stories – Page 2 – iLearn Technology

Learn English Kids

January 19, 2010Kelly Tenkely6 Comments4102 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.

NASA Space Place

January 14, 2010January 14, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3258 views

What it is: NASA has hundreds of excellent educational resources online. NASA Space Place is another awesome site for elementary kids to explore science and space. The Space Place has fun online games, animations, projects, and fun facts about Earth, space and technology. Space Place Live is an animated talk show where all the guests are real scientists and engineers who work on space and Earth missions. Students can find out what it is like to work for NASA, how the scientist or engineer got started, and what they like to do for fun. There are currently 7 episodes that students can enjoy topics include: solar wind, satellites, weather, space missions, telescopes, engineering, the birth of stars, Mars, robots, and black holes. Even though the show is animated, the experts involved are the actual experts. NASA Space Place has a variety of on and offline games with everything from scrambled pictures, to world puzzles, crazy quizzes and board games. Students can learn more about weather, space, satellites, the environment, (and much more) through game play. There are a variety of projects and experiments on the site with step by step directions for students. These are great for the classroom, science fair, or at home on a rainy day. Space Place makes finding games, animations, and projects related to your curriculum easy arranging the site by subjects. Use Space Place when you are learning about planets and the solar system, stars, galaxies, and black holes, laws of the universe (light, motion, gravity), the Earth, and space technology. Space Place has several storybooks that can be viewed on or offline.

How to integrate NASA Space Place into the classroom: Because of the wealth of resources on this site, there are a variety of ways to use it in your classroom. The animations are a neat way to bring expert scientists and engineers into your classroom. Share an animated video a week as your students explore the solar system and universe. The games reinforce learning, use them as a center activity on the classroom computers as they relate to your curriculum. Many of the games encourage exploration and trial and error (these are my favorite kind of learning games for students). Students can explore the Amazing Facts section of the site and then complete the trivia game to test out their understanding. In the project section, you will find experiments and science crafts. Choose some of these to complete as a class or assign each student a different project to test and share with the class. Projects would also make an excellent stop during science fair time. Use the Space Place Storybooks as animated flipbooks online as a class with a projector/interactive whiteboard, or print them out for your classroom library. The books could be used as an online reading center on your classroom computers as well. These stories are sure to capture your students imagination!

Tips: Be sure to check out the educator page on NASA Space Place, it is packed full of good ideas, newsletters, printable images of space for bulletin boards, space related articles, math related articles, printable posters, and podcasts to download. With the renewed push for STEM education, there has never been a better time to include sites like NASA Space Place to excite and engage your students.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Nasa Interactive Timeline in your classroom.

Story Cove

October 11, 2009October 11, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2641 views

What it is: Story Cove- A World of Stories is an excellent collection of stories from around the world. The folktales come from a variety of cultures and places sharing timeless lessons and universal values. The stories are shared in two ways, as an audio story only, or as a movie. The stories have been collected from countries around the world including: Africa, Asia, Americas, Australia, and Europe. Students can explore the world through the stories told there. Each story is accompanied by a variety of activities including coloring pages, mazes, printable masks, etc. There is a teacher page where you can find lesson plans for each story that extend the story elements to explore the original story with projects and activities that encourage interaction with other students, parents, and teachers. Each story has a lesson for students in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third grade.

How to integrate Story Cove- A World of Stories into the classroom: Story Cove- A World of Stories is a fun way for students to learn about other cultures and countries through the stories told there. It provides a great tie in between geography, language arts, and social studies. As you are teaching about other countries, use Story Cove as a way for students to understand more about the people who live there. Because the stories have universal values, students will be able to relate them to their own lives. Story Cove can be used with a projector or interactive whiteboard for whole class participation or set up as a story center on classroom computers. These stories are great for building reading strategies like making connections, summarizing, synthesizing, questioning, and evaluating. They are also helpful for language and vocabulary building.

Tips: If you can’t find a place to directly tie in Story Cove in your curriculum, consider introducing a new folktale to students each week of the school year. Use the Story Cove story as a writing prompt for journal writing.

Related Resources: Speakaboos

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

StoryPlace Elementary Library

August 9, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3464 views

What it is: StoryPlace Elementary Library has great printout activities, topsy turvy tales (interactive stories), and a suggested reading list. These interactive stories help making reading fun. The reading list provides students with great off-line reads.

