Blue Web' N

From the library of applications Blue Web' N, I got some web pages to use with my sixth grade learners who are in Health and Sciences.
The first two belong to the field of Health and PhysicalEducation
www.reconstructors.rice.edu and is called The Reconstructors. All the students who want to pursue medicine, biology, and chemestry at university will entertain themselves and use their knowledge of these areas to solve mysteries from the past. The mysteries can be additional activities students can do at home or in the computer labs if available, and a second activity could be that students individually or in pairs can create their own mystery providing all the clues and elements necessary to solve it. Then all participants exchange their mysteries and solve them.
www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/ The BBC Science Human Body page provides a wonderful source for authentic readings. Students can choose texts and tests on topics they are interested in and use the reading skills they have been learning to identify the vocabulary related to the topic of the text, the topic sentences and supporting ideas, and after that provide their own quizzes on the text. Another excellent activity is to have students print a copy of the chosen text, cut it up in sections and put the pieces in envelopes. Students exchange envelopes and try to order the text again by using cohesion, syntax, and meaning clues.
The last selection belongs to Science
http://explore.cornell.edu/science.cfm This magazine is devoted to Beetle Science. Students can read an article from the magazine and draw the insect with all its features, or make a spider web or a diagram to organize the information provided by the text. Students can also read some of the headlines of articles and the titles of books reviews and then make predictions on the possible content. Then check their predictions by reading the article or the review.

Comments on the three sites I browsed

Comments on the three sites I browsed.
Lately, I had the opportunity to experience the wonders of www.ardecol.ac-grenoble.fr/english
This website is absolutely fantastic for everybody, especially learners of foreign languages who want to practice the language, learn more, and have fun all at the same time. This page can be used in French, English, German and Spanish. The range of activities goes from doing projects involving discussion of topics, creation of stories and writing to making interviews, participating in forums, reading, and website quizzes among others. It also provides learners with all the necessary tools and resources needed to perform the activities successfully. This is a website to develop cognitive skills along with reading and writing.
http://www.techlearning.com/ is a magazine for teachers covering a wide variety of topics, especially technology in education, so teachers can improve their students' test performance, spelling, writing, and so on by getting ideas from the different sources this site offers. www.bham.wednet.edu/bio/biomaker.htm This tutorial guides the learner through the whole process of writing a biography in an entertaining way. It starts from raising relevant questions related to the person whose biography is being written. Then those questions need to be answered so a search is done, mostly aided by the links provided. The next step is to analyze the information in order to get the most relevant data. The last step involves how to tell the story involving the person's life and deeds. This tutorial also provides a sort of summary on the "Six traits of effective writing." If what is needed is a site where learners can improve their writing skills, this is it!