Just because everything is blooming, I decided to upload a selection of flower photos. You can print these out in a fairly large size to hang up in a classroom. However, if you plan to use them in an activity or on a web page, you will need to re-size them in a graphics application.

I’m always on the lookout for new ways to use digital photos. Recently I’ve been experimenting with making them into jigsaw puzzles. The results are many different puzzle making options, including templates in IntelliTools Classroom Suite and HyperStudio 5 formats, PDF Puzzle Patterns for off computer puzzles, and a links to pages where you can make online puzzles, all using your photos.

I’ve just posted finished jigsaw puzzles in four different formats that complement three of the activity sets,Petting Farm, Little Toot, and Tide Pools. You’ll find links on this page to download all the puzzles I’ve done so far. In some cases, the puzzles and the other parts of an activity set are all in one download. In other cases, you can download just the puzzles from a unit. You’ll also find links to all seven online puzzles. After seeing all these puzzles, you’ll want to make some, too!

Visiting A Petting Farm takes students on a virtual exploration. They can go to see all the animals on the farm in whatever order they wish. They also have a chance to feed and pet the animals, and when they do, they hear the sound the animal makes. When they decide to leave, students hear all the animals sound off together to bid them goodbye. Bonus: Puzzles and Photo collection!

For beautiful nature photos, take a look at a website by John P. Sercel. John has set up an online gallery of images including mountains, water, wildlife, flowers, and more. And you can download them free! I’ve put a link to his page under the Free Stuff links you will find when you scroll down and look in the right-hand sidebar of this page.

I’ve found a web site that is a treasure trove of free online activities in areas across the entire curriculum. Actually, the link you see at the foot of this page leads to an index of Jo Edkins’ many separate educational pages.

The Tides Pools activity set includes so much material that I have broken it into two separate study units. The first unit, Tide Pools, includes Exploring Tide Pools and two supporting books. Exploring Tide Pools is set up so that students can wander through in any order, finding exciting discoveries along the way. The second unit, Tide Pools Writing And Review, includes the tests and three writing activities. Bonus: Vocabulary Cards and a Photo Collection!

Annie’s Books Online is a section of Annie’s Resource Attic which has the main and anchor books from the various activity sets in HTML format. You can see all the action in these books online by going to them from your browser, just as you would go to any other web page. This page will serve as an index to all the online activity sets and you’ll find some tips below about what’s required to use these books successfully with whichever browser you are using.

I wanted to give you a heads-up about a site that offers a chance for students to do some real science. The Quake-Catcher Network offers a chance for you and your students to actually be a part of an earthquake detection network. The web site also includes science resource downloads about earthquakes, including PDFs aimed at grades K-12.

Do you know somebody you care for so much you’d like to give them the sun, moon, and stars? Now you can! Just give them the URL to download Stellarium! It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It is being used in planetarium projectors, but it’s totally awesome on your computer screen. There are versions for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux (the source code).