How to integrate StoryPlace Elementary Library into the classroom: Use the StoryPlace Elementary Library topsy turvy tales as a reading center in the classroom. Students can read along with the interactive books. This site is great for struggling and new readers. The offline reading suggestions will help students find books that they will love during a trip to the library.

Tips: There is also a StoryPlace for preschoolers.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Prince’s Rainforest Project for Schools in your classroom.

Awesome Stories

February 11, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3598 views

What it is: Awesome Stories is a neat website that looks to me like it could be the future of text books. Awesome Stories has great primary source materials separated by categories such as biographies, disasters, trials, flicks, history, inspiration, religion and sports. Throughout the text there are hyperlinks to additional content. The links are separated by color so you know that when you see a certain color it will open a primary source image, video, narration, slide shows, artifact, manuscript, document, etc. You can become a member of Awesome Stories for free, when you do you will gain access to additional features like an extensive image data base, narrated stories, lesson plans, and a free newsletter from Awesome Stories. This is essentially an interactive textbook. I love that the site hits different learning styles in its presentation of information.

How to integrate Awesome Stories into the classroom: Awesome Stories would be a great supplement to traditional text books. It makes finding primary source materials easy! With the audio clips, narration, video, and slide shows linked right within the reading material, students are going to get a much richer understanding of a topic or material being studied. I love that struggling readers can have all the text narrated to read along with. Many of the videos, audio, and slide shows would be excellent to share with the whole class using a projector or interactive whiteboard.

Tips: Sign up for free to see the full scope of Awesome Stories, you will be amazed at the amount of content here! The lesson plans to use with the site are wonderful!

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

Literactive

January 16, 2009Kelly Tenkely4 Comments4807 views

What it is: Literactive is an outstanding website for reading material for pre-school, kindergarten, and first grade. The program is made up of leveled guided readers, comprehensive phonics activities, and supplemental reading material that is aimed at developing reading skills in a sequential, motivating manner. To use and view the site is free. To download material you are required to register but registration is also free. The guided readers are fully animated and each comes with a breakdown of every word in the stories. The Road to Reading is an interactive journey for students that moves them sequentially though pre-reading activities, alphabet awareness, letter sounds, short vowels, CVC word blending, initial blends, long vowels, and various phonic activities. There are over one hundred learning activities that can be used for individual or whole class use that can be downloaded for free. Worksheets are available in pdf format that correlate with each reading skill. An ESL version is offered for each guided reader, stories can be translated with the click of a mouse. E-picture books tell traditional tales for early readers and e poetry is a collection of interactive poetry including poems by Rober Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allen Poe, Edward Lear, and more. The Literactive website is packed full with reading activities for primary students that will have them on the road to reading!

How to integrate Literactive into the classroom: Literactive is a complete reading program that should be included in any primary classroom. I am amazed at the comprehensive list of activities, stories, and scope and sequence of this program. Because activities are downloaded, after having downloaded them your computer does not need an Internet connection to use them. Use Literactive as a daily reading center, individually in the computer lab setting, or for whole class instruction and reading. The activities on Literactive are highly motivating and provide an excellent foundation for reading.

Tips: Register for free today and transform your classroom into a reading-rich environment for your beginning readers! Thank you to @annemarie80 who sent a Tweet about this site!

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

Speakaboos

December 12, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4189 views

What it is: Some websites are so impressive that I immediately spam all teachers in my address book with them. Speakaboos is one of these sites for me. I learned about the site from the Free Technology for Teachers blog (I highly recommend it for middle and high school teachers). Speakaboos is a collection of online children stories read by celebrities (although this is not what impresses me). Each story is read aloud with flash illustrations and the words on each page for read-along. The stories are captivating and include popular titles like Arthur and Curious George. This highly engaging website has some other features that make this one of my favorite website finds of the year. When you sign up for a free membership, Speakaboos offers a free story download. The download is a swf (flash) file but can be converted with a site like Zamzar to make it iPod ready (aka mobile learning!). They plan to add more free downloads throughout the year. Parents can also purchase individual stories iTunes style for $0.99. Speakaboos has a feature coming for parents, students, grandparents, teachers, etc. to record their own stories! Speakaboos offers several activities for students including a diary to write in, a place to create their own story, games, ecards, and printable coloring pages from their favorite stories. Speakaboos is in beta version right now so some of the above features are not yet active.

