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Wordly Wise 3000

    What it is:   Wordly Wise 3000 is a vocabulary curriculum that can be purchased, any time I see a website mentioned as part of curriculum, I always take a look.  While the Wordly Wise 3000 curriculum costs, the website activities are free!  Students are told to choose their vocabulary book (I just choose the appropriate grade level).  Students can go through a word list that says each word, gives a picture, the part of speech, the definition, and a sentence using the word.  They can read this information or have it read to them.  Then they review the word with a mini quiz review.  The audio from the website can be downloaded and saved on a CD to be used in class without computers.   After students have learned the words, they can play games that reinforce the vocabulary learned.  Games include concentration, flashcards, hangman, matching synonyms, and word searches.  Wordly Wise 3000 has vocabulary units for second through twelfth grade.   How to integrate Wordly Wise 3000 into the classroom:  Wordly Wise 3000 is a great site for your auditory learners to learn vocabulary.  It is also a great addition to ESL and ELL classrooms, the written and auditory output is a nice feature.  The site combines auditory, visual, pictures, and hands on games making differentiated instruction for vocabulary easy.  Wordly Wise 3000 can be used individually by students, as a vocabulary reading center, or for whole class instruction with a projector or interactive whiteboard.  Wordly Wise 3000 can help build a vocabulary base for your struggling readers.  This would be a great site to use for learning a new word or two each day as a class.  Studies show that students who have a solid vocabulary base to pull from are better readers.     Tips: I have not seen the actual Wordly Wise 3000 curriculum but based on their web activities, it looks like it may be a good one to check out.   Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Wordly Wise 3000 in your classroom.

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My Story Maker

Posted by admin | Posted in Fun & Games, Interactive book, Interactive Whiteboard, Language Arts, Primary Elementary, Secondary Elementary, web tools, Websites | Posted on 15-06-2009

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What it is:  My Story Maker is an amazing interactive website created for the Carnegie Libraries of Pittsburgh.  My Story Maker is an interactive story book where students are in charge of creating a story.  Students choose characters, and a genre and then begin telling a story.  The students create the story by dragging and dropping characters, objects, and backgrounds into their story.  The characters can have emotions and perform actions with the different objects and interact with each other.  As students drag different elements to the story book, a story is written for them based on what is happening in the pictures.  When they are finished, they have created an interactive book that they can read and share with friends.

How to integrate My Story Maker into the classroom:   My Story Maker is a fantastic interactive tool to get students creating a story.  What I love about this website is the way that it encourages students to create by first thinking about the elements of a story (who will it be about?, what kind of story will it be?, what happens first?, what happens next?).  This is a great tool to use to help students understand the importance of beginning, middle, and end, setting, supporting details, and dialogue.  My Story Maker would be fun to use to create a whole class story using an interactive whiteboard.  Students could take turns adding elements to the story and reading the story aloud.  As students create the class story, be sure to keep them thinking about the setting, plot, and characters.  My Story Maker can also be used individually on classroom computers or in a computer lab setting.  The written story will be very basic “Fox threw a ball to lion.”  Encourage students to embellish their stories with vivid verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.  When students are finished with their story they can download it, share it with others, preview it, or print it. 

 

Tips:  I learned about this site from Kevin Jarrett‘s excellent blog.  Check it out for great tips and inspiration for your classroom!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using My Story Maker in your classroom.

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