Spelling – Page 2 – iLearn Technology

Inside Story Flashcards: The world’s most interesting way to learn words

September 22, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment5288 views

What it is: First of all, how about that for a tagline? “The world’s most interesting way to learn words” is a lofty goal for anyone to reach, but I must say, Inside Story Flashcards is doing a bang up job of it! What makes these vocabulary flashcards so great is the accompanying pictures. They are so appropriate for the words they are describing and offer a great visual to associate with the word. In addition to the well matched picture, students can click on a speaker icon for audio of the word. Students can choose to show or hide the definition. Students can choose words at four different levels: Basic (includes words like seven, comb, typewriter); Easy (includes words like attire, inclined, endorsement); Medium (includes words like prodigy, monochrome, dank) and Hard (includes words like crepuscular, bedizened, atavistic).

The online flashcards are fantastic but there are also free printable flashcards for offline use!

How to integrate Inside Story Flashcards into the classroom: Inside Story Flashcards are a superb addition to any classroom. They are just the ticket for visual learners…petrified will forever more be associated with the kitten picture above in my mind! These flashcards are a fun way to practice vocabulary and learn a new word.

Use the site with the whole class using a projector-connected computer or an interactive whiteboard. Split students into teams to see which team can come up with the most creative sentence using the new vocabulary word. The online flashcards also make a great creative writing prompt. Students can use the newly learned vocabulary in connection with the picture displayed.

Students can practice their vocabulary skills on classroom computers using the “hide definition” feature. Students can quiz themselves and then show the definition to find out if they are correct.

The print flashcards can be used in the low tech or no tech classroom. Print out flashcards to keep in a writing inspiration station. Students can use them to learn new vocabulary or to inspire writing.

Start your day with a new word. This can be the “word of the day”, challenge students to use the word of the day in conversation at some point during the day.

Do you have students who are gearing up for the SATs? Send this link home for some fun practice/learning time.

Tips: At Inside Story Flashcards, you can also purchase sets of flashcards with a theme. I’m liking the cat and dog flashcards. Can Haz vocabulary.

**For those who are wondering, I did write this post on my iPad. It was not wicked hard…just different.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Inside Story Flashcards in your classroom!

Cyberkidz: games for math, literacy, geography, creativity and science

May 23, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3910 views

What it is: Cyberkidz is a great new website packed full of great learning practice games for kids age 4 to 11. The games reinforce skills in a variety of disciplines including math, literacy, geography, creativity and science.

Math– amounts, pattern, scale, number recognition, counting, scale, sums to 10, sums to 20, weights, multiplication, telling time, money, measurement, calendar, volume, percentage, distance, division, mathmix, area

Literacy– letter recognition, alphabetical order, hangman, crosswords, typing, singular and plural words, sayings and quotes, learning Spanish, learning Dutch

Geography– America, state capitals, countries of the world, Asia, Africa, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, South Africa, Ireland, flags

Creative– painting, music, coloring, maze

Science– food for animals, skeletal system, body parts, animals, solar system, mammals, the eye

The games in each category are great for practice and skill building.

How to integrate Cyberkidz into the classroom: Cyberkidz is a fun place for students to work on the knowledge level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The music game is the only creative game that I would truly place in the “create” category of Bloom’s Taxonomy because it gives students free rein to explore music and create a recording. The majority of the games are designed to help students build skills and remember key concepts that are a necessary foundation for other learning. These are a nice alternative to worksheet skill practice. Students will enjoy the game quality of these practice activities. Each activity can be advanced through relatively quickly making them perfect as a center on classroom computers. Students can visit the game as a math, literacy, geography or science “practice” center before advancing to put those newly honed skills to work in a higher order thinking center.

These practice activities could also be completed as a class using an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer. Split students into teams and rotate them up to the whiteboard for a class practice session.

Tips: On each game screen, students can scroll to the bottom for instructions on the game. Most of the games are pretty self-explanatory and kids will figure them out quickly.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Cyberkidz in your classroom!

