This week, I have been reinforcing to my Grade Two students the importance of correctly using full stops and capital letters to form sentences. I have found that primary students of all age groups tend to need constant reinforcement of these concepts. My students defined a sentence as “a piece of writing that makes sense […]
Literacy
Two Reading Sites for Younger Students
I recently came across two sites that would be useful in the lower primary classrooms for reading lessons. SIGNED STORIES This British site contains a collection of free animated stories. Each story is read, signed and also has the words down the bottom of the page for students to follow along. There are hundreds of […]
Kubbu: Make Education Games
I recently came across the site Kubbu. This is a site where teachers can make games and online activities for students. The activities can be made available to individual students or groups of students and the teacher can view and analyse results. Kubbu is free for teachers although is limited to using with 30 students […]
Speechable
Speechable is a cool website I found out about from David Kapuler’s blog. It is simply an easy way to add a speech bubble to an image. You can upload an image from your computer or a URL and photos can be shared with friends via email or on Facebook®, MySpace®, Orkut, blogs, and message […]
Great resources for your IWB by Triptico
Triptico is a UK site that provides eLearning training and support. They also have a fantastic library of classroom tools that can be used on the IWB. I found out about many of these from Kelly Tenkely’s great blog iLearn. I have blogged about Word Magnets in the past. Here are some other great tools […]
Word Magnets
Word magnets is a fantastic website for the Interactive Whiteboard or classroom computers that I read about Nik’s Learning Technology Blog. Word magnets is a tool that allows you to paste in some text and then change the text into word tiles like fridge magnets that you can drag and rearrange. Word magnets would be […]
Fun Spelling Games
GamesGames.com is a site with lots of fun and free games. Some of these games are simply “for fun” but there are some educational games which are very worthwhile for use in the classroom. My Grade Two students are enjoying the Spelling Games. There are 18 spelling games where students have to build and find words in […]
Future Me – Email Yourself
This week, I came across this cool online application called FutureMe where you can send your future self an email. I thought it could have a number of uses in the classroom. It would be interesting for students to send themselves an email that they would receive in one/two/five/ten years time. You can receive your […]
Spelling Sites!
Here are three good sites that students can use to practise their spelling on the IWB, classroom computers or at home. Spelling City – type in your spelling words (or use their lists) and practise the words with fun games like hangman, unscramble, wordfinds, crosswords etc. Ozspeller – Australian online spelling tutor and game with voiced […]
Skwirk – a great resource!
I came across this great site this week and instantly found so many things that I would love to use immediately with my Grade Two class. Skwirk (an abbreviation of School Work) is an “online education portal” designed for use by teachers and students in both primary and secondary schools. Skwirk covers all core subjects […]
Using an iPod Touch
Note – I updated this post with a more comprehensive guide to using an iPod Touch in the classroom in August, 2011. Click here to find it. For the past twelve months I’ve been using an iPod Touch in my classroom. My students love using this form of technology and I am finding it is […]
Behind the News
Behind the News (BTN) is a fantastic Australian site by the ABC that helps students learn about current issues and events around the world. Each week a new episode of BTN is released comprising of about 5 different stories each under 5 minutes long. The stories can be watched individually on their website or on […]
Tutpup!
Here is a site that my Grade Two students love. It is called Tutpup and is a place where students are matched up with other students from around the world to play maths and spelling games in real time. There are several games to choose from, each with multiple levels. The maths games cover addition, subtraction, […]
Writing Ideas!
Here are four free sites that you could use on your IWB in writing sessions…. Magnetic Poetry In this virtual edition of magnetic fridge poetry, students are given a large bank of words which they can drag, arrange, and rearrange to create a poem or story. There are four type of magnetic kits to chose from: Kids […]
Integrating Technology into Guided Reading
Lately I’ve been trying out some ways to integrate technology into my small group Guided Reading session. I’ve been trying these things in the 15 minutes or so we often have spare after reading a book. Most of these involve an IWB although you could use a classroom computer. Here are some ideas…. VOICE RECORDINGS (using a microphone and […]