Tag: Language Arts

James Patterson’s Read Kiddo Read

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What it is:  James Patterson’s Read Kiddo Read is a website dedicated to making kids readers for life.  This site has a wealth of good information and resources that will help you foster a love of reading in your classroom.  Read Kiddo Read has outstanding book lists for every age group.  These are tried and true favorites kids books.  In addition, Read Kiddo Read has some outstanding features such as a can’t miss reading list just for boys, and an “if your kid likes…” that matches up popular kids toys and movies with books that they may enjoy.  There is a great book-based lesson plan exchange that uses popular kids books as the basis for lessons.  Read Kiddo Read has some audio interviews with favorite children’s authors complete with a written transcript.

How to integrate Read Kiddo Read into the classroom:   I’m sure that you have encountered at least one student who was dead set against reading.  You make suggestions, walk the library together, ask about interests but just can’t seem to find the book that hooks them.  Read Kiddo Read is a site that will help you to crack the code for those students who just aren’t interested in reading.  Search books by age, books just for boys, and books matched to other interests, movies, and toys that a student enjoys.  You are bound to find something that they love.  Use the author interviews as an introduction to reading or writing.  Students will be inspired to write when they listen to stories of how the ‘pros’ do it.  Be sure to check out the outstanding library of lesson plans based on popular children’s books.  Read Kiddo Read is a great place to get inspired and put some excitement in your reading classroom.

 

Tips:  Be sure to register for free on the Read Kiddo Read website, you will become part of a great community of teachers and parents passionate about creating life long readers.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Read Kiddo Read in your classroom.

Creaza

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What it is: Creaza is a suite of web-based creativity tools.  There are four tools in the Creaza toolbox that will help your students organize knowledge and tell stories in new creative ways.  Mindomo is the mind mapping tool.  Students can use this tool to organize thoughts, ideas, links, and other information visually.  Mindomo is the perfect tool for exploring new material, looking at connections, and organizing thoughts for further development.  The mind map topics can contain media files, links, and text.  Cartoonist is a cartooning tool that students can use to create multimedia stories.  Cartoonist can be used to create comic strips or more personal digital narratives.  The finished product can be viewed online or printed out.  (Check out the video demo to learn how to use this tool.)  Movie Editor helps students produce their own movies based on Creaza’s thematic universes, video, images, and sound clips.  Students can use the Movie Editor to edit a short film, create a news cast, a commercial, a film trailer, etc.  Movie Editor can import film clips, sound clips and images to tell a story.  Audio Editor is the final tool in Creaza’s creative suite.  Audio Editor is a tool that allows your students to produce audio clips.  Students can use Audio Editor to splice together their own newscasts, radio commercials, radio interlude, etc.

How to integrate Creaza into the classroom:  Creaza is a great suite of online tools that allow students to display learning creatively.  The Media and Audio editors follow established conventions for sound and media editing complete with timelines.  Using this online software will be a nice introduction to more robust media and audio editors.  Mindomo is a great way for students connect new and existing knowledge.  It is also a nice place for students to plan out a story.  Cartoonist and Movie Editor are great tools that provide students with a creative outlet for telling a story.  Allow students to show their understanding of a period in history by creating a cartoon about it.  Display a new science concept in Movie Editor complete with voice over.  Students could create a short video or radio type commercial for a book that they read in place of a traditional book report.  The uses for are limitless, you will think of many ways for your students to use this creative suite to display knowledge.

 

Tips:  Cartoonist is the only tool that has a video demo, this is a great way to teach your students how to teach themselves.  Encourage students to learn how to use this tool by watching the video demo first and working with the tool.  Movie Editor does take a little bit of playing with to figure out how to use it, give your students a day to play with the tools so that they get a handle on how it all works.  

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Creaza in your classroom.

Book Wink

Kelly Tenkely7 Comments on Book Wink2978 views

What it is: Book Wink is an absolutely incredible site to motivate students in 3rd through 8th grade to read.  Through podcasts and web video Book Wink introduces students to books that will help get students excited about reading.  Video book talks are about 3 minutes in length and introduce students to a topic, and the additional read-alikes that can be found on the Book Wink website.  Books can be searched by grade, subject, author, or title.  Subscribe to the video podcats to automatically receive the newest book talks.  This months book talk introduces students to the heist.  Check it out, it is fantastic!

How to integrate Book Wink into the classroom:   Book Wink is an outstanding way to excite and motivate students to read.   Use Book Wink with a projector and introduce your whole class to a book talk.  The book talks are engaging and will have your students wanting to check out books on the subject for silent reading time.  Each book talk gives a related list of books along with their age appropriateness.  This makes it simple for your students to find a book that will capture their attention and help them gain a love of reading. Check out the Book Wink archives to find a genre or topic that fits with your current curriculum.  Topics include: heists, World War II, Sharks, 19th Centrury, Love, Mythology, Volcanos, Mermaids, Museum Mysteries, Sea Adventures, Parallel Universes, Popularity, South America, and Endangered Animals.  A new book talk is added each month, this should have your students excited about reading year round!  Book Wink would be a great site to have bookmarked or set as a homepage in the school  library.  After your students have become familiar with the book talk format on Book Wink, encourage them to host and record their own book talks.