Learning A-Z Teacher Appreciation week open house

May 2, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2592 views

What it is: Every year, Learning A-Z celebrates Teacher Appreciation week with an open house where teachers can explore all that Learning A-Z has to offer for FREE!! Each day you can access another portion of the Learning A-Z tools. This is one of those sites that I have paid for and used since I started teaching. I love Reading A-Z because it has books that my students can print off and take home with them for every reading and interest level.

All week: Raz-Kids is a student-centric site where kids can practice reading online anytime and anywhere.

May 2, 2011- Reaing A-Z is a fantastic collection of printable and projectable books and resources that spans 27 reading levels.

May 3, 2011- Vocabulary A-Z has 12,000+ words that are organized by categories and give teachers the ability to create customized vocabulary lists.

May 4th, 2011- Science A-Z has science curriculum resources spanning more than 60 units, all are written to three reading levels.

May 5th, 2011- Writing A-Z has many of the resources you need to teach writing in your classroom.

May 6th, 2011- Reading tutors provides more than 400 reading resource packets that can be used for one-on-one tutoring.

How to integrate Learning A-Z into the classroom: If you teach in an elementary classroom, you should take advantage of these resources during the free open house week. Find new resources for your classroom and explore what Learning A-Z has to offer your students. I think you will be impressed by the resources available here!

As a new teacher, I relied heavily on Reading A-Z to help bulk up my classroom library. Students loved being able to color in and take home the Reading A-Z books.

Set up your classroom computers with Raz Kids for the week, students can have fun practicing those reading skills in a fresh new way all week long!

Hunt down your science units and download resources that teach important concepts while being accessible to students of all reading levels.

Tips: Don’t forget to visit and explore each day this week! Everyone who registers for the open house will be eligible to win a free classroom license of Learning A-Z, 5 teachers will be selected each day!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Learning A-Z in your classroom!

Word Girl Definition Competition: Live vocabulary game show!

March 17, 2011March 17, 2011Kelly Tenkely4 Comments4149 views

What it is: Mark your calendars now for the Word Girl Definition Competition on April 27, 2011; this is a live vocabulary event being hosted by Scholastic and is free to participate in! You must register by April 22 to recieve your webcast event kit, participate in the definition competition, and be entered for a chance to win books and Word Girl prizes. The Word Girl Definition Competition is a fun way to engage students with vocabulary words in a fun, interactive context. The competition includes a 30 minute live webcast where students will enrich their vocabulary and have fun. This will also be the kick off to the Scholastic summer challenge to get students excited about books and reading throughout the summer.

The competition is made up of 3 rounds plus a bonus round. The competition will be in game-show format, students will be challenged to work those vocabulary skills as they answer questions pertaining to word usage, definitions, using words in different contexts, and reading comprehension. Your students will play along with the game in real time by submitting answers online during the webcast and may be called out during the event. This event will help your students understand the meaning of words, use context clues for correct word usage, leverage visuals to define words, draw on existing vocabulary knowledge, and present vocabulary words in varied and interesting ways. Fun right?!

How to integrate Word Girl Definition Competition into the classroom: This one is a no brainer, if you teach elementary students this is an event that your class should participate in. Word Girl making vocabulary fun as it is, combine that with a fun LIVE game show format and you have got yourself a winner. This would be a great event to involve your students in and will have them flexing those vocabulary muscles. I love that this competition isn’t just focused on definitions but on helping students learn strategies for decoding words using visualization strategies and context clues…those are skills that can be easily transferred! Sign up your students today to participate in this fun, friendly competition!

Prior to the competition, build up some excitement and squeeze in some extra vocabulary practice by giving your students the opportunity to play on the Word Girl website. This could be done as a center in the classroom or in a one to one environment.

Tips: If you aren’t familiar with the Word Girl website, be sure to check it out here.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Word Girl in your classroom!

