Vacation reading

Fun Fourth of July news!
• Sarah Palin resigns!!!
• Disney gets a Robotic Obama!
• Alleged Nazi war criminal to stand trial
• Czech (Czecho-Slovak) Legion in Russia during WWI -- one story and another one. Gajda defeated Bolsheviks, later became an (anti-Nazi) Czechoslovak fascist, later died in obscurity. Syrovy ended up as the Prime Minister who was made to deal with the Munich Conference and its aftermath.

Before our printer is installed
• New copy of Declaration of Independence and a bit about the original/a>
• Burning witches/a> in Kenya !!!!
• Life on Saturn?
• Sharks among a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE55O07520090625">most endangered of all fish

• Before we fly (June 5 2009) -- talk to you soon!!!!!!!! LOL (old meaning -- lots of love)
• Tiananmen Square 20th anniversary nears, and Tetris turns 25
• Some Guantanamo detainees are getting laptops
• Controversy surrounding dinosaur posture
• Robot sub reaches bottom of sea
• Hospital turns patients away
• Trained dogs can sniff out pirated DVDs
• FTC shuts down some spammers
• Stem cells restore sight for some
• How to manipulate school rankings plus more on the same story if you are interested.
• Video game publishers want more money
• June 2009
• China counters counter-revolutionaries as 20th anniversary nears
• Ultra-powerful laser turns regular lightbulbs into ultra-efficient lightbulbs
• More "copyright defenders" caught plagiarising others
• The fate of the Collyer brothers ... can it help you stop wasting time "trying to kill 100,000 locusts in Gears of War 2" (and many other, similar, pointless, time-wasting video game exercises)?
• 20 year anniversary of Tiananmen Square approaches
• Black wire: one of the looming perils of construction in the greater Washington, DC area
• Meteorologists identify new type of clou?
• May 2009
• Wikipedia band Scientology editors and Church of Scientology on trial in France
• Polaroid lovers try to revive self-developing film
• Copyright report turns out to be plagiarized
• Addiction-based game design -- good or evil?
• WWII ship to become a barrier reef!
• Ethanol creates more smog than regular gasoline
• Ever wondered what's in Red Bull, anyway? fnar, fnar
• some pictures of our house
• How an Intern stole NASA's Moon Rocks

General / Miscellaneous

• how it's made from matches and erasers to baseballs, etc
• Check out math, anatomy, chemistry and other videos at Studio4Learning (dot tv)
  week of Feb 9 2009
  • watch digestive-urinary
  • and digestive/excretory
  • A Research Guide for Students has lotsa info

Math

• Math videos?
• Sheppard Software Brain Games
• Sheppard Software Math games
• Coolmath games and flash cards and more
• Spike's Gamezone games
• Matho
• Math playground games
• Coolmath Math games including the lemonade stand
• Test your Mental Math skills for University readiness
• visualizing four dimensions
• Read about Knot theory

Geography

Amelia please print one of each of these PDFs in color - NOT "coastal proximity" and NOT "Detailed"

World
• The world
• The world's biomes from the University of California Museum of Paleontology and Wikipedia's world biome map. ThinkQuest has a nice quick intro to the "six major types of habitats
• Sheppard Software World Geography Games: Continents and Oceans
• World's ten worst cities
• Wikipedia's Lists of countries by different criteria (those with Burger King restaurants, micronations, by literacy rate, poverty rate, where English is an official language, etc)

Africa
• Standard Deviants on Africa
• Sheppard Software Africa
• many maps of africa
• Afar Depression of Ethiopia -- Scientific American article and slideshow
• Schools Wikipedia Selection Portal page and African geography page. Also, individual African countries
• Schools Wikipedia Selection section on geography
• Fauna of Africa and some more fauna of Africa and more fauna of Africa

Middle East
• Sheppard Software Middle East
• Schools Wikipedia Selection on Middle East

Asia
• Sheppard Software Asia
• Max's pick for Animals of Asia
• Fauna of Asia (Fauna means animals -- flora are plants). And more fauna of Asia
• More Asian animals and a few pictures of Asian wildlife and some more. And here are some just from Japan
• Virtually visit some of Asia's wildlife sanctuaries
• Many different views of different parts of Asia

