Thanksgiving

apples4teacher.com

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and though I thought I would have great activities planned to teach this already, this website proved me wrong. This website has many useful resources which allow a teacher to go above and beyond when teaching a lesson on Thanksgiving.

This website has much strength as it is geared toward all types of learning styles. The crafts and printable activities are more hands-on, while the readings can be more of an auditory style as they read the text aloud. The website informs the viewers what Thanksgiving is all about, and when it is celebrated each year. Also, this website provides tons of activities which the students and teacher would both enjoy. It also leaves room for higher order thinking; the website shows pictures of two different turkeys, and asks the viewer to find the differences between each turkey. On the other hand, this website has some limitations which could be improved. The website would be more useful if it had some more visuals on the website. This would definitely be more useful to EELs. For example, the website could have some videos and games. These interactive activities would be helpful to the students learning.

The resources provided would be great to use in the classroom and at home. One activity mentioned on the website is the “Thankful Paper Chain” activity. In this activity, the students make a regular paper chain, however they write something they are thankful for on each piece of the chain. This paper chain could be a decoration for the Thanksgiving party in the classroom. Also, another activity mentioned is the Thanksgiving tree. In this activity, the children make hand cut-outs, write something or someone they are thankful for, and then place it as a leaf on the big class tree. If the class had a Thanksgiving party, the students could cook some of the foods listed on the website at home. The class could have a potluck party. Also, the students could read the story listed on the website with their family at home.

Evaluated by: Shaheen Lakhani

holidays.kaboose.com

The Thanksgiving holidays are times for us to reflect and be thankful for the food nature has provided us with. This website is for kids in grades K-6, and it is also very beneficial for the teacher. This website enables kids to explore the history of Thanksgiving, and it also has many games available. However, I don’t think I would use these games in class because they are kind of difficult to get to. With this website, I would put the history section up on the projector and read it out loud using the popcorn method with my students. Then I would have the kids write a summary of what they believe Thanksgiving is and draw a picture, if appropriate for their age level. Obviously if they are younger I might have them draw a picture of the Pilgrims and Indians feasting and tell me what they drew. I like that this website has a list of books teachers can purchase depending on the children’s age level. This makes the teacher’s task really easy if he/she were looking to find an appropriate level book. However, I feel like there are many limitations to this website. The first thing that really bothered me was this annoying ad that pops up every time you click on the page or go into another part of the site. Because of this, I would not have the kids searching the site on their own. The site is also not very appealing to the eye. I don’t think children would really want to read the information, which is why I would choose to do an interactive activity. I think that this website would be good for ELL’s if the activity is interactive because it helps the kids to have a thorough understanding of the reading material before they try and do the lesson part. Overall, I think that this website is okay, but I am sure there are better ones out there.

Evaluated by: Tori Lackey

scholastic.com

This website is an amazing resource for teachers who are working on a Thanksgiving unit and moves beyond the pilgrim and Indians that is typical of most Thanksgiving units. From the main page the teacher is able to direct students to different navigation tabs, including a home tab, voyage of the mayflower, daily life and a teacher resource tab. This website is best for older elementary students, probably grades 3-5.

One thing that is very impressive about this website is that it uses many different modes to display information. Each text also has a speaker, so that the student can listen to the text if they are not able to read or are not proficient in reading. Hearing the information orally might help the student to better process the academic content of the lesson rather than focusing on the correctly reading the text. This will also help ELL students complete homework assignments because they can listen to the text when looking for information. This website is a great resource for the classroom and for homework assignments because they are follow good principles of effective teaching methods. The website displays the information in a variety of ways, including videos, interactive maps and diagrams and photos.

One of the things this website does that is very interesting is allow the students to take a virtual field trip to historic Plymouth. This is a great way to allow the students to feel more connected with the academic content and help them imagine what life was really like for the Pilgrims. These videos will also help scaffold or provide some background knowledge for students who are not used to the American Thanksgiving traditions.