Pilot Handwriting: Turn Handwriting into a Font

March 7, 2011Kelly Tenkely7 Comments4703 views

What it is: This is a fun site. Pilot Handwriting let’s students turn their handwriting into a font of their own. The site is easy to use: print the template for students to fill out, take a picture of the completed template with a webcam (scanner and digital camera options also available), click on individual letters to adjust the look, save the handwriting by creating an account, click “let’s write” to use the font. Writing completed on the Pilot Handwriting site can be emailed. Saving the handwriting does require students to create an account. The account has no age limit but asks for an email address. If you are teaching students who don’t have an email address, they can use a @tempinbox.com or @mailinator.com ending so they don’t have to create an email account.

How to integrate Pilot Handwriting into the classroom: I’ll be honest, I am not a big fan of handwriting worksheets- this is due to my own experience with them. I remember feeling like the practice page was endless and in the end didn’t give me a good feel for handwriting (especially in cursive) because I was writing letters individually; how often do you do that in real life? The Pilot Handwriting font creator would be a fun way for students to end those handwriting practice sessions. When they have a letter down, they can write it on the template. The template could be filled out over several weeks as they learn and practice new letters. At the end, they can turn all that practice into their very own computer font…as unique as their fingerprint! The finished font can be used for learning how to write a friendly letter. Students can compose a letter to a teacher, another student, or a parent using their font and send the finished letter via email.

Pilot Handwriting let’s students create multiple fonts within one account. Students could create a font at the beginning of the school year and again at the end of the school year (or in subsequent years) to compare their growth. Handwriting can tell us so much about how students are developing and thinking. This is a great way to record that development digitally.

My students love creating their own font, it makes all writing and practice more fun. I caught a fifth grader typing out her spelling and vocabulary words just so that she could use her font. In that one exercise she was practicing her handwriting, typing, and spelling/vocabulary. Not too shabby 🙂

Tips: This is a neat site for students to share with their families. I have great handwritten notes from my grandmothers, recipes from my mom, and birthday cards from aunts and uncles. There is something about a handwritten note that feels so personal and meaningful, it is capturing a piece of who that person is. Students may want to ask their family members to create a font with their handwriting. I had one student who was creating a family tree for class, he had each member of his family fill out the template and create a font. He then asked them to send an email to him with the information needed for his tree using the font. He cut and paste these onto poster board. It was honestly the coolest family tree I have seen, he had his family get involved and created a keepsake in the process.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Pilot Handwriting in your classroom!

World Spelling Day

March 2, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1727 views

What it is: World Spelling Day is brought to you by the same folks who hold World Math Day. This year (2011) World Spelling Day is taking place on March 3. Don’t wait, sign your kids up now and they can start practicing! World Spelling Day is a world-wide competition between students where they engage in live games of spelling. Each game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play up to 100 games to earn points for their personal tally. Students can play more than 100 games during the event but only 100 count toward the Spellometer. Students who answer the most correct question will appear in the World Spelling Day Hall of Fame. World Spelling Day has 5 levels to play and 20 games at each level. Just like World Math Day school age students (4-18 years old), individual children, and homeschoolers can register and participate. Register as many or as few students as you want (for free!). Even better, if you already registered for World Math Day, your login credentials will work on the World Spelling Day website!

How to integrate World Spelling Day into the classroom: It couldn’t be easier to get your students involved, just sign them up by registering, pass out usernames and passwords and away you go. Students can play in a computer lab setting (they like to try to login at exactly the same time so they can play against each other in games) or on classroom computers in 60 second rotations. The 60 second time limit on games makes it easy to pass all of your students through a World Spelling Day center on classroom computers. In addition, students can take their login information home with them to play at home. World Spelling Day takes place every March, now that you know it is coming, plan to make it an Olympic type event in your classroom. I have been known to hold opening ceremonies in my classroom prior to the event.

Since your students are competing against students from around the world, why not use the competition to practice using a map and identifying countries? Since I had a Promethean board, I did this digitally with a Google Map. Each time a student competed against a country, they would come up to the board and put a “pin” in the map. Don’t have an interactive whiteboard? The paper map and actual pins are just as fun!

Tips: There is a free World Spelling Day app for the iPad, you can get it here.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using World Spelling Day in your classroom!

