Language Arts – Page 22 – iLearn Technology

Online Audio Stories

February 24, 2010March 2, 2010Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3754 views

What it is: Online Audio Stories is an impressive collection of free audio stories online. The audio books are all free and downloadable. The online version of the story includes accompanying text for students to follow along with. The short stories will transport students on a fun adventure of listening to fairy tales and classics. The extensive collection includes stories by Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Brothers Grimm, Tales of Time, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Bronte, Aesop, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Joseph Jacobs, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Blake, Oscar Wilde, Louisa May Alcott, Hans Christian Andersen, William Shakespeare, and many more. The stories are read with excellent voice, inflection, and timing, making them a joy to listen to.

How to integrate Online Audio Stories into the classroom: These Online Audio Stories will transport your students to new magical worlds and adventures, they will allow struggling readers to enjoy stories that may be just out of reach otherwise. Online Audio Stories will help increase student vocabulary and improve listening comprehension skills. Students may not choose to pick up these classics in the library, but they will enjoy listening to the stories online. This is great exposure to the classics! If you have computers in your classroom, set them up as a reading/listening center that students can visit during silent reading time. Because the Online Audio Stories are free to download, these are also perfect for downloading to an iPod or MP3 player.

Tips: Let parents know about these free online stories, they make great bedtime stories, listening enjoyment for long car rides, or for a fun listening experience any time.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Online Audio Stories in your classroom.

Reading Street Supplement

February 21, 2010Kelly Tenkely15 Comments3863 views

http://web.me.com/jtenkely/Reading/Home.html

What it is: Over the summer I worked with a teacher at Marquette Elementary school in Gary, Indiana to supplement their reading curriculum. They used Pearson’s Scott Foresman Reading Street, but were struggling with the program. Students weren’t understanding concepts and were really struggling with even the basics. Marquette held a summer remedial reading program where they aimed to supplement the curriculum and help students to become more successful in their reading. I took a look at the Reading Street curriculum for third grade and noticed right away that a huge number of concepts are presented, but there is no depth or opportunity for students to really learn and understand the concepts. My goal was to take the curriculum (in this case Unit 6 for third grade) and supplement it with technology. My goal was to add some richness to what was presented. I aimed to give students the chance to learn, practice, and create with the material presented. Because we were working in a summer program, we were able to spend more time with the material and work with fewer students. Below you will find my curriculum guide for 3rd Grade Reading Street Unit 6. Even if you don’t use Reading Street, or teach at a different grade level, I encourage you to take a look at what I did with the curriculum. I hope that you will find some ideas that you could use to supplement the curriculum you are using in your classroom. I created a website for Unit 6, called Reaching for Our Goals, so that students had one place to access all of the websites and resource they needed. (If you study suffixes, parts of speech, commas, compound words, punctuation, MLK, Space, the Wright Brothers, or Jim Thorpe there are some great links.) I also created a wiki (this is an example) where they could collaborate and show off their finished projects. On the wiki, you will find example thinking pages, VoiceThread projects, and Animoto projects.

Winter Olympic Shidonni Lesson

February 16, 2010Kelly Tenkely15 Comments2684 views

What it is: The Winter Olympics is here! There is so much learning to be done. In my computer lab, my students will be completing the following assignment using Shidonni and various Olympic websites for research. I have created a Weebly site as a research landing page for students.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the Winter Olympics 2010 as a learning event in your classroom.

Treasures Reading Supplement

February 16, 2010Kelly Tenkely26 Comments5610 views

What it is: We use the Treasures Reading curriculum (Macmillan McGraw Hill) at the school where I teach. Although there are things I like about this curriculum, one thing that is in need of improvement are the activities provided for students to practice the skills that they are learning. The activities don’t change from 1st-5th grade, are very repetitive, and do not encourage any sort of deeper thinking skills. In an attempt to remedy this for our students, I went through each unit for 1st through 5th grade and pulled out the essential learning components. I found activities that were engaging and required some deeper thinking to supplement what was currently in the curriculum. As I worked to supplement the activities, I looked for a few things: 1. The activity could be completed with the whole class, using an interactive whiteboard or projector, or could be completed as a computer center (for the classroom with 2 or 3 computers). 2. The activities had to meet and reinforce the essential learning. 3. The activities had to be more engaging than what was already suggested.