If I were using this resource in my classroom, I would probably start with the link to the voyage of the mayflower. I think I would take the time to also have the students work on a personal narrative where they researched where their family came from and allow them to explore their own immigrant story. I think this would be a great exercise because it would allow students to explore their family past and would allow recently immigrant students to wire about their personal immigration story. This exercise would help the class realize they have something in common with each other.

Evaluated by: Sarah Roddy

You are the Historian: Investigating the First Thanksgiving

This is a great website for teaching children about the first Thanksgiving. The student becomes a historian and investigates the first Thanksgiving. The website features two children that walk the student through the investigation. One is a descendant of the Wampanoag people and the other is a descendant of an English colonist. They both have a relative in their family that was at the First Thanksgiving Feast in 1621. The children direct the student through six steps to investigate the First Thanksgiving. There is also a glossary and “Visit the Expert” feature the student can go to at any time to help them with words they do not understand or historical references that are unfamiliar to them. These two resources would be helpful for ELLs who may not be familiar with the Thanksgiving celebration. The resources will give them the support they need for vocabulary and background knowledge they do not know.

The first step is determining which information are facts and which are myths about the first Thanksgiving. The next step shows a letter written by Edward Winslow, a Plymouth colonist who was at the feast, describing the first Thanksgiving. It is written in Old English, but the student can click on a magnifying glass that will translate each line into Modern English for him to read. The website will also read the letter to the student. This feature would be helpful for ELLs.

The next two steps teach the student about the Wampanoag people and then the English Colonists. It teaches the student about the importance of knowing the different cultures and their perspective on a historical event. It also points out the Wampanoag people use Oral History passed down through the generations. A teacher could discuss the differences between the two cultures and what they each brought to the Thanksgiving feast.

The next step is “The Path to 1621” which highlights the events leading up to the first Thanksgiving celebration. It asks the student to be a historian and explore how the Wampanoag and the colonists felt about each other in 1621 by listening to several accounts given by colonists and Wampanoag people. The student learns that history should not be told from the historian’s perspective, but from the perspectives of the people who were part of the event.

The final step is to “Share What You’ve Discovered”. It shows the students different ways that historians share what they have discovered through books, movies, exhibits and demonstrations. It then directs the students to make a presentation of what they have discovered about the First Thanksgiving through their investigation. There are options for the presentations so ELLs can choose the option that they feel most comfortable with.

There is a teacher guide on the website which gives great ideas for classroom activities. It suggests a previewing activity of making a large chart about Thanksgiving with three columns, “What I Think I Know”, “What I Want to Know”, “What I Have Learned”. The students can work in groups to come up with the first two columns. The class then gets together and adds their ideas to one large class chart. The same thing can be done to fill in the “What I Have Learned” column after they have completed the website activities.

This website brings history alive! It allows the student to feel like they are at the first Thanksgiving celebration. The student explores the facts to draw their own conclusions by viewing the event from both the perspective of the Wampanoag people and the English colonists.

Evaluated by: Angie Jones

everythingesl.net

This website was designed to help teachers prepare lesson plans and receives tips on teaching English Language Learners in a classroom. This website was started by Dr. Debbie Zacarian who also has a book on teaching ELLs. She has many lessons for different topics that would help aide an ELL in content-based learning.

The website breaks the lesson plan down to the main points like what the lesson topic is, the proficiency/grade level, the content concepts and skills, the vocabulary needed, and the instructional sequence for different level of ESL students. Although there are different instructional sequences for the two levels, they both start off with reading a book with pictures of the pilgrims and the mayflower. The website even gives suggestions on which book you should read to help with the lesson. The website gives an arts and craft activity that can go along with the Thanksgiving lesson about the Mayflower. For older students and students that are more advanced in English there is a downloadable mini booklet where students can fill in blank spaces about the Mayflower as they are learning the information. There are many different downloadable links to different crafts ideas.