How to integrate Speakaboos into the classroom: Speakaboos stories and activities are a fun and engaging way to develop students reading, writing, and speaking abilities while learning basic computer skills. The Record your own Story feature is a wonderful way for students to practice fluency, it is also a great feature for struggling readers who can listen for mistakes that they make during reading. Older students could make recordings for their younger reading buddies to enjoy. The ability to download select stories for free is amazing for an iPod reading lab. Speakaboos is a great reading or writing center for students to visit in the one or two computer classroom. It would also make a nice whole class read along using a projector. Speakaboos offers free story guides for teachers to help lead discussions on each story. The guides come complete with themes to help reinforce the story message and offer questions to check general comprehension, discussion, and personal extension. There are also printables that you can use with your class in conjunction with the Speakaboos site.

Tips: Membership on Speakaboos is free and provides access to the free downloads.

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

Bookcasting

April 10, 2008Kelly Tenkely1 Comment5136 views

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What it is: Bookcasting is actually a term I made up. It is essentially a podcast about a book. My third grade students just finished their first round of Bookcast recordings that we uploaded to a Wetpaint Wiki. A Bookcast is a movie trailer-like review of a book that students create and share with one another. My students used GarageBand to record their podcasts (you could also use a free tool like Audacity) and add sound effects, then they published the Bookcast on our class G-cast account, and finally embedded the media player onto our WetPaint wiki.

How to integrate Bookcasting into your curriculum: Bookcasting is a fun alternative to the standard book report. It allows kids to be creative and gives them a great sense of audience. Bookcasting also has the added benefit of acting as a book review for other students to listen to. Bookcasting makes story retell a lot of fun! My plan is to have a link to our WetPaint wiki in the library so that students can listen to a peer review of a book before they check it out.

Tips: I had all of my students create a Bookcast on the same book before reviewing on their own. This gave them an easy starting place but still provided room for creativity. Click on the Easy Reader link on our wiki to hear the Bookcasts the students created.

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

Book Flix

April 3, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1947 views

What it is: Book Flix is a new offering by Scholastic that instills students with a love of reading and learning with paired fiction and nonfiction online. Book Flix is a subscription based service that is delivered over the Internet for teachers, librarians and parents. Right now you can try Book Flix in your classroom for free with a trial. The basic trial offers one pair of books about rain but a full free 30 day trial of all 80 Book Flix offerings is also available for schools. Book Flix offers a neat experience pairing fiction and nonfiction books. Students can watch and listen to the books read to them, read them independently, meet the author, play accompanying games, and view related kid friendly web links. There are quality lesson plans for teachers for each Book Flix. Check out the freebies and see how Book Flix might benefit your class, if you never order Book Flix the freebie is worth using!

How to integrate Book Flix into your curriculum: Use Book Flix that match up with your current curriculum, the fiction and nonfiction books and websites will greatly enhance what you already have in place. The quality of interactive books really is impressive and will give students a greater appreciation of both fiction and nonfiction literature.

Tips: Try out the basic Book Flix freebie first with the topic of rain, if you like the concept you can sign up for the free 30 day full trial with access to all 80 Book Flix. The freebie should carry you through the end of the school year (or pretty close). Test it out on your students and see how they like it 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Book Flix in your classroom.

Tumble Books

February 26, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2559 views

What it is: Tumble Books is an incredible site that reads popular stories with kids in an interactive book. The Tumble Books site also has fun quizzes, puzzles, and games that correlate with the different books. Students can have the story read to them, read it on their own, and have individual words sounded out for them. When students are finished with the story they can take a quiz on the book to check for comprehension or write a book review.

How to integrate Tumble Books into the classroom: Tumble Books is wonderful for emergent readers, remedial reading students, and independent readers. Because the level of support is adjustable, the same Tumble Book can be used in your classroom with every student regardless of reading level. Set up a reading center in the one computer classroom or each student can work at their level in a computer lab setting. These interactive books are popular with students and increase student phonics, reading comprehension, and reading strategies. Encourage students to read with Tumble Books at home as well…a great way to extend the learning day! Students can take a quiz on the book when they are finished or write a book review for other students to read. Everything about this site is amazing! Instead of popping in a video on those indoor recess days, use a projector and have the kids read along with a Tumble Book. Split the class into teams to play the games, they can take turns coming to the computer during their turn.

Tips: I have linked to Tumble Books through the Toronto Library. Schools and libraries can subscribe to Tumble Books for a very reasonable yearly subscription. Tumble Books also has a free 30 day trial that you can sign up for before committing to a subscription.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Tumble Books in your classroom.