ItstheWeekend#1 Sponge Activities For the Classroom?

It's the weekend ya'll. Every Friday, I plan to post about a great resource that you can explore in your spare weekend time :) Well you want to hear it? here it goes....

What are sponge activities you might ask? No, I am not referring to the sponge we use to clean dirty tables, and soak up liquid spills in the classroom. Actually, this is a term referring to activities used to  produce learning during that "extra few minutes" you have in the classroom. Oh I don't know, maybe the time needed to complete some administrative tasks,  such as lunch count, or those last 10 minutes you have before the end of the day, or that wait time between PE and Art.  I had never heard of the term until I read Jacqui Murray's blog "ask a teacher".  This concept was originally coined by Madeline Hunter. Her philosophy is there should be no "wasted time" in the classroom, and in fact every second counts.  Sometimes we only have a few minutes, and don't have 30 to 40 minutes to dedicate to a  learning activity. I was able to see on several different websites examples of some great sponge activities, but of course I have to put a tech twist on it.
That being said, I am listing here some very good websites students can access rather quickly independently, or as whole class activities, to gain very meaningful learning experiences.

Reading/Communication Arts:

Vocabulary building: Hangman
Games with High Frequency words:
Wonderapolis- Find out the Wonder of the Day (Now with the wonderrize it feature)
Jeff's Poems for Kids
Fill in the Blank Poetry


Math:
Jeopardy Games (Math & Science)
AAA Math
Funbrain


Social Studies:
Geography GeoGreeting
Science:
PowerPoint Games for (Math, Reading, Science, Social Studies)
Discovery Kids
Virtual Tours
Webcams around the World
Research for Kids


Just a few to try out this weekend... Check out next week for more!