How to integrate Treasures Reading Supplement into the classroom: These guides are meant to be a supplement for the Treasures Reading Curriculum. They are designed to offer some extra ideas for helping students to practice and solidify learning. You will find a few activities that are meant for offline use such as a whole class bingo game or partner matching games. You will also notice some suggestions for Promethean activities. I created some supplemental flipcharts for our teachers to use that I am happy to share if you can use them. (I hope to have these up on Promethean Planet soon). Many of these activities can be completed as a center activity in the classroom. We don’t always have access to a computer lab of computers. In the classroom with a few computers, set up a weekly rotation so that your students can complete some of the online activities. Some of the games and activities are also appropriate for whole class participation.

In my classroom, I like to play games with my students. I will often split students into teams where the teams will take turns working through a game. Students love the extra layer of competition being timed.

In my reading classroom, I had literacy groups that I met with every day. Each day I met with a new group (those students who were in need of remedial reading met each day of the week). During literacy group time, the group that I was working with read the story for the week, learned and practiced key essential learning together (phonics, grammar, vocabulary) , and worked on building comprehension strategies. While I worked with my smaller literacy groups, the rest of the class worked through independent literacy centers. At the beginning of the week I explained all of the centers for the week. Because my classroom had limited space, I put my centers into colored tubs that rotated around the classroom. Each day a small group of students received a center tub. The tub has all of the necessary supplies and directions for that center. One of my centers always involved the classroom computers. Sometimes the centers were inquiry based, sometimes games, and sometimes additional reading practice. Every week, each student completed each center activity. In the meantime, I was able to work one on one with my literacy groups. This worked really well in my classroom and technology made it easy for students to work at their own level independently.

The guides are below in ebook format using Issuu, they have been separated by grade. Even if you don’t teach the Treasures Curriculum, everything has been arranged by the learning focus, these overlap in most curricula. You may find some great activities that meet your classroom need here:

First Grade:

Second Grade:

Third Grade:

Fourth Grade:

Fifth Grade:

*Note: The fourth and fifth grade spelling lists on Spelling City do not come from the Treasures curriculum. The fourth grade uses Houghton Mifflin and the fifth grade has generated their own lists.

For a list of all of my publications check out my library on Issuu.

Leave a comment and share how you are using the Treasures Reading Supplement in your classroom.

Win a month subscription to Wiglington and Wenks contest!

February 9, 2010February 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely9 Comments6047 views

What it is: Wiglington and Wenks is a rich virtual world for kids that I wrote about a few weeks ago here. This virtual world brings together literature, history, and geography into one amazing learning experience for kids. Wiglington and Wenks is a place for students to explore, think, discover, and grow. I can’t say enough about this virtual world as a learning space, I wish every textbook company on the planet would move toward this type of model of presenting content and learning! While Wiglington and Wenks is free for everyone, they do offer memberships that give students access to extra features, special areas, and extra privileges. Wiglington and Wenks has provided 10 one month memberships for iLearn Technology readers! If you would like a free membership for your class or as a give-away to one of your students or children please leave a comment below. In your comment, tell us your favorite feature of Wiglington and Wenks. I will choose 10 winners randomly and send an email with instructions for redeeming your free membership.

How to integrate Wiglington and Wenks into the classroom: Wiglington and Wenks is based on a story book. Read these stories with your students or include them in your classroom library for reading. In this virtual world, students have the opportunity to travel to and explore real places. Students can learn about the Amazon, Madagascar, Singapore, the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef, the Great Pyramid, Chchen Itza, the Bermuda Triangle, the Great Wall of China, Big Ben, and more. As students travel through the worlds, they are presented with various quests and meet with famous historical figures. Right now students can interact with Gandhi, Charles Darwin, Genghis Khan, Beethoven, Buffalo Bill, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Neptune, and Chief Joseph. Many new characters are being released including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Cleopatra, Issac Newton John, Albert Einstein, Pocahontas, and Wilber and Orville Wright. Send your students on quests to learn more about each of these characters and places. Find more ideas for using Wiglington and Wenks in your classroom on my original post here.

Tips: Make sure that you use a valid email address in your comment so that I can contact you!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Wiglington and Wenks in your classroom.

