Word Games

As I said before, children in the classroom always need to have a little fun and many times it can still be done in an educational manner. This website features all kinds of different word games that can be played. I would either print off the games and let the students have a copy or let them get on the computer and play during free time or recess. The site's goal is to offer free online word games for people to play.
http://www.bing.com/entertainment/games/word?q=browse:games/word&FORM=MENGMS&publ=GOOGLE&crea=userid1743f3bad5c2111009e3ae4f86731ee85ab8bg

Blogging

Blogging is a very fun way to express thoughts, write journal or diary type entries, or even do assignments with. This website shows a step by step guide on how to set up a blog and what the different features mean. It literally walks you through the process. I would use this in a classroom of older children to have them try out blogging. I might even use the blog as an assignment. The goal of the website is to show people how to make a blog.
http://websitesetupguide.com/basic/blog-wordpress.htm?gclid=CKm456Hv1KgCFUa8KgodPC2tFA

Thesaurus

Children need to know how to be able to go to a  thesaurus and find words when writing a paper. The Kid's Online Thesaurus is a wonderful one except it was made for children to use. I would have my students go to this website if they needed to find a certain word and they just couldn't think of another word for the word they were already using (example big and enormous). They may also use it to look up an unfamiliar word. The website provides this thesaurus for free and is aimed for use by children.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/dictionary-articles/kids-online-thesaurus.html

SpellCheck

When students write a paper they need to make sure they spell words correctly. Since young students usually only write their papers manually then they aren't able to have the automatic spellcheck that Word provides. This website offers spellcheck, dictionary, translations, word of the day, and even hangman. I would let my students use this website to check the spelling of a word that they are unsure of. I think the website's goal is to provide a free spell check and other options for people to use. 
http://download.dictionaryboss.com/index.jhtml?spu=true&partner=XQxdm002

YouTube

I think that YouTube is a great site for many different things. There are children's books that are animated and made into videos on this website and all you have to do is type "children's books" or the name of a particular story into the search engine. I would let my students look up literature related videos on this website or even show it over a projector. The goal of the website is to have millions of videos for free that can be posted by anyone but still prove to be very useful.
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=children%27s%20books&search=Search&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&spell=1

Top Children's Books

The early learning community has composed a website with lists of the top picked books for children. They have lists in the categories of picture books, chapter books, and non- fiction books. The best thing about this site is that it is made up by librarians. If I were a teacher I would use this website to choose which books I wish to use in my classroom. The goal of this website is to provide help for parents or teachers who want to pick out a good book for their child or student.
http://www.earlylearningcommunity.org/page/book-recommendations?_kk=great%20childrens%20books&_kt=8226e361-f3eb-43ee-8db1-57632faeeab2&gclid=CKvvgJnv06gCFaMQNAod5V08gA

Fun for Students

FunBrain.com is a website that offers web books, comics, flash arcades (in different subjects), entertainment center, fun blog and even stuff for teachers. It is for students K-8. The students can play games but do it in an educational manner, for instance while learning English. I would let my students browse this website and just see everything it has to offer, I may even use it for myself. The goal is to help students learn but to do it in a fun way that will appeal to them.
 http://www.funbrain.com/

Jokes and Riddles

Every now and then the students need to loosen up and have a little fun. I know that I still remember jokes and riddles from when I was a child. If you tell a kid a catchy joke then they will go around and tell everyone they know. This website offers clean and fun jokes and riddles for children. If I were a teacher I would have a joke of the day or write a riddle on the board and see if the students could figure it out. The man who made this website used to be a ventriloquist and wanted to put some if his favorite jokes and riddles on the internet to be shared with children. I think that the goal was just to share these with others because it was something he really enjoyed doing and wanted to continue entertaining children in some way.
http://www.brownielocks.com/jokes.html

English Games

Literacy Zone is a website offering interactive English games and activities. These include words and spelling games. Help with the following: making sentences, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, forming sentences, adverbs, tenses, punctuation, and just about anything else you can think of that helps children learn proper grammar. I would use this website in a class or first graders or second graders who are learning how to write well. This website would be great to offer if the students are struggling and need extra help. I would print the stuff off of this website and use their worksheets as opposed to letting the younger children get in the computer and do it themselves. This website's goal is to help children with English and it from everything it offers I would say that it does a good job of that.
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/literacy.html

Children's Dictionary

Yahoo! Kids offers an online children's dictionary where the students can type in a word or phrase and it will give them a definition in terms that are easy for children to understand. This website offers much more than a dictionary. Students can play games, listen to music, see jokes, check their horoscope, ask Earl (like ask Jeeves except for kids),see sports, play games, use a world fact book, get information on animals, receive homework help ,and more. If I were a teacher I would use this website if my students needed to know the definition of a word that they are unfamiliar with. I think that it is good for students to be able to find information on their own instead of always relying on others to find answers to their questions. The purpose of this website is to help children by providing a dictionary and other fun things free of charge.

http://kids.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/english

Grades K-2 Children's Literature

http://www.literacy.uconn.edu/k2chilit.htm This website is obviously for children grades K-2. This website offers authors of books for students in primary grades, lesson plans for teachers and helps teachers integrate teachnology into the children's literature classroom. I would use this for myslef website to help learn new things. The website is constantly being updated so it is up to date with the latest technology. I think the purpose of this is to help teachers teach children's literature better and more effective. It is also free which is a big plus.

