Shelby County Schools' ESL Resource Page

Its not a pretty site, but it has more English as a Second Language (ESL)resources than any other site I've viewed.The Shelby County Schools' ESL Resource Page is a no frills resource for ESL students, parents, and educators. Developed by Dianne Dogan for Shelby County Schools, it is an educational portal linking to hundreds of websites on the World Wide Web. The linked sites have been reviewed and selected by K-12 educators. The presence of a link on this website does not represent an endorsement of the site by Shelby County Schools. Some of the links are broken, some are advertisement heavy, and some are really good. If you can bear the bright yellow and sift through the debris, there are jewels to be found for ESL students or anyone attempting to master the English language.

Pre-K thru 12+

Puzzle Pixies

Puzzle Pixies provides fun and educational games, puzzles and activities young people in kindergarten thru high school and probably most adults. The activities are rated by previous users, so you can see very quickly the most well-liked. Certainly a favorite of parents with younger kids will be the no mess painting area, Pixie Paint--provides online drawing, painting and colouring-in with Pixie Paint! Delightful site!

K thru-12+

Christine Harris: Fun for Kids

I have a couple of rules I usually play by--no advertising sites, and always link to the homepage. But this site is really, really good. So I am breaking the rules. Christine Harris writes books. The Christine Harris homepage is chock full of photos of those books and her pretty face, but it takes some of us quite a bit of time to load. They're probably pretty good books, but I haven't read any of them. What caught my eye was the Fun for Kids area and the Weblinks page. The Fun for Kids area has competitions, jokes, stories, and a wonderful page called Spy Girl. The Weblinks page features several really good websites. I was just tickled to no end by this site. Absolutely delightful.

English Online Writer's Window

Writers' Window is a site for school aged (ages 5-18) writers to publish their writing. Categories include short stories, poetry, research papers, and television, book and movie reviews. There are also continuous stories. This site is one more avenue for young people to practice their writing skills. It is an opportunity to critique and receive critique from their peers. It is a well monitored site with rules designed to focus on writing as well as to facilitate safety and the learning experience.

Grades K thru 12

Zigwhat!

Zigawhat!--What is it? A web site for learning, connecting, growing, coping, and fun for young people with disabilities and their peers. This site provides resources connecting young people with information on their living with their challenges as well as opportunities to interact with other young people living with similar challenges. Zigawhat is maintained by the folks at the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities.

Future State

Future State provides insight into function of the the U.S. Department of State. Its a good starting point to explore career oppportunities in politics and civil service. Although most of the site is geared toward parents, educators and students in gradelevels 7 thru K-12+, there is an area dedidcated to K-6 grade students. It is a no frills site, but the content is very clear, concise and informational.

SuperThinkers

Thinking is a process where we have to create new connections, look for meaning behind the facts and analyze in order to understand. These are the goals of SuperThinkers! This flash-driven website features a set of original games and interactive mysteries designed to foster literacy and problem-solving. It's a friendly, fun place to use logic and reasoning to solve problems. It is often helpful to have a team of thinkers collaborating. The creators encourage students to work together and talk aloud about their hypotheses, ideas and questions. Created by children's book author Peter H. Reynolds and his creative team at Emmy Award-winning FableVision. The site primarily targets learners in grades 5 through 8, but provides fun for learners at all levels.

Grades 5 thru 8+