Europe
• Standard Deviants on Europe
• Sheppard Software Europe
• Fauna of Europe and some more of the same
• European capitals dart game

The Americas
• Oddly, there are not many sites about "Fauna of the Americas."! Here are a few I /could/ find: North American animals in the National Zoo and here's another similar list -- and one for South American fauna
• Sheppard Software Canada
• Sheppard Software Mexico
Sheppard Software Caribbean Sheppard Software Central and South America Sheppard Software United States
• US maps
• Americana: how about these signs? Or these fascinating monuments!
• Was Antarctica once part of the US? See the SWEAT hypothesis

Australia / Oceania Sheppard Software Oceania
• Fauna of Australia and some more Australian fauna
• And Fauna of Oceania and of Australia

Polar regions
• What's the difference between the Arctic and Antarctic?
• Some fauna of the Antarctic and of the Arctic and of Greenland

Soil
• Africa soil map. Click here to see which soil is which
• Earth Science Image Bank
• See also Global soil regions

Cartography
• Fun with maps. More fun with maps!

Anatomy and Physiology

• Standard Deviants on Anatomy

SEER's Web Training Site - Anatomy
• Unit One: Intro to the Human Body
• Unit Two: Cells, Tissues, and Membranes
• Unit Three: Skeletal System
• Unit Four: Muscular System
• Unit Five: Nervous System
• Unit Six: Endocrine System
• Unit Seven: Cardiovascular System
• Unit Eight: Lymphatic System
• Unit Nine: Respiratory System
• Unit Ten: Digestive System
• Unit Eleven: Urinary System
• Unit Twelve: Reproductive System
• Try BodyQuest from ThinkQuest or many other fine anatomy links from ThinkQuest
• Sheppard Software Health games
• Lots of horrible diseases and disasters all rolled into one site (our tax dollars at work!
• Develop a Family Disaster Plan
• Put together a Disaster Supplies kit
• "Anyone could find themselves in an emergency situation and even the most basic survival knowledge could mean the difference between life and death." Learn about Basic Wilderness Survival Skills including finding directions without a compass, and how to build and start a fire, signal for help (hint: it's SOS, not SOL! =)
• Put together a Winter car survival kit
• Is this one any good?see esp lymphatic system %%
• immune attack video game
• Plates from Gray's Anatomy

Science

Earth Science
• geological layers with GIANT HUMAN SKULL!
• Read about rocks, then see if you can tell the difference between igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks? (both are in PDF format)
• Web time machine to go back in geologic time (also here and then go read about some really really old rocks
• Earth's tectonic plates and how they are moving. see also crustal thickness of the Earth and read about "the Moho"
• Soil
• Sun shining on Earth to create seasons (animation)
• See! Pictures of giant hailstones
• evolution of a lightning stroke (keep pressing 'next')
• Read about the worst hurricanes ever 1851-2006.
• Earth Science topics from ThinkQuest note that some of these are better than others, so if you find a sucky one, don't give up on them all

tsunamis
• videos about the 2004 tsunami
• World's biggest tsunami
• the 2004 tsunami
• What to do in the event of a tsunami

Clouds
• Northern lights and pictures of northern lights
• Morning Glory cloud images
• interactive cloud chart - learn your cloud names also here

Astronomy

• basics of astronomy from Standard Deviants
• stars tutorial from Quietbay
• Trip to Mercury

Chemistry

• Standard Deviants on Chemistry, when done, check out organic chemistry
• Sheppard Software Chemistry games
• Will rare earth elements go extinct in 2017?
• Periodic Table Song
• Learn about the elements: watch the Periodic Table of Videos (complete with its own kooky-looking mad chemist) one by one!
• Los Alamos: No explosions, but basic info on each element in written form. Wikipedia lists them in even more detail (as usual) but interestingly comments on the taste of most of the elements, which I found pretty strange!
• nice glossary of many chemical terms. also material safety data sheets (MSDSs) (although i don't think they have the one for dihydrogen monoxide
• The Wikipedia page on fire is pretty interesting
• this site is pretty good