I think this website is very helpful in general not just for the topic of Thanksgiving, but for various topics as well. The website is really helpful in which is not only gives you the instructional sequence for grades 1-4 beginners, but also for advanced ESL students. There are instructions for differentiating instruction for different students, which is highly probable in a general education classroom. I also caught onto the fact that many of the activities in the lesson plan dealt with arts and crafts which is helpful to ELLs. English Language Learners seem to learn best with working with pictures and images along with the content. I think this lesson plan illustrates principles of good teaching because it is pertaining to all students as it gives different ideas you can do for ELLs. The content that is being learned is the same, just the way it is being taught differs.

Evaluated by: Diana Chong

Butterfly Life Cycle Links

KLRU.org

This website is based off the local PBS television station and provides many different resources for children’s activities. The main website in general has many activities and topics that they describe. There is even a kid’s tab with informational videos.

There is a specific section of the website dedicated to butterflies and their life cycles. The first pdf file is a basic overview of how a teacher should conduct the whole lesson on the butterfly life cycle. There is a very important topic that this website covers and that is the participation of parents. There is a sample letter that should be sent home to allow parents to know what their child will be learning and doing. There are a total of 6 lessons that the teacher will have to cover and each lesson has more detail on directions in other pdf files. Each lesson covers a specific topic along with a hands-on activity to help assist learning the content needed. Each lesson plan is very organized in describing what the objectives are, the materials needed, as well as the dialogue the teacher can use. There are worksheets attached at the end that students can work on while learning the lesson.

I think this is a very good website that is content based on the butterfly life cycle. Content is clearly covered because the activities are teaching the content and the worksheets are reviewing the content that had been learned. There is a vocabulary sheet that provides definitions of some important terms dealing with the butterfly life cycle. There are some possible areas of limitation especially for the teacher because the lessons are so set that the teacher may feel like they don’t play a major role in teaching the children. The teacher should be able to freely customize the given lesson plans to fit their classroom.

Evaluated by: Diana Chong

Butterfly Webquest

This website is a guided project for 1^st graders to learn about the butterfly life cycle. It was created by a 1^st grade teacher in Massachusetts. It is designed so that the students use the website to guide them through several activities which teach them about the butterfly life cycle. The website provides explicit directions to the students. It starts with an introduction which tells the students the 4 stages of the butterfly life cycle that they will be learning about. Next it informs the students of the tasks that they will complete during the project. Then the process is described in detail that the students will follow while working on the project. The process specifies that the teacher will assign partners for the students to work in pairs on the project.

Task one directs the students to click on links to different websites where they will read about and see photographs of the 4 stages of the butterfly life cycle. The website provides questions for the students to discuss with their partner when they visit each link. The final website they visit has a sheet illustrating the butterfly life cycle which they print out and color individually.

Task two consists of four art projects, each one representing a stage of the life cycle. The student is required to read the directions from the website and each complete their own art projects.

In task three the partners are to discuss what they have learned. There are questions to guide their discussion. After their discussion, each student writes four things that he has learned.

The website also provides an evaluation for the students to view, that shows the specific objectives that they will be evaluated on. In addition, there are books listed that are available for the students to read with the reading grade level included. There are also additional websites that the students can visit to learn more about the butterfly life cycle.

I think this website is a great resource for teachers and students to learn about the butterfly life cycle. It provides a complete lesson plan with clear objectives, explicit directions, multiple resources for learning the material, several different ways for the students to demonstrate their understanding of the material, and criteria to evaluate student performance.

The teacher can use large group instruction to begin the project by asking children to share with the class things that they already know about butterflies and their life cycle. The teacher can then read a book to the class about the life cycle. Next the teacher can assign partners and explain the process of the project.

One limitation of the project is that few classrooms have enough computers for all of the partners to be on the website at the same time. The teacher would need to set up stations in the classroom with a station for each task. Then the teacher would divide the partners into three groups and they would rotate to each station to complete the tasks.

