Elementary Websites

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

I found a "virtual China" website http://www.kiku.com/electric_samurai/virtual_china/index.html
It breaks the country into 6 regions.
I am going to break my class into cooperative groups assigning each to a region.
They will create a poster with pictures and facts learned from the website.
The group will present the poster to the class.

[Anonymous]

There is a China Vocabulary website.
http://www.quia.com/jg/513044.html
It has different games that are played with various vocabulary words.
I am going to try this in my 3rd grade with computer centers.

[Anonymous]

Another webiste I found and really like is
http://www.quia.com/jg/513044.html
This site has topics such as inventions, zodiac, proverbs, food and clothing.
This would be a great site to use in cooperative groups.
They could create a presentation for their group topic.

[Anonymous]

I had a parent come into my 3rd grade classroom and explain common Chinese New Year traditions. We paired students up and used the following website:
http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/438/CHINA/chinese-new-year.html
It was very "3rd grade friendly" and students enjoyed referencing information and practicing Chinese writing skills. It also motivated them to look up information about China and home and bring it back to class for discussion

[Anonymous]

Here's a great place for help with our unit planning:

If you go to timeforkids.com/china you will find a page that focuses on China and is based on the most current issue of Time for Kids Around the World, a Time for Kids publication that is put out only 2 or 3 times a year.

The web version of the magazine has the following topics that you click on for more activities and information:
Sightseeing Guide- a map where you click on different sections to learn more about regions and monuments
History Timeline- a tsimplified timeline from 1600 BC to present
Native Lingo- words with icons to click on to hear pronunciation
Postcard- send a postcard via email to a friend (though you can't write a message)
Challenge- an 8 question quiz
Fact File- important facts such as size, population, capital city, language, and currency

Students could use this page for research purposes as well as to get a general overview of China.

[Anonymous]

I've been using the Time for Kids magazine website. This website has a wealth of China resources at the grades K-1, 2-3, and 4-6 levels. I mostly researched the 2-3 and 4-6, since I teach 3rd grade.

There are many sections to this website, but for articles specifically about China go to
the website and type "China" in the search box. It will lead to 10 pages of articles. Some are time sensitive, but many are still relevant. The most recent one of interest is called "The Flame Under Fire" dated April 8th, which is all about the protests surrounding the torch relay. It is appropriate for 4th grade and up.

http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/news/story/0,28277,1728847,00.html

There is also a good article on the 10th page dated May 5, 2006 which is called "A Language Art" and is all about why kids are learning Chinese. It's for grades 4-6.

There are also articles about other Asian countries, such as Japan and Korea. I didn't find much on Taiwan though.

[Anonymous]

I recently explored the kids' National Geographic website at

kidsnationalgeographic.com/places/find/china

I found this to be a great resource for kids wanting to research China. There are tabs at the top for : facts, photos, a video of how China is trying to fight the desert's encroachment (fits in with our 3rd grade standards of how people affect their environment and vice versa), map, E-card and print (to print a hard copy of the article for your students if you want to do a whole group reading of it.)

There is also a link to some panda articles. One of them is about how scientists are helping panda moms with their twins. 3rd grades could read this with some support.

There was another link to a fun game called "Panda Chow" where the students read an article about pandas then have to answer questions to get the panda's food truck to the zoo.

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0111/games/panda_chow.cgi

Every correct answer gets the truck closer. The article would be good to print out to use for teaching expository reading at the 3rd grade level. A higher level reader could read the article independently. Some of the harder words can be clicked on for their definitions. I would consider making this either a whole group read with the game as a follow up, or using it as an extension for my more able readers.

Overall I found this website to be a good resource for both teachers and students.

[Anonymous]

Kids love pandas. If you go to

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-giant_panda.html

you will find an easy to navigate site that includes the following about pandas:

an article appropriate for 3rd grade and up
a video of them in the zoo
quick facts
sound bytes of them whimpering and bleating
photos (7 photos with captions)

This would be a good resource for a student doing research about the panda for an animal report. It talks about adaptations and habitats, which are 3rd grade standards.

