1. Dictionaries
There are many excellent online English-Chinese dictionaries. Some even have audio. Here are three that I use most frequently:
mdbg.net: You can search for words by Chinese, Pinyin, or English definition. Very comprehensive.
zhongwen.com: Search for words by pronunciation, radical, stroke count or English definition. Many interesting FAQs about characters on this site.
xuezhongwen.com; Another great dictionary.You can search for words by Chinese, Pinyin or English definition.You can also get English to Chinese translations for simple phrases.

If you absolutely must have a paper dictionary I recommend the Concise English-Chinese/Chinese-English Dictionary published by The Commercial Press and Oxford University Press. Read customer reviews of this dictionary including my own here.

2. Pin Yin Practice
We will be spending lots of time in class practicing pinyin. This is essential for correct pronunciation as well as Chinese word processing. When you go to this site you will be able to click on and listen to the four tones, all the pinyin sounds, numbers, personal pronouns, and also some simple classroom greetings.

3. Stroke Order
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of following the correct stroke order when writing Chinese characters. If you can't remember the stroke order for a particular character don't cheat by writing it any old way. You can look up the most frequently used characters by pinyin at this site.

Another great site with animated character stroke order can be found at this site.

4. Gridded Paper
If you run out of gridded paper for practicing your Chinese characters you can print some out from home. Go to this site. The size of the squares I use are .8 for sixth grade, and .6 for seventh grade.

5. Laoshilink
This very comprehensive site created by Phyllis Zhang has photos, songs, video clips and many other wonderful resources for learning Chinese. Go to this site