This website allows the students to work together in small groups and take responsibility for reading the directions and completing each task. It provides the students with the experience of using the internet to learn about the life cycle. It requires them to demonstrate their understanding of the concept through art work, group discussion, and writing. The teacher could conclude the project by directing a class discussion where she asks each group to share their answer to one of the questions that they discussed with their partner.

This project would be successful with ELL’s because it gives them the opportunity to work together with another student and practice communicating in English. The teacher can pair the ELL with a native speaker that can scaffold their discussions as needed. This project also allows ELL’s to demonstrate their understanding of the project through art work, where they can feel successful regardless of their English language proficiency. It also requires them to express their understanding through writing, but they are given support from their partner if they need it.

The teacher could also ask each group to use the evaluation on the website to complete a self-evaluation. Then the teacher could conduct her own evaluation and compare the two evaluations with each group.

By using this website as a resource for teaching the butterfly life cycle, a teacher can provide an experience where the students take co-ownership in learning the subject.

Evaluated by: Angela Jones

Billybear4kids.com

This website allows me to believe that I can become a great teacher if I have sources like this one. It includes various activities a teacher can use in and outside of the classroom to build the students understanding about the life cycle of a butterfly. I have so many ideas from this website, so I hope I get to teach about the life cycle one day in my classroom.

The website has many resources for critical thinking. First off, after teaching you the basic information of the life cycle of a butterfly, it consists of various activities the students can work on to build their knowledge. The website included butterfly flashcards in which you can tell what kind of a butterfly you are observing. This would give the students an idea of the different types of butterflies. Another activity which orders higher level thinking is the section which compares butterflies and moths. The students would really have to use their knowledge to differentiate between the two.

Strength of the website is that it consists of various engaging activities. Many of the activities relate to the students life; like the butterfly themed birthday. This way, they would be more engaged in learning about the life cycle since it is relating to them and they are having fun with the topic. However, although the website has much strength, it could improve. The website would be better if it had a video to show the life cycle of a butterfly. This way, the students could better visualize it to understand it better.

The resources on this website could be used both in class, and for homework. One creative way to use it in class would be to have a butterfly themed party with the resources given on the website. For the party, the teacher could set up a few stations consisting of different activities. For example, one station could be set up to read about butterflies. Another could be for worksheets, crosswords, and flashcards, while another station could be to make window butterflies. Of course, all of these resources are found on the website. This activity would use different teaching strategies; hands-on, audio, visual, etc. For homework, the students could do some of the activities at their home computer. They could also use the resource on the website, “butterflies in my garden,” to figure out which flowers they see butterflies on. The previous activity stated is definitely a higher level thinking activity.

The images on the website, plus the activities, would really assist second language learners in learning the life cycle of a butterfly. The website illustrates principles of good teaching and effective methodological practices. It appeals to all of the learning strategies. For example, it consists of pictures, readings, crafts, online games, puzzles, etc. Also, they have activities which are meaningful to the students.

Overall, I believe this website is filled with numerous activities which can be used in various aspects. Students who will learn about the butterfly life cycle will be young, and this website is geared toward young children. If I am to teach about the life cycle of a butterfly, I will definitely use this website. It allows the teacher to become very creative while using the resources as well.

Evaluated by: Shaheen Lakhani

Kidsbutterfly.org

While many teachers may find it difficult to demonstrate the life of a butterfly in a fun and engaging way, this website is an awesome site dedicated to butterflies. This website is specifically for a teacher who is in need of a fun lesson for children grades 3-5. The Home page of this site gives you many options in a Menu bar on the left. These options include pictures of the life cycle, a photograph gallery of all kinds of butterflies, and frequently asked questions and answers about butterflies and moths.