Signed Stories

February 4, 2010February 4, 2010Kelly Tenkely6 Comments3659 views

What it is: Signed Stories is an excellent online story site that I learned about from The Techie Classroom blog. Signed Stories makes hundreds of children’s stories available online accessible in British Sign Language and in text, pictures and sound. This site has it all. Students can read the story, watch it signed, and listen to the story. This enriches literacy on a variety of levels. Deaf and hearing alike can benefit from this excellent free website. These are published stories and include a variety of popular titles. Books are sorted into categories including adventure, baby and toddler, fairytales and folktales, families and friendships, funny, open house, slimy scary, or students can browse all books alphabetically.

How to integrate Signed Stories into the classroom: Signed Stories is a fantastic add to any literacy classroom. Students can read, listen to, or watch a book signed. The site is accessible to all language learners and has engaging popular stories that students will love. Expand your classroom library by pulling up Signed Stories during reading and allowing students to read online. Signed Stories also adds great discussion to the classroom about different ways that people learn. Students can expand their sign language vocabulary by listening to familiar stories and watching them being signed. This is also a great site to send home. Kids can practice their reading even when their isn’t an adult available to read with them.

Tips: Check out the Resources page for links to other interactive story sites.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Signed Stories in your classroom.

Kerpoof: Update

January 29, 2010February 8, 2010Kelly Tenkely9 Comments3513 views

What it is: Kerpoof is one of my favorite creation tools for elementary students, it allows them to draw, create pictures, cards, books, and even movies. My original post about Kerpoof can be found here. Kerpoof has added some new features that make it worthy of another post. Students can now save their pictures, cards, stories and drawings locally (on their computers). On each canvas is a JPEG icon that will allow any picture to be saved to the computer locally. They are working on making it possible to download the movies locally soon. Kerpoof also introduced info bubbles. In the Make a Picture object library, students can drag out a picture onto the canvas. Now there is a new question mark button that shows up on an object. When students click on the question mark, a little bubble of information pops up. Students will gain all kinds of information from these little fact bubbles. They can learn everything from: who wrote Treasure Island, to learning the national animal of Australia.

How to integrate Kerpoof into the classroom: Kerpoof is an outstanding creativity program for the classroom. With there education accounts and these new features, it is even more useful in the classroom setting. Now that students can save their pictures created on Kerpoof locally, they can use their Kerpoof creations in new ways. Upload the saved JPEG to the class website, blog, or wiki, or add illustrations to a word processing program.

Use the new information bubbles to start a Kerpoof scavenger hunt. Ask students specific questions ahead of time or instruct students to research broader topics like “dinosaurs” or “Mexico”. After students have found answers to their assigned questions, they can do more in-depth research using library or Internet resources. After research is completed, students can come back to Kerpoof to create a picture, story, essay, or movie including information that they learned.

Tips: Be sure to check out Kerpoof’s lesson plans, they have just added a new lesson called “Programming Wizards” designed to teach students about how computers work and how to build, design, and test a program. Very cool.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Kerpoof in your classroom.

Spelling City: Update

January 29, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3880 views

What it is: Spelling City is a fabulous site for practicing spelling, I have written about its uses in the classroom before (here and here). Spelling City has just added a new feature that teachers are going to love, the ability to add your own sentences on Spelling City! Now you can customize your spelling lists to fit your needs. For example, if you are studying fish and one of your spelling words is “scales”, the default sentence that Spelling City might offer is “The scales were not giving the weights accurately.” Now as you create a list, you can click on “add” and type a new sentence to fit your classroom needs. The feature is also extremely useful for homonyms (our fifth graders are using this feature this week!). For the teacher created sentences, the audio read of the sentence will be done by a sophisticated voice synthesis.

How to integrate Spelling City into the classroom: Now that Spelling City allows teacher generated sentences, you can customize your lists for students even more. Have students generate sentences for the weeks spelling words and vote on which sentence should be included on Spelling City. This is a great way to involve your students in thinking about word meanings and uses.

Tips: Spelling City has a premium membership that has been approved for funding by Adopt-a-Classroom.org. You can use the Adopt-A-Classroom service to ask for donations to cover premium membership.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Spelling City in your classroom.

I have, Who has Contraction Game

January 28, 2010January 28, 2010Kelly Tenkely8 Comments2799 views

What it is: Today I was looking for fun interactive games for students to play to practice “not” contractions. I have used iKnow That: Alien Word Mine to practice the not contraction, but was looking for another opportunity for students to practice. I searched for some fun activities and came up blank. I decided to make an offline game that students could play as a class called “I have, who has?”. In this card game, each student chooses a game card. Each game card starts with the separate words (for example: can not) and has a contraction (for example: aren’t). Students stand in a circle holding there game card. Choose one student to begin by reading their card: “I have can not, who has aren’t?” The student holding the card with “are not” responds: “I have are not, who has don’t?”. Play continues until all matches have been made.

