General
103 THINGS TO DO BEFORE, DURING, & AFTER READING:
Draw a map that reflects the setting of the book, create a billboard ad, try a "What If..." exercise, hold a read-aloud-read-athon, create a scene diorama... These ideas will really generate student enthusiasm and jazz up your reading responses. (4-12) Reading Quest – Reading Strategies for Social Studies Strategies for Reading Comprehension. Introduce strategies such as concept mapping and/or comparison charts early to your primary readers. You'll find both instructions and printable charts for a wide variety of reading strategies at this site. Internet 4 Classrooms -Language Arts Skill Builders Sites –by grades
Roy the Zebra Word Games – grades K & 1 – Alphabetical order, singular or plural, high frequency words, double consonants, phonemes, words that rhyme, tricky words - find games to practice all of these skills with the vast database of online games supplied here.
You can choose your background scene, add people, put in the text bubbles, add props... and when you're finished you just print it out. Students can use this Comic Strip Creator to animate a character or scene from the novel they're reading - a very creative way to incorporate creative reading responses.
Create Cartoons of “Charlotte’s Web” – Here is an excellent resource for delving into E.B. White's "Charlotte's Web," where students will analyze vocabulary, write a script, and create comic strips to incorporate different story elements such as setting, characters, and plot. Flashlight Readers - Scholastic You can download 4 to a page or copy and paste one on a page, enlarge it and use it as a full sheet of paper. Shape Book Patterns with and without lines
Graphic Organizers - Grades K -5
Handwriting Worksheets for Kindergarten – create your own worksheets for the kids to use for practice
Each letter printed many times on its own page. For our young ones to practice printing. Worldwide School - This site has many complete books – classics - online. For upper grades
Allows the kids to create a newspaper article that looks like it came from a newspaper Vocabulary quiz – for each answer you get right they donate 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program Create a Flip Book on the Computer Study Zone - Grammar, reading, and vocabulary are covered here with both lessons and interactive exercises, introducing students to the topics and then reinforcing the concepts with practice skills. Upper Grades Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling – U of Houston High Frequency Words – K – 1 - activity has them drag and drop the appropriate words in the sentences Sadlier-Oxford 2 Bee or NottooBee - How are your students handling their present and past tenses of verbs? Give them some extra practice with this fun online game. They will choose a character and proceed through numerous sentences, playing through two levels. ICT Games – Maths and Literacy and demonstration activities Game Classroom – games in math and Language Arts by grade (K-6); also some review questions and multiple answers
Literature/Reading
CyberGuides: Grades K-3 Tumble Books – Stories read to you online Hear-a-Story, Read-a-Story – Kidspace, Toronto Public Library Actors read excepts from popular stories with the words below. 2nd to 5th grades This site has music sound effects and cute drawings. It has some ideas about poetry and has some kids interactive activities. Many more downloadable books – short – about 8 to 10 pages. You need to register but it is free and then you can download any books you want. From the Reading A-Z company. Full-Text Ebooks – famous authors
Scholastic – Teacher Book Wizard – Quick book search by author or title. Customize by reading and interest level, subject, genre, and more. Online Storybooks – many read the stories to the children – mostly younger grades but some older School – Home Links Reading Kit - Kindergarten School – Home Links Reading Kit – First Grade School – Home Links Reading Kit – Second Grade School – Home Links Reading Kit – Third Grade Book Talks – listings of appropriate books under title, subject, author, interest level, etc. International Children’s Digital Library Here you will find the texts of over 250 children's books from all over the world. Some are in English and the rest in a wide variety of languages from Spanish to Chinese. There are also bilingual — English plus another language — texts. Users can search the texts, which range from early primary to middle school grades, by category, title, author or place in the world. This great website allows you to download stories and poems from more than 100 authors onto your computer or MP3. There is also the capability to read along as you listen. The literature is grouped by title, author, reading level. Selections span a wide range of literature ranging from nursery rhymes to the philosophy of Aristotle. Teachers can download graphic organizers that go with many of the stories. Highlights Stories for 1st and 2nd Graders – stories are read to kids Highlights Stories for 3rd and 4th graders Classic Reader beats any book closet, as it offers over 3000 unabridged texts of works in the public domain. These texts are primarily from the 19th and early 20th century, but some are older, including many of Shakespeare's works. Many authors' works are accompanied by brief biographies and/or pictures. Search by author or title. After the free registration, you may download the texts. Tweenies – Good for K & 1 - Stories, songs etc.