In my opinion, this website is very insightful for new teachers because it gives you all the tools needed to educate your students. However, the best feature of this site is the lesson plan added under the Teaching and Learning Tools section. After clicking on this option in the menu bar you will see a lot of new options appear. If you click on the choice titled The Life Cycle of a Butterfly, you are presented with a great lesson plan that actively engages the students and checks the students comprehension. It begins by listing all the materials you are going to need, and then starts with a description of what you will do in the lesson. First you will read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle to your students. After this you will take out the four laminated pictures of the butterflies life cycle (these are already prepared) and explain the four stages a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly as you show your students the pictures. I really like this activity because it gives the student’s a visual image of what is happening to the caterpillar as it grows. Now to actively engage the students in the learning process you will have them act out the life of a butterfly. To do this you will have them demonstrate each stage with their bodies. For example, in the first stage the caterpillar is an egg, so the students might sit on the floor with their knees tucked in to represent they are an egg. By doing this activity you are able to check every students understanding of the life cycle at the same time. I think this is also great for students who may have ADD or ADHD becomes it gets them physically involved. This activity is also really good for ELL’s because it enables them to demonstrate what they know in a fun way and with low pressure. These students, who may be struggling with oral or written language, will not feel the pressure of the entire class as they do this activity. The children can come up with their own unique way to express what a butterfly looks like in a particular stage. Finally you give the student’s the four pictures of the life cycle and have them color in the pictures, and depending on the age, have them write or copy what happens during the four stages. I really like that this activity is flexible, and it checks to make sure the student’s really understand the concept on an individual level. This activity also enables you to vary the difficulty and engage students of all language levels. Because the pictures are the same as the laminated ones, the children will already be familiar with them and the repetition will help them store the images in their long-term memory.

In conclusion, I found this website to be very useful for helping young kids understand the concept of the life of a butterfly. While there are many upsides to this website there is one limitation. The only negative thing about this website is that it is strictly specific to butterflies. If a teacher wanted to know about other insects he/she would not find help from this website.

Evaluated by: Tori Lackey

Thebutterflysite.com

This website offers a variety of different information and activities relating to the butterfly life cycle for elementary age students, probably 2-5 grade. Under the Life cycle link, the student comes to a web page that is has a general overview of the four stages of the butterfly life cycle. As the student continues to scroll down the page each stage is explained further with bold headings and pictures beside the text to illustrate what the text is explaining. Then during the last two stages, the pupa stage and the adult butterfly stage, the website has time a time lapsed video that shows how the caterpillar forms the chrysalis, as well as how the adult butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. At the bottom of the page there are additional links to coloring pages, information on different species of butterflies, and the migration pattern of the monarch butterfly.

There are several things that this website does that I though would be helpful for ELL students. First the layout of the information follows a very logical progression and is organized in a way that is progressive as the student scrolls down the page, making navigation optimal. I also like how the text and information is supported with living photos, meaning the pictures are of real eggs, caterpillars, chrysalis, and butterfly. I think the real photos make the text more relatable. Also the use of subtitles makes sure the important information is accessible to ELL students that might not understand the vocabulary used in the main text. One feature of the website that I think is extremely valuable to students is the animation of how the butterfly forms the chrysalis. I think the video is helpful because this stage of the lifecycle is very complex, and the video will illustrate what the text is describing. This is the same reason I think the second video is a great tool for ELL students, because it helps show the complex process of the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis.

Although I think this website is a great resource for ELL students learning about the butterfly life cycle, I think there are some aspects where the website falls short. I think this website could be better if key words within each section of the text had been bolded. Such as “Butterfly eggs are usually laid on the leaves of plants…” I am also somewhat disappointed with the links to activities at the bottom of the website. I wish there was some kind of labeling/matching activity rather than just coloring pages. Although I think the activities fall short, the link to the migration website is a great segway into connecting a science concept to geography, seasons, as well as measurements (distance traveled, time elapsed, etc).