[Anonymous]

Here's another useful website for lesson planning.

http://onestop.nationalgeographic.com/onestop/results.tmpl

If you click on the "printer friendly list with URLs" you can either use the list to go directly to helpful websites or you may print it out for future reference. The topics include maps, photos and art, articles and info, games and features, audio and video, and lesson plans. The lesson plan feature allows you to select topics and grade level, though I found the one for gr. 3-5 a bit difficult for 3rd grade. It was geared more toward the 5th grade standards.

[Anonymous]

I found a world music website where you can select a region or country and listen to the music online. It's at

worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com

Click on "regions" and then select China from the drop down menu. I thought it would be great to play some traditional Chinese music while the students work on a Chinese related activity.

[Anonymous]

Shannon, thanks for the idea to go to Quia.com. I perused the website and found a section called "shared activities", where teachers post quizzes and games they have made themselves. There is one in the Chinese section that is about Chinese numbers 1-10. Since our school does Chinese language at 3rd grade, I'm going to rotate students onto the computer to play the game. It is a matching game where they match the word with the character.

[Anonymous]

I was looking at the Asia in my Classroom forum and came across the askasia.com website. This website has ideas for grades prek-2 and 3-5 for us elementary teachers. I posted on that forum about what I found, but I wanted to make the elementary teachers aware of it, since it was way down on the message board. You can further refine your search by era by clicking on a number from 1-10 at the top. #9 is current events and #8 is 20th century.[Edit by="ssmith on Apr 20, 1:16:52 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

Although this website is not focused on just East Asia, it has some very authentic narratives from Peace Corps volunteers stationed in various parts of the world. I found 3 articles/entries/links by volunteers from areas that would relate to Asian studies. These include S.E. China, Kazakhstan, and Sri Lanka. There are lesson plans, slide shows, and narratives of individual experiences. Some relate to cultural differences. Others relate to change or family values. They are very authentic accounts of life in each of these areas and provide a lot of content for further discussion. The lesson plans correlate with both Language Arts and Social Studies standards in upper grades. Another great part of this website is that you can sign up to have a Peace Corp volunteer correspond with your class. It sounds like a great class project or activity for middle and high school students, maybe even elementary students depending on the volunteer.

The website is: http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/educators

[Anonymous]

The British Museum has a great website focusing on Ancient China. http://www.ancientchina.co.uk/menu.html

I clicked on the geography section first and found it to be very student and teacher friendly. It starts with some background information and descriptions of the geographical features in China. Various geographical terms are highlighted so students can click to get the definitions. Some photos are also included.

Another section offered a story which was a creation myth meant to bring about discussion of the importance of geography on peoople's lives.

The "Explore" link offered several types of maps which included modern political, terrain, and some showing the boundaries of the Shang Kindom, Western Zhou, and more.

Another interesting activity was the Challenge link, which is a game called "Where Do I Live? It provides students with a map illustrating various geographical areas and 4 different characters. When you click on the different places or characters, you get a short description of the place or something about how they live. The goal is to use the clues to match the characters to the right place. I think it would be a great activity to illustrate the importance of geography on how people live.

I think the geography part of this site would be appropriate for grades 3 and up. It might be appropriate for some second grade classes too. There are also many other parts to this site which would be more appropriate for upper grades. I strongly encourage both elementary and upper grade teachers to check out this site. Check out the staffroom link too. It had some great lesson plans on a variety of topics. Some titles include: "Why Settle Here?" "What Do Objects that Survive Ancient China Tell Us About Daily Life?" "How Far Would You Trade for Something?" "Why is Writing Important?"

There are many more. This site is full of ideas.

[Anonymous]

I looked at the virtual website suggested by sbogart. It has wonderful photographs and really captures student attention. In our school, we have implemented a Chinese P.E. program that alternates with simple language exercises. Sometimes it is difficult for my 3rd graders to appreciate the Chinese culture and language because it is so far away from their familiar world. This website gave them an opportunity to experience the culture and it extended their interest in understanding and learning more about China. I plan to use this as a study tool as we approach our International Day Celebration.

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