Ziggity Zoom – picture books read to the child – preschool – 1st grade
Roly Mo Stories Good for K & 1 Jackanory Stories Good for 2nd and 3rd Here's a handy dandy little online tool for finding books in libraries near you (or CDs, DVDs, etc.). Inkless Tales – child can read by himself or have it read to him Graphic Organizers for Reading Comprehension (Scholastic) Books Should Be Free.com - Your source for free audio books. Download one in mp3, iPod and iTunes format. Character Scrapbook - Try this interactive game for a new reading response activity, where students will analyze characters by creating scrapbook pages for them. Along with designing their character's profile, students will be guided along with questions, such as "10 things you know about this character." from Scholastic Book Units – Find loads of titles here appropriate for the upper elementary classroom (& early elementary reading levels as well). Each title is accompanied by online or printable questions, vocabulary quizzes, related lesson plans and further resources. Tennessee Interactives Spelling Bee - Contestants in grades 1-8 will listen to three stories, one at a time, and then spell words from each story. They can click on the missing word and have it read to them again and find the definition.
Fairy/Folk Tale Websites Myths Folktales and Fairy Tales – Scholastic- Many short stories, myths etc. that you can use with your classes Andersen Fairy Tales – Stories of Hans Christian Andersen that child can read or have read to them middle grades elementary Writing Fun - Good writing examples and organization – might be good for SmartBoard Lessons – grades 3-5
Main Idea gr 3
Prep Writing Practice - 3rd Grade - U of Illinois Grammar and Reading – University of Victoria – 3rd Grade Grammar Blast – quizzes by grades (2nd – 5th) and you can choose the grammar topic you want to cover (Eduplace) Sequence of Events – 2nd and 3rd Grade - Beacon Learning Center You'll find numerous pages here to download for writing exercises, with an illustrated top banner to inspire story ideas, along with a brief writing prompt. The children choose the characters, their actions and names. Seems best for grades 1-3 although the upper grades might have fun with it too. Grammar Park – games to practice parts of speech, sentence structure – 3-5 Go for the Grammar Gold – grammar explanations followed by interactive quizzes - gr 1-5
Common spelling rules - the ones every upper elementary student should know - are explained here in a chart-like format, followed by practice exercises and applicable word lists. Commonly misspelled words are also included List of Homonyms – don’t know if you need it but there are 254 sets of homonyms listed or so they say… With this machine, students will have to correct misspelled words and fix the operation of the spelling machine
Spelling Activities – all grades addressed
They have some great spelling and grammar activities for the kids and printouts. Only one problem – since it is British, some activities are not American English. They also have math activities. I would say 2nd grade and up. The kids choose the grade. They have a few sentences read to them with words missing. They have to then go back and correctly spell the missing words. The computer will give a score and list the wrong words and give the correct spelling. Picture Match – you choose short vowels, long vowels, beginning letter sounds and then put the pictures in the right boxes List of Transition Words you can print up for each student
The Electric Company: Word Transformer - grades K – 5 –various activities with words and sounds Here's a fun game where students can learn and practice the meaning of common -- and some not so common -- idioms. Vocabulary.com – vocabulary games and puzzles – upper grades I Know That - many grammar "games" by gradePoetry
For Poetry Month – 42 Explore - many websites with poetry, lesson plans, etc. Poetry Everywhere – animated poems |
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