If I were using this resource in my classroom I would probably use it as a primary source for information, letting the students work in groups to read the text about each of the four stages, as well as watch the videos that accompany stages three and four. I would then have the students split up into four groups, where the would prepare a poster about the stage, including what the organism looks like, where they are located, what they are doing and how long they are in this stage. I would then have the students put together each poster to form a time line of the life cycle of the butterfly. I would also get a butterfly habitat for the classroom so the students could watch first hand the process they just read about online. I would then probably segway into a geography lesson that would explain the migration pattern of the monarch butterflies, focusing on season, temperature, climate as well as land features, such as rivers, lakes and mountains and how they are shown on maps.

Evaluated by: Sarah Roddy

Phonemic Awareness : Rhyming

The following resources are websites that focus on rhyming. This is an important skill in phonemic awareness that children need to know and understand. These websites are ones that can be used in the classroom by children and websites that can help teachers plan lessons based on rhyming.

1. http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bll/reggie/index.htm

Scholastic is a website that has many resources for teachers, parents, and kids. There are several games and activities under the kids section, like “Reggie Loves to Rhyme.” This game allows children to pick a place (home, store, restaurant, etc.) where they want to rhyme. After choosing a place, the students are then given a word, like dime, and they choose the picture that rhymes with that word. I think this is an excellent resource to be used in the classroom. This website provides pictures of the words for children who are not proficient in reading. I would use this website in class by showing the students the word and picture, and then have them write or draw the rhyming word on a dry erase board or piece of paper. After an allotted amount of time, the students would then show their answer and we would use the website to see if they are correct. They could also think of several words, independently or in groups, that rhyme with the given word. For homework assignments, students could write a rhyming story based on the word. I think this is a great resource for EL classrooms because it provides many opportunities for them to develop language. For instance, it allows them to read, write, speak, and interact with their peers. It also shows them pictures if they are uncertain of what the word is. This helps them connect what they see to what the word says. Scholastic illustrates principles of effective teaching because it provides several opportunities for the children to practice developing their target language.

By D’Anna Siciliano

2. http://www.thevirtualvine.com/nurseryrhymes.html

The website The Virtual Vine is a website that will be very useful for any future teachers when focusing on a lesson on rhyming. As we all know when it comes to teaching young children the concept of rhyming a great tool to do so is using nursery rhymes. It is something that most children grow up with. If they don’t know them it will be easy to catch onto because of the rhyming. On the left side of this website, it lists most all of the popular nursery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, and Little Miss Muffet. Once you click on the actual rhyme then a visual of the poem will come up. This is a great tool to bring up onto the computer for the students to see the poem. The words to the poem are displayed along with a picture that describes the nursery rhyme. Then once you are done with going over rhyme under the poem the website gives you many activities to do with your students. First you can ask the children to point out the rhyming words in the nursery rhymes. Then you can go over other words that rhyme with the words seen in the poems. Also, the website is good for helping teachers use the poem into different activities. For example on the Jack and Jill page, there is an example activity that a student could write what else Jack and Jill could do besides go up a hill. Maybe instead the students could come up with Jack and Jill go pay their bill. This is great way to have students get their mind working and thinking about rhyming words. This website is a good transition into a homework assignment for the students to do at home. The teacher could give them the website and the students could pick out the poem they want to read. Then they could make up their own rhyming poems using similar words from the website. The website will be good for students of all different learning levels. Students are able to see visually the poem, which can help many students. The downfall to this site is that it is a site that will be more useful to a teacher than a student. This site is made to help a teacher with their lessons on rhyming. But overall this website will help students and teachers with the concept of rhyming.

By Stephanie Nguyen

3. http://www.instructorweb.com/lesson/rhymetime.asp

I found a very useful Lesson Plan dealing with rhyming through Instructor Web. “Rhyme Time Lesson Plan” is recommended for grades K-2. The objectives of this plan include reading a rhyming book in which the children will learn to identify, say and write rhyming words by participating in class discussions of the text. Not only will students learn rhyming techniques, but they will also work on the development of phonemic awareness, writing, and reading comprehension. By the end of this these activities, students should be able to successfully identify words that rhyme or have the same ending sound.

Some helpful books for this lesson should include books such as:

§ Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? by Bill Martin Jr.

§ Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.

§ Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

§ One Fish, Two Fish, Three, Four, Five Fish by Dr. Seuss

Using these books as resources, you can create many fun activities for your students. After you have chosen a book, do a read aloud and have the students predict main characters, setting , etc. Then, read the story and have them repeat the repetitive or predictable phrases with you. After this, see if the students can carry on the same process by themselves. Then, reread the book and have them raise their hand when they hear a rhyming pair then write these words on index cards. At the end of the story, mix up the cards and put them back up on the chart. Call students up to match a pair of rhyming words. Have them stand at the front of the room and read their pair with the class. They can then play a variety of games using the words. A game like Memory can be implemented by mixing up the cards and assigning them to students who will then find their rhyming pairs. In the end, you can do a simple closing activity by calling out a word and pointing to individual students that will need to shout out a rhyming pair!

By Alyssa Sacco

4. http://www.sesamestreet.org/

The Sesamestreet website is a wonderful website for children to engage in innovative and educational content. This website helps children prepare and be successful in school. This website is attractive to its audience. There are many activities and games for the children to get involved in that emphasize phonemic awareness.

This website is a wonderful place for children to practice the concept of rhyming. If you go to the main website and click on “games”, and click the link that says “by subject”, you will find the rhyming link. Here there are three different games that involve rhyming.

Teachers can use this resource in their classroom by using it as a bonus lesson, such as when the class has been behaving really well. The teacher can have the students involved in the lesson by having them call out ideas about which words rhyme together and what kind of words rhyme with the words that were not the right answer. The teacher can also use this website as a possible homework assignment. The teacher could have the students go to this website and write down six words that rhymed with each other. The limitation to using a website for a homework assignment is the accessibility of computers to the students outside of class. The teacher could incorporate this activity into small groups and one group at a time, can go up to the computer and learn their six words for the day.

A strength of this website is that it involves simple words that the children already know but then introduces the concept of words that sound alike. During each game, the website gives parents a tip on another rhyming activity they can involve their child in outside of this website. The tips are wonderful because they show kids how many things they can do with. Another very important strength of this website is that it is fun! Kids will engage themselves in activities that they enjoy doing.

By Amy Yarbrough

5. http://www.seussville.com/main.php?section=playground&pgarea=area1

Upon entering Seussville children become immediately encompassed with a website that disguises learning in the fun, animated world of Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss is known for his way with words in children’s books, especially with rhyming. In Seussville, children can explore several games in which rhyming is used to encourage phonemic awareness. Particularly, the “Fox in Socks” Matching Game under the playground link is a great example of how children can discover through rhyming. The idea of the game is for children to create rhyming sentences that match the picture. For example, a picture of a fox sitting in a box will appear and the children would have to take each individual word (i.e., fox, box, the, in, socks, knox, etc.) and rearrange them to create a rhyming sentence that describes the picture. Another great tool is the “quote maker” which is also found in the playground section of the website. Each time you click on the link, a rhyming quote from one of Dr. Seuss’ popular books, pops up. This is helpful so that the students can guess certain words that may also rhyme with the quote and even go so far as to create their own quotes. This can be incorporated in homework assignments. For example, students may have to explore the website and click on the quote maker, and then personally add on a sentence or two to the quote that continue the rhyme. This website could also be used in the classroom as a reward for finishing assignments early or earning free time. It is a great way to encourage learning through fun activities and games. One other interesting tool this website offers is the “Seussville Story Maker”, which is also found under the playground section. In this section, students can select a background and characters and then, page by page, create a story. One condition the teacher can implement is that the story must rhyme, much like the rest of Dr. Seuss’ popular books. Overall, this website is a great device for encouraging phonemic awareness in an interesting manner, so that students can learn, while having fun.

By Noura Wakim

Phonemic Awareness & Rhyming

The following resources are to guide teachers, students, and parents in becoming more phonemically aware by using rhyming activities and lessons.

1.