Biology
• wildlife shorts -- are they any good?
• cells
• cats of the world (wild cats, that is)
• Sheppard Software Animal classification %%
• Sheppard Software animal info and games
• Read about the poor extinct dodo bird (PDF format) and other extinct and endangered animals
• eXtreme creatures like amphipods (a kind of plankton). Or how about a visit to the Galapagos or to some deep sea vent communities?
• See how deep water currents are affected by temperature and saltiness how the ocean circulates in the North Atlantic, and around the world (video format)

Physics

• What would it look like to fall into a black hole?
• Flame, being a plasma (albeit a low-temperature one), is affected by electric fields

Science News

• Science News
• The Why Files
• Smithsonian Institute Spotlight on Science
• Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet
• Scientists builds own planet
• Blue-green algae blooms
• potassium manganese oxide 'paper' towels stay dry in water but soak up oil
• Electricity from ocean waves?
• Einstein's theory passes test
• Magnetic portals connect Sun and Earth. Also, In space, scientists can hear the sun scream
• perfect sphere to replace a 120-year-old lump of platinum and iridium that sits in a vault outside of Paris, France as definition of kilogram
• Scandinavian scientists developing robot snakes, Americans work on Robofish
• Bizarre properties of glass: it's not really a solid
• What is Hanny's Voorwerp?
• Photosynthesis takes place at 70 degrees F (21 degrees C)
• Scientists find percursors to life in meteorite
• scientists witness bacterial evolution
• New superconductor
• Herkimer diamonds
• How life returned to Mt St Helens after the 1980 eruption
• Take a virtual visit to Deception Island where you may see a seal, a penguin, volcanic rock, a glacier, and ash-filled buildings, and rusted whale oil tanks in the same view
• how a microwave works

History

• WWI fighting maps from strange maps
• decent site on Rome. **bonus star wars content** as well as the article on Roman names
• Make your own Civil War documentary (sorta) -- PBS
• History of tattoo (and exploration)
• List of primary sources
• Decent writeup of Benjamin Franklin (five short pages - you have to click through)
• Sheppard Software 20th century quizzes
• A brief description of The Dutch in Japan also more info here (but not the ceremony - I can't find a description of that right now - can you?)
• Here is some more on Japanese-Dutch relations
• Wikipedia's article on The Black Death is pretty long but pretty good
• The Smithsonian main page and portal for students
• Outline of US History
• "Regents Exam Prep Center"
• Historical anomalies in Blackadder
• silk and silkworms; more about the history of silk; also a bit about the silk road
• The John Frum Cargo Cult, also more here and
• Did Galileo really drop balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa? When was the Tower of Pisa built? Find the answers to these questions and many others in This interview.
• Year by year from 1900 to 2008 also This day in history
• Confederate Flag controversy (click through to read about Confederate flags of the old South, and Confederate flags of the new South).

History news
• Archaeological News
• megalith (and archaeology/history) news
• Charles Darwin to receive apology from the Church of England
• Some interesting trivia on the history of sailing and exploring

Current events
• Week of January 5, 2009
• rare VENEMOUS MAMMAL filmed in Caribbean
• Week of December 1, 2008
• Backgrounder: Terror groups in India including Maoists!
• Japan bans foreigners again! (sorta =) Also -- see how big a tuna fish is (amazing they can get it into those tiny cans)
• Thai Crisis
• terrorist attacks in Mumbai (Bombay)
Google news feed

"Patriotism"
• Flag etiquette

Computers

• Typer Shark
• learn HTML
• Thirteen greatest error messages and the Cybercribe hall of fame. How about the greatest now-defunct Web sites of all time
• phone phreaking
• Stupid user stories

Computer News
• Morris Worm turns 20
• Kid faces 38 years in jail for hacking grades

Drawing

• drawing lessons
• drawing tips -- look through them both and see which one you like

Music

• Introduction to reading music. See also their table of contents for features like "Learn and hear about different instruments" and "Information on Musical Genres."
• Or, try this guide to the basics of reading music
• Music theory online. Also their table of contents
• Public Domain music scores

Practical Arts

• know your sewing stitches
• we will soon be doing quilting. Eventually, we will even applique

Free Choice

• Music videos?