McGraw- Hill

http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/education/kidlit/
McGraw- Hill who publish books offers a website for teachers of children's literature. This website is mostly reference and even offers the children's literature database. This helps teachers choose literature for their classroom. This website also offers author of the month and book of the month. I would use this website to help me choose which books I want to use in my classroom and in my teaching. I think that the goal of this website is to help teachers pick which books to use when teaching children's literature.

PBS Kids

PBS television networks offers many educational programs for children. They also have a website (http://pbskids.org/) that offers educational games, activities and videos for kids. Many children have grown up watching Barney, Sesame Street or Arthur so this would be a fun website since they already know the characters. This would be a website used in classrooms of younger children. I would play videos from this website in my classroom over a projector or just let the children get on the website during free time. PBS probably set up this website so that children can go online and play games with characters from their favorite shows.

Spanish

Although it may be a children's literature class in english, it is never too early to expose children to a different language. I don't mean that the point of this is to make the children fluent in a different language but there are many activities that can be done that teach children a little bit of spanish. It could be an activity on or near cinco de mayo. 1,2,3 Teach Me ( http://www.123teachme.com/learn_spanish/spanish_for_children ) is a website set out to teach children spanish. This website offers memory games, matching games, holiday activities, color and shape activities, numbers, songs and much more. They do this by using simple ways to show children what something (for example an Easter egg) means in spanish. Kids love to go home and recite the alphabet in spanish or count to spanish, by using this website they could learn those things  in less than an hour.

Speakaboos

Speakaboos. com (http://speakaboos.com/?gclid=COvRi-rUuKgCFUOo4AoduRviBQ) is a website that has it all. It offers stories, songs, games, worksheets, lesson plans, videos and more all for free. The literature on the website ranges from fairytales to nursery rhymes. The videos tell the story while the video goes along with what is being read. It would probably be used in a classroom of younger children kindergarden through second grade. I would use this as a website to let the children play on and explore. I think the goal of Speakaboos is to offer fun free stories for children and offer lessonplans for teachers who want to use a story from this website in their classroom.

Dr. Seuss Games and Activities

Who doesn't love Dr. Seuss? http://www.seussville.com/#/games <--- is a fun website offering games and activities for children based on the Dr. Seuss books and characters. I think the website is there to provide entertainment for children and also make some money because the website also sells the Dr. Seuss books. I would let my students get on this website and play the games. I would also probably read them a Dr. Seuss book before or after because the books are cute and fun.

Teaching Children to Read

http://www.softschools.com/language_arts/phonics/ SoftSchools.com is a website that helps teachers and parents teach children how to read. The website offers free flashcards with upper case letters, lower case letters and small words. Children can play phonics games, practice sounding letters and much more. It can be used by both teachers and students alike. This website also offers help with other subjects including math, science, social studies, spanish and french. I would use this to help the students learn to read. I would also tell the parents so they could use this website at home for extra practice for their children if they wish.

National Geographic for Kid's

Although this may seem better fit for a history or geography class, National Geographic Kids (http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/), offers lots of interesting information for children that could be used in a literature class. The students can play games, watch videos, look at pictures, read stories and news, and much more. The website has a goal os teaching children abut different things that are happening around the world and in the enviornment. This is done in a fun and interesting way and presents the information in an age appropriate manner. If I had a classroom I would use this just as a website that the kids could go on and look at.

Classic American Authors

http://www.readbookonline.net/shortStory/ This is a great website that offers thousands of short stories from famous American authors including Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe. The authors names are listed alphabetically and then the stories are listed after you click on the name of the author you choose. I would have the students in my classroom go to this website and pick a story to read. They would then have to go in front of the class and give a brief summary of the story. If there was a story that I really liked then I would read it aloud to the students. I think the main goal of this site is to offer free stories from some favorite American authors. It is great because many students don't hear about these authors or get a chance to read their works until middle or high school.

West Virginia History and Literature About the State

What better way to integrate literature into the classroom than by teaching the students about their state.
http://www.legis.state.wv.us/Educational/Kids_Page/kids.html is a great website with all kinds of interesting facts and information about West Virginia. This would be great to use with 4th graders when they are already learning about West Virginia History. This website provides the following: fun facts about the state, famous people and athletes that are from W.V., state symbols, the state seal, trivia about the state, and even information on how the state's legislature works. This can be used in many different ways in the classroom. The thing that I would do is have the students look over the website and then write a few paragraphs about what they learned and what makes West Virginia unique. This could also be presented in a PowerPoint. The goal of the website is to give children information about the state of West Virginia and to present it in a fun and interesting manner.