 

Tips:  Book Wink is free to use.  You can support Book Wink through purchases from their online store or through a donation.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Book Wink in your classroom.

DoInk

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on DoInk4505 views

 

What it is:  DoInk is an outstanding free illustration and animation creator.  The site has tools that are similar in feel and function to Adobe’s flash.   DoInk creates custom animations right inside your Internet browser.  There is an explore section where you and your students can get some inspiration for animations.  DoInk provides tutorials for illustrating and animating making it easy to get started.

How to integrate DoInk into the classroom:   Adobe products not in the budget?  DoInk is a fantastic alternative to Flash.  DoInk would be a great way to familiarize students with the basics of animation that will lead nicely into using more robust programs like Flash.  Allow students to create mini animations to demonstrate science concepts (think life cycles, rock cycles, water cycle, etc.).  Students can also create short animations to display an understanding of verbs.  Since verbs are action words, an animation is a great way to show the action.

 

Tips: DoInk requires registration with a username and password.  For elementary students, I find it helpful to create one class account where students can create.  This keeps you from having to keep track of a class full of login information.  It also makes it simple to keep track of student work.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using DoInk  in your classroom.

Tar Heel Reader

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Tar Heel Reader3192 views

What it is: Tar Heel Reader is an excellent website that is “a collection of free, easy-to-read, and accessible books on a wide range of topics. Each book can be speech enabled and accessed using multiple interfaces (i.e. switches, alternative keyboards, touch screens, and dedicated AAC devices). The books may be downloaded as slide shows in PowerPoint, Impress, or Flash format.”  There are hundreds of books on a variety of topics.  In addition to the ready-made books, you and your students can create your own Tar Heel Readers.  Students can add pictures to their readers from Flickr or by uploading their own images.  Each of the stories can be read silently, or read to students with a child, male, or female voice (computer).

How to integrate Tar Heel Reader into the classroom:  Tar Heel Reader is a great place for beginning or struggling readers and English language learners.  Each of the stories has the option to be read silently or read aloud.  Use Tar Heel Reader to create custom stories to motivate your struggling readers.  You can include pictures of people they know, subjects they love, and make them a character in the story.  The stories can be read online or downloaded in multiple formats.  Because the stories can be downloaded as PowerPoint presentations, they can be opened in Apple’s Keynote and put on an iPod (Nano, Classic, or Touch) for mobile reading.  Students will love searching the Flickr collection and creating their own stories on Tar Heel Reader.  Older students can create books for younger grades describing science concepts (think weather, food chain, plant cycle, etc.).  This is also a great site for students to use during National Poetry month (April) to create poetry.  Use Tar Heel Readers as a ‘big book’ that your class can read together using an interactive whiteboard or a projector.  Set up a reading listening center during silent reading time with Tar Heel Reader on your classroom computers.  

 

Tips: Create a favorites page for your students.  Although the site has been created for beginning readers, some books may be inappropriate for your students.  There is a section of books for teens that are beginning readers.  Note: to create a book of your own you will need to register for free.  You will need an invitation code.  I requested a code in the comment section and got a response within 10 minutes of my comment.  You can send me a request Tweet http://twitter.com/ktenkely and I will send you an invitation code.

 

I learned about this site from Larry Ferazzlo’s excellent blog.  Thanks for highlighting this great site Larry!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Tar Heel Reader in your classroom.

Scholastic Story Starters

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Scholastic Story Starters3153 views

 

What it is:  Story Starters is a fun site for students in kindergarten through sixth grade to use each day as a quick writing activity.  Students type in their name and select a grade to begin.  Students are taken to a special Story Starter machine that generates writing ideas for newspaper articles, letters, notebooks, or postcards.  They can get a new idea by keeping some elements of the idea and spinning again to change elements.   The site also features Scholastic’s Word Wizard which always floats on the webpage.  Students can type in a word or double click any word on the webpage and get a definition of the word.

How to integrate Scholastic Story Starters into the classroom:  Scholastic Story Starters is a fun website to use with the whole class or as a writing learning center.  This is a great site to use with an interactive whiteboard or projector to generate ideas for free creative writing time.  Let students take turns being the ‘spinner’ that generates writing ideas.  Encourage students to share their writing, it is neat to hear all the different ideas that kids come up with from the same story starter.  This would be a great website to bookmark on classroom computers for students to visit as a writing center that they can visit when they are stumped for writing ideas.

 

Tips:  You may have to spin a category a few times to get a story starter that makes sense.  This is very quick and easy!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Scholastic Story Starters in your classroom.

Telescopic Text

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Telescopic Text3241 views

 

What it is:   Telescopic Text is a very simple website that could be very handy in the language arts classroom.  The site starts off with a very simple sentence: I made tea.  Each time you click on a word, the sentence expands adding adjectives, adverbs, and makes the sentence more interesting.

