Beechwood Elementary Library
September 2015
NGSS Multimedia Resources
Pebble Go
KYVL
Use KYVL’s Research Frontier to help locate quality nonfiction articles to supplement your units or to help generate ideas/research for investigation. From school you do not need a username/password. From home, you will need to log in. You can also find a link on the Elementary Library Website.
Tips for searching:
- Searchasaurus (Purple planet) - limit your search results by lexile band to find info on your student’s reading level, choose magazine articles to find full articles from places like Scholastic News and National Geographic Explorer. This one may be best to start with for primary.
- Grolier (Green planet- Scholastic GO) limit your search results by magazine to find articles from places like Appleseeds, Science World, Odyssey and Current Science. Don’t miss the “Websites” tab where you can also find reputable websites to use. This is a great format of database because it gives you an abstract to help preview the content. Students had the most success with this database last year.
- EBSCO (Red planet) - articles here often have higher lexiles. You can limit your search results to magazine or by publication to help narrow results and find things on student reading level, but this might be the last source you try as the content may be too difficult for many topics.
KET Encyclomedia / Discovery Education
keyword,
Standards - click on “Curriculum Standards Search” under the search box. You can then “drill down” by grade level and specific standard. Standards that have content that may meet your needs will be highlighted in blue
When you locate a video clip or other media you find helpful, click the plus sign and this will add it to your “Quick List”. You can use media from your quick list to assign to students or create lessons with Builder Tools.
You can set up classes and students in Discovery Education and use teacher tools to enrich your lessons.
Builder Tools Available:
- Assignment Builder create an assignment that includes standards, instructions, various media content from Discovery Media, links to outside sources and quizzes or writing prompts.
- Quiz Builder - create, share, modify quizzes related to media content
- Writing Prompt Builder - create writing prompts that include images or video that students must view and respond to - could be used as an assessment piece
- Board Builder - curate content into “boards” based on topics - or have students create boards to help present information to a class
PBS Learning Media
Standards - currently they do not have NGSS listed as standards, although they do have Common Core standards and Program of Studies
Grade and Subject - this is the best option right now - choose your grade, then from the drop down menu on the left, choose from: Earth & Space, Engineering, Life Sciences and Physical Science
or Search with keywords
When you find content that you like select the heart and this will make the content available in your favorites to use with Tools, which can be accessed from the Dashboard.
Tools available:
Lesson Builder
Quiz Maker
Storyboard
These tools work in a similar fashion to Discovery Education. Each of the components has a built in tutorial you can view and you can send students a link to the assignment (or create a QR code) or students can enter code for the assignment at a student login page.
A Few New Titles to Support your Science Standards (several more not featured in this Smore)
Engineering in Action
Gives readers an up-close look at the technology used to build various structures around the world. Readers learn about the design process and tools used by engineers and are guided through a design challenge to create their own projects.
Titles include: Circuits and Simple Machines.
Maker Kids
Get crafty with some of the hottest hands-on projects around. Students will learn the history and technology behind each category of project. Technical, yet at-level text, explains how to organize and safely execute DYI projects. A simple, entry-level project is followed by an in-depth, more complicated step-by-step project. A resource page provides links to additional resources as well as to ideas for further projects. Features: instructional text guides students through DIY projects--encourages scientific understanding and development of technical skills.
Titles include: Electronics, Flying Objects, Microcontrollers, Musical Instruments, Robotics, and 3D Printing.
About Habitats
This science themed text set about homes and habitats contains multiple genres exploring the same theme so that students are able to make connections between the fiction and nonfiction texts. (Interest Level is K-3)
Titles include: Mountains, Wetlands, Deserts, Forests, and Oceans
Jennifer Tierney
Email: jennifer.tierney@beechwood.kyschools.us
Website: http://www.beechwood.k12.ky.us/Elementary.cfm?subpage=1918920
Phone: 859-331-1220- 6902
Twitter: @jemtierney3