Google Earth

I think that Google Earth is a way fun program and has limitless opportunities for use in the classroom. You can use it for just about anything from finding the distance across rivers, to finding famous sites, to finding where you live. I love how you can add placemarks and pictures to show why that place is so important. My favorite thing about Google Earth and what I would love to use in my classroom is the ability to find the settings in literature and to map out where the characters went. You can actually see the places that are being talked about in the books you read as a class. This can bring the book alive and make the kids more excited about reading.

Google Lit Trips has .kmz files ready to download of different books to use on Google Earth. One that I really liked was the one for The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox. This is a great book to teach about the slave trade and this Google Earth lit trip helps bring it alive and helps the kids see the trips the slaves went through.

Here is another one about history including civil war, revolutionary war, and some presidents.