English

• Standard Deviants on composition, grammar, punctuation, and even Shakespeare
• Spot the Sentence
Vocabulary
• Vocab games
• More vocabulary puzzles
• Some more vocabulary games
• Sheppard Software vocabulary games
• Some more vocab games - you need to tell me which of these to nix (we've got too many)
• Bookworm Adventures
• vocab list
• vocab list in PDF
• here's a very good list
• vocab quizzes
Parts of Speech
• Try these Mad Libs first. Then perhaps Crazy Libs (because "mad libs" is trademarked), which script however has an #h #i #j annoying bug you will have to "read around."
• Bartleby.com on Grammar
• Grammar resource with sentence diagramming
• Sentence diagramming with Eugene
Grammar
• grammar tests
Literature
• Moby Dick quiz
• Many different versions of many different fairy tales. One of my favorites is The Master Who Gave Strange Names to Things in His House (Master of all masters) as wall as our favorite one about the ears (although it's told a bit differently than we tell it)
• Poetry for kids
• Read the history of burma-shave signs and then read them all! or some of the favorites. And another version of the history. I love Burma-Shave signs. Do all those sites claiming to have them all really have all of them? Let's check

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Special

• 7 (Crazy) Civilian Uses for Nuclear Bombs (Wired)
• Love letters from a 1948 computer
• Ten software "easter eggs"
• the future of segway
• cool solar-powered car
• Chasing tornadoes
• dad's pics of new house
• around the world in 100 telescopes
• silly video game glitches
• Obama in Prague: exclusive photo also here and here.
• Some pictures from baba of the new house
• The Onion -- "America's Finest News Source
• Barbie turns 50 yrs old
• Stargazers spy elusive binary black hole system
• brits and yanks can't spell
• hydrogen from water
• The Straight Dope featuring Cecil Adams
• snopes.com
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 Presents "Detective"
• MTV bleeps "like Orpheus or Grokster or LiveWire or Kazaa"
• inside the Lego factory including the secret vault
• houses made of trees
• Read about more hoaxes at the Museum of Hoaxes
• Read more about the Piltdown hoax at the Piltdown Man FAQ
• Read more about Charles Dawson's other hoaxes at The prolific forging career of Charles Dawson and about more science hoaxes
• worm grunting
Fun and games
• Legends of Zork

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Pre-Algebra

• Coolmath Pre-Algebra
• Review Basic Math, then check out the Pre-Algebra section

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Algebra

• Supposedly bottomless FOIL worksheet
• Hippo?Campus? algebra stuff
• Algebra scales
• Algebra puzzle
• Coolmath Algebra
• The geometry of 3D perspective
• here is another and another and one more and one final one (for now)
• interactively look at linear equations
SAT prep
• see what the SAT math section is like

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Geometry

• Standard Deviants on Geometry

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Spanish

• Standard Deviants on Spanish: review that first then check out their advanced Spanish
• Spanish vocabulary games
• Cliff's Notes Spanish II articles - understand the past tense and much more
• Online textbook - check it out Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar
• read and listen to classic children's stories in Spanish
• Wiktionary has more word forms thaan below
• Spanish to English Dictionary and Translation
• All the Spanish verbs
• Spanish lyrics - maybe we can find the songs on youtube?
• Spanish for Beginners
• Lingolex articles and word lists
• About.com articles about Spanish
• English-Spanish Vocabulary Quizzes
• Intro to verbs in Spanish
• Conjugate some verbs
• Spanish news and babelfish
• Wikipedia in Spanish

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Czech

• Learn Czech through song lyrics with "SoundCzech"
• Czech Language Learning Resources from LocalLingo
• Articles in Czech /and/ English - for practice. at this blog
• Czech-English dictionary
• another Czech-English dictionary
• Czech flash cards
• some Czech songs
• Czech grammar in Czech though

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Japanese

• Japanese Online
• Free Japanese Lessons Online
• Nihongo o Narau
• and many more ... (tell me if any are good enough to be added, or if any of the above are so bad i should nix 'em)

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Field Trip Destinations

• Library (weekly)
• Science Museum
• Albright Knox
• Zoo
• Botanical Gardens (Tony)
• Bowling
• Ice rink (Amelia)
• Rock climbing
• Burchfield Art and Nature Center
• West Seneca Historical Society (Max)
• Niagara Falls
• Tifft Nature Preserve
• Erie Canal
• National Weather Service?
• WNED?
• Anchor Bar
• Eden Kazoo Factory
• herschell carousel factory
• QRS Music Technologies, Inc
• Fantasy Island