How to integrate I Have, Who Has Contraction Game into the classroom: There are several ways to play the I have, Who has Contraction Game. The first way is to play as a class, with students reading the cards aloud and creating matches. The game could also be played more like a dominoes game where students match up all the cards end to end with the correct contraction match. I have, Who has can be played for multiple subjects. For math facts the cards could read “I have 5+5 who has 12?” The student holding “5+7” would respond “I have 5+7, Who has 9?” and so on. This game can be adapted for matching states and capitals, math facts, parts of speech, vocabulary practice, etc. Students have a great time playing “I have, Who has?” as a class. It is a fabulous listening game and helps practice a variety of learning.

Tips: I have attached my Contraction Game here. Download and play with your students!

Leave a comment if you have found other contraction games that your students enjoy or your adaptations of “I have, Who has?”

Learn English Kids

January 19, 2010Kelly Tenkely6 Comments3910 views

What it is: Learn English Kids is a website especially for students who are learning English or need some remedial help in language development. Created by the British Council, Learn English Kids has fun games, songs, stories, and offline activities to help students learn English. All of the activities are created so that they can be done independently or with family members or friends. In the listen and watch section of the site are animated stories and songs, many have accompanying activities to use in the classroom. There are also videos and online activities designed to build listening skills and comprehension. In the read write section are downloadable materials designed to help develop reading and writing skills. The make section features online activities in which students can create something. There are also arts and crafts directions to download and videos of children creating things. In the explore section are additional resources and websites for English language learners. The game section features several games broken down into language games, fun with English, little Kids games, and games to play with friends. Students learn basic English vocabulary, alphabetical order, phoneme matching (matching phoneme to its sound), hieroglyphics, months in a year, famous landmarks, seasons, recycling, ancient Egypt, animal habitats, around the world, bugs, Chinese New Year, Christmas, cities, colors, computers, countries, currency, daily routines, days of the week, dinosaurs, directions, environment, fairy tales, food, Great Barrier Reef, health, holidays, human body, maps, money, nature, numbers, Olympic games, pets, planets, plants, school, solar system, space, sports, technology, weather, just to name a few.

How to integrate Learn English Kids into the classroom: Learn English Kids is a comprehensive resource that can be used in your classroom in a variety of ways. The site was designed specifically for English Language Learners (or ESL students) but is appropriate for primary students or students who need some remedial language building. The site has been created to be navigated and used independently and many of the activities would be perfect as a center that students can visit. The games are outstanding for vocabulary and language building. Listen and Watch has an impressive collection of songs that are traditional children tunes like Hickory, dickory dock, teaching songs that help students remember things like months in a year, and themed songs. Each song is accompanied by a pdf of the lyrics and a print activity. There are several well made short stories for your students to read along with. The animated stories can be read with or without audio. Each story comes with the ability to print and includes accompanying activity suggestions. Kids Talk features videos of kids answering a variety of questions. The Listen and Watch section also has a place for students to practice their listening skills. Students watch an animated video and listen to what the characters say. Then they are asked to interact with the activity according to what they heard. These activities are great for ELL, but would also be excellent for students with sensory integration problems. In the Read and Write section, students read a passage and are given follow up questions that they can write about themselves. These would make an excellent writing center for students who need some prompting to write. In the Create section students can create online stories, characters, etc. There are also some offline printable activities and suggestions of things to create. This site features so many great resources, it will keep you ready with activities for your students. Every one of the activities/songs/read alongs are high quality and engaging. Students will love this site! I cannot stress enough that this site has something for every student, not just English Language Learners. My kindergarten and first grade students really enjoy using this site.

Tips: This site could take you hours to explore to find all of it’s hidden treasures. If you are looking for a specific game, story, or topic, you may want to click on “Site Map” at the very bottom of the webpage. Here you can sort through all of the resources by topic, finding exactly what you need quickly. What a great website!! Be sure to check out the Teacher page where you will find lesson plans, resources, and guidance for teaching your ELL students.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Learn English Kids in your classroom.