How to integrate Telescopic Text into the classroom:  Use Telescopic Text to teach your students about creative, descriptive writing and how to improve writing with descriptive words.  Compare and contrast what students knew about the sentence “I made tea.” at the beginning and how each addition of words helped them understand more about the original statement.  This can be done as a whole class using an interactive whiteboard or a computer with a projector.  Students can take turns clicking on words to expand the statement with discussion after each addition.  This is a great exercise to use before writing.  Have the students write their own simple sentence and expand it into a story with the addition of descriptive words.  

 

Tips:  The highlighted words are those that can be expanded by clicking.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Telescopic Text in your classroom.

Magnetic Poetry

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What it is:  Magnetic Poetry is a virtual edition of magnetic fridge poetry.  Students can choose from four kits to create their ‘magnetic’ poem.  There is Kids Kit, First Words, Best Friends, and Storymaker.  After students have chosen a kit they can choose from three backgrounds for their poetry (refrigerator, locker, or whiteboard).  Students are given a virtual tub of words to choose from that they can drag, arrange, and rearrange to create a poem or story.  When they are finished, students can send their Magnetic Poetry to an email address or save it for later viewing on the site.

How to integrate Magnetic Poetry into the classroom:  Magnetic Poetry is a great site to use in April as part of national poetry month.  This site is wonderful for those students who are hindered by spelling (you know the students who will only write with words they know how to spell).  Students can pull from the word bank of words to create a story or poem that can be saved, sent to an email address, or printed out as a draft and turned into a published piece.  This would be a fun website to use with the whole class and an interactive whiteboard, encourage your students to take turns adding words to a class poem or story.  This would also make a great center activity for students to visit and create with during the week.  

 

Tips:  If a student saves their poem, they are granting permission for the site to use their poem as a possible example on the site or on packaging. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Magnetic Poetry in your classroom.

TutPup

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What it is:   TutPup is an outstanding, free math and spelling practice website.  At TutPup students can compete in fun, educational games against kids from all over the world live.  The site reminds me a lot of the World Math Day competition.  Students are matched up with other students from around the world where they play fact games and compete in real time to see who best knows their stuff.  I love that TutPup is available to students all year long (unlike the World Math Day site), it doesn’t collect personal information about students, and there are several games to choose from each with multiple levels.  TutPup helps students build math skills in the areas of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, and a mixture of those skills.  TutPup also helps students build spelling skills with a spelling game, students listen to a word and have to spell it before their opponent.  The site is highly motivating, takes into account different learning levels, and builds a variety of skills.

How to integrate TutPup into the classroom: My students absolutely love this website.  Any time they can take part in a little friendly competition they are ready to compete.  The great thing about TutPup is that it can be differentiated for your different levels of learners.  Each student can play games at their own ability level.  This keeps the lower math students engaged and feeling successful and the higher level students challenged enough to hold their interest.  These types of sites have my students asking, “can I play this game at home too?”   When have you ever had a student ask if they could practice math or spelling facts at home?!  They truly love the competition of this site and get the added benefit of increasing their math fact recall skills.  Use TutPup as a math center in the classroom where students can practice math facts, or a practice center in the literacy block for additional spelling practice.  This is also a fun whole class activity with an interactive whiteboard or projector, students can call out the answers to the questions as a class for the teacher to enter.  You won’t have to assign this site for homework, students will ask to play from home.  Tell parents about this site as an alternative to flash card math fact practice.  

 

Tips:  TutPup offers teacher accounts and student accounts for free.  However, right now their are no available login ID’s.  I contacted TutPup about this dilemma and they are working on a solution.  In the mean time, students can access all the games as a guest player.  I’ll update this post when TutPup has solved the registration issues. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using TutPup in your classroom.

Ideas to Inspire

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Ideas to Inspire2436 views

 

What it is:  Ideas to Inspire is a truly wonderful site and wealth of resources for teachers.  On this site you will find a collection of Google Doc presentations that include a number of ideas for engaging lesson activities in a variety of curriculum areas.  The collection comes from inspiring teachers from around the world.  You can find Ideas to Inspire on Writing, Interactive Math, Incredible Science, Amazing Art, Marvelous Music, and learn interesting ways to use Google Docs, Pocket Video Cameras, Interactive Whiteboards, Google Earth, Twitter, Netbooks, Webcams, and Visualizers.  Ideas to Inspire also has great tips for non-techy teachers (I remember being one of those once-upon-a-time).  Ideas to Inspire is very easy to navigate and each presentation is jam packed with truly inspiring ideas.

How to integrate Ideas to Inspire into the classroom: It happens to the best of us, we get settled in our ways and fall into a teaching slump where we can’t come up with a creative lesson idea to save our lives.  Sound familiar?  Ideas to Inspire is the place to go, here you will find inspiration, helpful tips, and get those creative juices flowing again!  Take a few minutes and look through some of the presentations, you will be happy you did. 🙂

 

Tips:  This is my last post for the day, head over to Ideas to Inspire and be inspired today!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Ideas to Inspire in your classroom.