Bizarre Object Found Circling Star

There are many different types of stars in the universe. Over time, they go through changes and life cycle, just like living things. They are born, they grow and they grow old. Some stars are far away from other stars and some are very close relatively. Scientists have recently discovered a pair of dying stars orbiting each other that exhibit some interesting behaviour.

An object recently detected orbiting a neutron star is among the strangest planet-mass bodies ever found, astronomers say.

Instead of circling around a normal star, the low-mass object --likely the "skeleton" of a smaller star-- orbits a rapidly spinning pulsar, or neutron star.

The neutron star spins hundreds of times a second --faster than a kitchen blender.

The odd mass, which was spotted on June 7 by NASA's Swift and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellites, orbits the bigger star in a little under once an hour.

Read more about it at National Geographic.com - Bizarre Object Found Circling Star.

Baby Einstein Turns Kids Into Baby Homer Simpson

Here is a Wired.com article/blog post about Baby Einstein.

Videos marketed to parents as a learning tools for infants may actually stunt their babies' development, reports the Los Angeles Times.

In a survey of 1,000 parents, University of Washington pediatricians found that for every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old were shown such popular series as 'Brainy Baby' or 'Baby Einstein,' they knew six to eight fewer words than other children. Reading to children and telling them stories appeared far more beneficial than the videos, which are designed to engage a baby's attention, hop from scene to scene with minimal dialogue and include mesmerizing images, like a lava lamp. The American Academy of Pediatrics says kids under two shouldn't watch any TV at all.

The findings appear intuitive -- television is, broadly speaking, a passive medium, much less meaningful at a young age than interaction with a parent. And videos like Baby Einstein are about as meaningless as it gets.

Dimitri Christakis, the study's lead author, has elsewhere posited that the link between infant TV watching and subsequent attention disorders and behavioral problems has a biological basis: at a time when their brains are still in accelerated development, the babies are literally being rewired by TV.

Concerned parents should read the full post on Wired Science - Wired Blogs.