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Just Say The Word

My wife found an entertaining site called Fun With Words and passed it on to me. I'm willing to bet that English teachers will enjoy this one.

May I Have A Word With You?

If you teach literature or writing you know how important it is for a student (and a teacher) to develop and maintain a growing vocabulary. When pupils and educators learn and use novel words they create a firm foundation the accumualtion of new skills and ideas. A good learner should continually find and use new vocabulary terms. Here are a few sites that'll definitely replenish your well of words. If an apple a day is good for you why not a couple of word-a-day sites like MyWordADay and Merriam-Webster's  Word of the Day? The Phrontistery is a must-read site. If you're alarmed about words that are slowly disappearing from today's lexicons you'll want to drop by the Grandiloquent Dictionary to assure these examples vanishing vocabulary are preserved. The Lexical FreeNet will also be worth your time as it allows you to see/search relationships between words.

Read All About It: Journalism Writing Resources

This goes out to my friend Joni. She's teaching a high school journalism class here in Southeast Georgia. She does dynamite work in and out of school. I know that she expects the best from her students so I'm always looking for ideas and materials that she and her pupils can use. I found some great journalism resources. Roy Peter Clark, Senior Scholar at the highly respected Poynter Institute has amassed 50 writing tools that'll help any aspiring newsreporter. Have fun, Joni.

Wise OWL

If you're looking for materials/resources that will help your students refine their writing abilities, Perdue University's nifty Online Writing Laboratory (OWL) may be what you need.

Number The Stars Resources

TL, a friend of mine who works at OVES in Wayne County, asked me if I had any useful tech-related resources that could be used as her students read Lois Lowry's Number the Stars . I pulled together some internet-based materials. I'll try to add more stuff later, like this lesson plan I found.

Vocabulary For Every Grade Level

VOCABULARY Words are unique and interesting. Your vocabulary can and should be a reflection of you. Your vocabulary is you. And like you, your vocabulary should be alive. It should change and grow to meet your needs. Cuesta College: Guide to Vocabulary Vocabulary Training This site is meant to replicate on the Internet a means of learning words and phrases in In English, German, French and Spanish. The technique used in this site can be helpful in learning vocabulary because the vocabulary is presented randomly, emulating as nearly as possible the "flash-card" technique and the user may keep score, thus monitoring progress. Self-Study Vocabulary Quizzes (ESL, EFL) Study English with Quizzes, Crossword Puzzles and other activities for students of English as a second language. HTML Quizzes        JAVA Quizzes Learning Vocabulary Can Be Fun! This interactive site offers a variety of games (wordsearches, crosswords, hangman, match games and quizzes) using words assigned by category (animals, food, geography, etc.). Vocabulary Web Games Improve your vocabulary and boost your SAT / GRE scores. Master the 720 most frequently tested vocabulary words with these free web quizzes. VoyCabulary.comMakes the words on any webpage into links so you can look them up in a dictionary or other word-reference-site of your choice, by simply clicking on the words. Anytime you find yourself reading a webpage with words you wish to look-up, try running the page through VoyCabulary and just click on the words! For instance, if you are reading a page with complicated words, like when reading Medical pages, or perhaps reading a page in Spanish and frequently need to look-up the English equivalents, see if VoyCabulary can help you out! Vocabulary University At Vocabulary U, students will enjoy the interactive word puzzles while expanding their vocabulary. Entertaining puzzles feature word roots, offer immediate feedback, and are designed to help students increase their vocabulary skills.

Vocabulary Activities

As a classroom teacher, I am always looking for fun ways to increase my students vocabulary. At the Florida Technology Conference, I found just the thing. There is a vocabulary site that provides free interactive vocabulary puzzles for grades 4-12. It also has Latin and Greek based root words. You can also register for free lesson plans. The activities on this site also align with the NCTE and many state standards. Check it out.

Kids Lit Is It

If you teach little ones and adolescents and want to make sure they're reading high quality literature, you might want to drop in on Perry Nodelman's useful  Pleasures of Children's Literature reference site. Nodelman, known for his own contributions to children's literature, makes it easy for visitors to find good reading material and critiques.

Drama and Dance for OVES

The 4th and 5th grade teachers at Oak Vista must think I've fallen off the face of the earth. I missed my chance to drop by their school last week because I stayed home to comfort my daughter who was a little under the weather. Lest they think that I have forgotten the, I'm divvying up some resources that promote technology integration to accompany their basal reading selections. I know that this isn't the way I usually offer up my suggestions (i.e., making a big effort to increase the meaningfulness of the learning) but this week I am very harried with all kinds of other activities (namely working with a JASON Project broadcast). 4th grade reading selection Red Writing Hood by Jane Tesh (with illustrations by Bethann Thornburgh)--this selection first appeared in the publication PLAYS, The Drama Magazine for Young People in 1997. Teachers may want to look at Book Buddy resources: bonus words from the text and a link to the Children's Creative Theater Guide. Also worth checking out is a Reading Skills Rocket activity that will be useful to students. Next, why not try a Test Tutor interactive online skill builder? In terms of grammar,here are a few links where students can practice their understanding and skills using: pronouns, homophones, adverbs and adjectives, even more about adverbs and adjectives, and action verbs and linking verbs. 5th grade reading selection Since the students are reading Evelyn Cisneros: Prima Ballerina by Charan Simon, teachers may want to read (or have students read) an online biography about Cisneros and compare/contrast what it contains with the information Cisneros shares about herself in her own online autobiography. There's also a copy of a speech Cisneros delivered to a college audience that may yield a few more details about the dancer. A terrific internet resource for pupils is Ballet-Perfect in Pink (a website designed by students, for students). After visiting the site, have pupils list and write about 3 reasons why anyone (boy or girl) might take ballet. Afterwards, have them use the Persuasion Map, an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay, taking the stance that more people (of both genders) should take ballet. Teacher may want the class to try a Reading Skills Rocket activity or complete the following online activities: Evelyn Cisneros - Text Structure: Main Idea and Details Evelyn Cisneros - Classify/Categorize

Tricky Bricks: King Adobe and Reading

Some of the teachers that I serve have asked me if there are any technology-related materials that can be used when their students read Joe Hayes entertaining In the Days of Kind Adbobe (taken from the book he and Vicki Trego Hill produced, Watch Out for Clever Women!/Cuidado Con Las Mujeres Astutas!). The text in the Harcourt basal reader that pupils are reading is illustrated by Gerardo Suzan. I apologize for taking so long to post these resources. After doing a little research, here's what I found: Hayes has written quite a few books that explore Hispanic heritage and culture. It might be interesting to see if your media specialist or regional librarian could collect editions of his stories so that pupils can compare and contrast the plots, characters, settings of the various tales. Whether they read the basal reader selection or another story by Hayes, fourth grade readers will also benefit from using a chain of events graphic organizer to explain what happened in a story. Although, it has been around for a long time, the tried and true SQ3R method of exploring text would also be a good means of gleaning details from a selected story. The following activities seem to lend themselves to use on an interactive whiteboard such as an ACTIVBoard or a SmartBoard. They would make terrific whole class or small group learning opportunities. Using an online Reading Skill Rocket activity, students can practice identifying main ideas and details. I also located a main idea and details Test Tutor. There's also a following written directions Test Tutor. If that's not enough, have pupils attempt the summarizing and paraphrasing Test Tutor. Teachers might also to point the bonus vocabulary words that can be found when reading In the Days of King Adobe. I hope these suggestions help. Leave me a few comments if I'm off the mark.