Bright Ideas Blog Hop - A Look at my Newest Favorite Website for the Classroom

I hope everyone is having a great back to school season, or for some of you, that you are continuing to enjoy the lazy days of summer.  Sigh.  I miss summer vacation.

Well, I guess there is no good in wallowing in the delicious happiness I experienced for 6 short weeks this summer.  Time to face reality square in the face…and my reality is, that I have 24 very high-energy 2nd graders waiting for me everyday for the next 165 days. Yes. Yes, I am counting already.

But, I am super excited because I have a huge carrot!  Carrot, as in incentive for my little darlings. We just got a shiny, brand-spanking new computer lab at my school this summer.  I am so excited to dive into technology with my students this year.  But, of course these little guys need guidance…. boundaries, if you will.  Enter my Bright Idea...

which is….Symbaloo.com

Symbaloo is a free bookmarking site that makes guiding your students to your favorite websites simple and easy.  You do this by creating link boards, called Webmixes.  Here is a recent board I started making for an inquiry project on animals. Nice, simple layout huh?  Super kid friendly.  Also, notice that there is room for like a bazillion links on this Webmix.

Every tile is a link to a website that I have reviewed for appropriate text levels and content.

You can share your webmixes with your students so they can even access sites at home.  You can also easily share with other teachers, or search other Symbaloo users who have already created boards that you like.  Like this…

 I love this Webmix full of Nat Geo books for kids. Awesome. Perfect for our upcoming inquiry unit mentioned earlier.  SCORE!  

Your turn...Type in your topic and see what comes up.  With a quick Webmix search, I found boards dedicated to Native American Webquests and the American Revolution.  I even found this great board full of songs and transitions aimed at Kindergarten.  Ahh, I see the lightbulbs going off.  Symbaloo can even help you with your daily classroom management.

As you can probably see, Symbaloo has the potential to make your computer stations, or visit to your school computer lab, run so much more smoothly.  I hope you are interested enough to explore this Bright Idea further.

If you enjoyed this post and are looking for more,  please consider following my blog and Facebook page.

Looking for more posts about technology in the primary classroom? Click the image below!

Follow me on Pinterest for other fabulous technology ideas!

CLICK HERE TO take a look at even more Bright Ideas!