Elementary Technology

Words allow us to have language. Language allows us to communicate. This website lets us know how important it is for us to use words. You must take a look at this site. It will astound you with it’s visual appeal. You can adopt words, sign up to receive a word of the day or simply explore the meaning of new words. How about asking your students to adopt a new word each week or assign an adoption as a homework assignment. There are many ways this site can be used to help extend a student’s vocabulary. Take a look at Save the Words!

Remember those little magnets you could play with on the refrigerator?  You could make words with individual letters? Or when you got a little older, you could string words together into phrases or even sentences? Well now you can do the same think, only online of course. Magnetic Poetry gives you a choice of 4 different kits of magnetic words on your own virtual refrigerator. Each kit is based on a different theme such as First Words, Storymaker and Best Friends. All you have to do is drag the words you choose over to the front of the refrigerator and create. This has endless possibilities in the classroom especially if you use this on the SMART Board. Imagine giving your class tasks at the refrigerator that can be differentiated for each student. You could ask one student to create a sentence using an action word. Or another student might be asked to create a sentence using spelling words.  And of course you can change the tasks with the different themes too.

March 2nd is Read Across America Day. The National Education Association has sponsored this event for the past 12 years. The focus of the event is to motivate children to read, in addition to helping them master basic skills. The NEA’s website has a dedicated section to this event with many resources and materials to help you celebrate this day. One resource is 4 free digital books from Dr. Seuss at Kidthing.  And don’t forget to visit Dr. Seuss’ fun filled website  Seussville for ideas too.