Mr. Thorne Does Phonics

January 17, 2011Kelly Tenkely4 Comments13725 views

What it is: Mr. Thorne Does Phonics is a website and YouTube channel dedicated to teaching kids phonics through videos. The site has a great tag line, “Where learning to read becomes reading to learn.” The videos are divided up by categories which include:

Introduction to Phonics
Geraldine the Giraffe Videos
Alphabet Letters and Sounds
More Alphabet Letters and Sounds
Consonant Digraphs
Long Vowel Sounds
Consonant Blends
Alternative Sounds
Alternative Spellings
200 High Frequency Words
Grammar

Christopher Thorne hosts all of the phonics videos with occasional guest appearances from his friend Geraldine the Giraffe (who has her own book!). The videos are engaging, help students listen for phoneme segmentation, and give them encouragement to replicate the phoneme sounds themselves. This library of phonics videos is wonderfully comprehensive!

How to integrate Mr. Thorne Does Phonics into the classroom: Mr. Thorne Does Phonics is a fantastic introduction to phonics, phonemes, and decoding words. Students can practice word recognition, pronunciation, and phonics rules with fun videos that can be played, paused, and rewound. The Mr. Thorne Does Phonics site would be a wonderful site to have available for students on classroom computers as a reading center. Students can visit the reading center and pull up the video of the exact phonics skill that they need to practice. Mr. Thorne Does Phonics would also be a wonderful way to introduce your whole class to a new phonics skill by playing the videos for them using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard.

If you have access to a built-in webcam or portable video camera, encourage students to create their own Mr. Thorne inspired phonics videos. These can be shared with other students in the class, parents, and younger grade levels. The videos also make a great record of progress throughout the school year.

Tips: You can also find Mr. Thorne’s phonics videos on YouTube. Can’t access YouTube at school? Download the videos for offline viewing using a tool like Kick YouTube or Keepvid.

Tag Galaxy: Visual Word Relationships

January 4, 2011Kelly Tenkely9 Comments5513 views

What it is: Tag Galaxy is a neat little tool that helps students to explore relationships between words and ideas as well as view pictures related to that word. Type in a word to search and immediately you are transferred to a galaxy with the original word at the center and the associated ideas orbiting around it. When you click on the word in the center, a globe populates with pictures from Flickr that are tagged with that word. Click on one of the orbiting words and tags related to that word start to orbit. Tag Galaxy is a very neat way to view information!

How to integrate Tag Galaxy into the classroom: Tag Galaxy is a brilliant way to visually explore word relationships. Students can use it to type in spelling or vocabulary words and discuss the relationship the related tags have to the original word. Students can click on the original idea to get a visual understanding of the word in the form of a picture globe. The connection with Flickr helps students to visualize words, ideas, and concepts by providing a variety of pictures that match the tag. Tag Galaxy would make for a fun story starter. Students can type in a word tag to get them started, view related words, and then click on the globe of pictures to spark creative writing ideas. Tag Galaxy can be set up on classroom computers as a creative writing centers, or used for whole class inspiration with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard.

Check out science, math, art, or geography vocabulary on Tag Galaxy, the resulting collection of images will help your students attach meaning to those tricky science concepts like my photosynthesis example above.

As a side note, Tag Galaxy also offers a pretty good visual aid for learning about orbit 🙂

Tips: ***Very important*** Whenever you are using tools that pull from other sites to populate, it is important to test out the words prior to using with students. You never know how people will tag an image and the image might not be appropriate for all age groups. When using Tag Galaxy with elementary students, have them suggest words that you test before using with the class. In my classroom, whenever students wanted to do an image search, I had them fill out an “image wish list” first. On the wish list students write down words they would like to search. I would do a quick test of the words and sign off on them. This worked well as there were a lot of similar requests (i.e. animals!) 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Tag Galaxy in your classroom.

Progressive Phonics

September 28, 2010Kelly Tenkely6 Comments5366 views

What it is: Progressive Phonics is a fantastic, free all-in-one reading program that I learned about from @rmbyrne on his blog Free Tech for Teachers (honestly, some days I wonder why I bother with a resource sharing blog…he is amazing!) This site is totally FREE, as in every single download is available for $0, all that is required is registration. Progressive Phonics provides books that can be read on-screen or printed out. Books include alphabet books, beginner phonics, intermediate phonics, advanced phonics, and handwriting. In addition to phonics rules, Progressive Phonics teaches essential sight-words (phonics rule-breakers). Each book includes a PDF version of the book, and accompanying activity sheets such as handwriting worksheets, a word search puzzle, flash cards, and a five-minute memory game. If you have access to iPads or iPod’s for your classroom, these FREE phonics books can be downloaded and put into the iBook bookshelf for reading.

How to integrate Progressive Phonics into your curriculum: Phonics is one of those things that a reading program either excels at, or falls flat with. Using the Treasures reading curriculum, I was always disappointed by the lack of real phonics work and often supplemented with sites like Starfall. Progressive Phonics is another resource that would make a fantastic supplement. If you use a standard reading curriculum, take a look at the Progressive Phonics books and align them with your current curriculum. For example if your current curriculum has students practicing short vowel “a”, find the corresponding phonics rule in Progressive Phonics. Because these books are free to download, they are excellent for printing out and sending home with students for extra reading practice. The accompanying printable games, flashcards, and puzzles will keep your students practicing that skill in and out of the classroom. Books can be printed out and assembled as a traditional book, read on the classroom or lab computers, or transferred onto a mobile device such as the iPad or iPod Touch. This collection of phonics resources is a must see!

Tips: One thing I really appreciate about this site is that each book comes with a page count and an approximate time to print. I remember spending hours printing Starfall books on an old school printer, wondering if I would ever finish. The approximate printing time lets you know what you are in for before you hit print. Each book is offered in two formats, one is a print friendly version that has been designed to use as little ink as possible. So smart!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Progressive Phonics in your classroom!

Save the Words

September 3, 2010September 3, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3266 views

What it is: Save the Words is a site that celebrates words by “saving” words that are becoming forgotten and left behind in the English language. I learned about the site today from @BookChook on her wonderful literacy blog. The site has a simple premise, words are displayed graphically, when your roll your mouse over them they call out to you “pick me”, clicking on a word displays the definition, part of speech, and a contextual example of the word. Signing up on the site allows you to adopt words. I love the mission of this site, on the f.a.q. page they state that “Words are the cornerstone of language. The more words we have, the richer our vocabulary. Words allow us to communicate precisely. Without the right word to describe something, well…we’d be speechless.” So true, words bring so much color to language, it is a shame to use the same words over and over. I am certainly guilty of this in my overuse of words like fantastic, outstanding, wonderful, amazing, great, nice, fun, etc. in blog posts. Surely there are many more appropriate words that describe the tool I am reviewing more precisely, but we become lazy in language and use words that are easy and we don’t have to think about.

How to integrate Save the Words into your curriculum: Save the Words is a site with a beautiful goal, preserving words to keep language rich and powerful. Most of the words on the site are new to me, but I was surprised at how many of them I could make an educated guess about meaning based on what I already know about words. Use Save the Words in your classroom (at any age) to enrich your students vocabulary, help them identify word patterns and meaning clues, and to help them appreciate words. Choose a word to adopt each day as a class using a class account (adopting a word requires an email address). Commit to using the word at some point during the day. My elementary age students loved learning new words, especially words that they found out parents and other teachers didn’t know. They become the experts. In my class, I often had a secret word of the day. I would casually mention what the secret word was at some point in the morning. Throughout the day if I needed my student’s attention I would ask for the secret word, immediately students were silent with their hands raised to give me the word. Save the Words would be the perfect place to draw those secret words from.

Students could also keep a journal or word list of all of the words they have adopted, I could see this being especially popular with the Webkins age group. The words are often difficult, but I don’t think that is any reason to exclude them from the classroom vocabulary!

Today I adopted the word antipelargy: reciprocal or mutual kindness; love and care of children.

Tips: You can sign up for a word of the day delivered directly to your email on Save the Words.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Save the Words in your classroom!