Resource: http://www.edb.utexas.edu/readstrong/rhyming.html

Phonemic awareness means understanding how sounds work and sound within words. Any person who has phonemic awareness can hear the individual sounds in words. It is an auditory skill, and is necessary for reading success. One of the most fundamental phonemic awareness skills is the ability to rhyme. When students learn how to rhyme, they are able make tons of associations and connections between words which then helps them to read.

The website, “Read Strong,” is a tool for parents and teachers to use with their students and children to teach phonemic awareness. Read Strong’s motto is, “Using research to help struggling readers become successful readers” (Read Strong Site). Read Strong’s website incorporates the participation of students, parents, and teachers to work together to help develop student’s phonemic awareness and eventually reading abilities. One specific section of the Read Strong website is their section on, “Rhyming Chants, Jingles and Songs” (Read String Site). The rhyming portion of the website provides fun and interactive lessons involving, “rhyming chants, jingles and songs,” to get students involved and familiarize them with rhyming (Read Strong Site). Yopp explains, “that phonemic awareness instruction for young children should be playful and engaging, interactive and social, and should stimulate curiosity and experimentation with language” (Yopp Article P. 132). Read Strong’s activities and instructions include just that. For example, Read Strong provides rhyming songs that students can use with jump ropes and hand clapping games. Through these activities, students are interacting with one another while they are learning to rhyme. The songs make the activities fun and engaging for the students so they will be encouraged to learn. These activities from Read Strong keep students active and learning. By incorporating songs with hand movements and/or jumping movements students will be able to pick out the rhyming words and understand there are patterns that go along with rhyming words and they will be able to make the connections as well. Students may also be encouraged to come up with their own rhymes and share them with the class. The Read Strong site includes lists of fantastic rhyming books, and other online resources parents and teachers can visit to further engage their students and children in rhyming activities.

Read Strong also provides a section for teachers to include how they themselves use and incorporate rhyming into their curriculum. This is a great way for teachers to communicate and share their ideas. Read Strong also provides a section like this for students themselves to get online and share some of their, “favorite rhymes, riddles, and songs” (Read Strong Site). This is a great way for students to learn new rhymes from other students and then maybe even be able to share rhymes they learn from the Read Strong site with their own classrooms.

One of the most important benefits from the Read Strong site is that it’s material and instruction is totally research based. This way you know the ideas and tips are bound to work most of the time.

Evaluated by Brooke Ellis

2.

Resource: http://www.actionfactor.com/pages/lesson-plans/v0.01-recognizing-rhyme.html

The website opens up with the objectives of the lesson, and then a section as to what the concept of rhyming is, as well as phonetic awareness. It goes on to explain that phonetic awareness is a critical pre-reading skill that students need to require early on. This paragraph is a good section to explain to parents how reading and comprehension builds up with steps, and goes to show how important it is to have children involved in literacy activities at an early age. It gives good examples on how to expose children to rhyming at an early age, all in interactive and fun manners. This article also stresses the fact that rhyming is something that is auditory, not visual. Children learn from repetition and rhythm, which helps kids that can’t read be able to understand how to make a rhyming scheme. This article does a good job on what to expect with rhyming at an early stage and age, in comparison to making vague generalizations on development, that maybe would confuse children if jumping around with different levels of difficulty. A drawback of this article, is that the teacher or whoever it is that is enforcing the lesson, has to have specific materials and items to give the lesson. The mini charts and CD’s needed, are specific on which track to use during the activity as well as which chart. The author gives suggestions on making the lesson more exciting by adding musical instruments.

The article gives very descriptive and thorough procedure on how to administer the activity. Although that would be very beneficial when giving this lesson in a home setting, it provides strict guidelines for teachers. The person giving the lesson has to follow the chart specifically, and is limited to rhyme with what is on the page. In a way, the procedure is too scripted, even telling the teacher/parent what exactly to say, and such a script could make the lesson seem less friendly or caring. I think that if the teacher or parents does an activity like this with pictures and words that are more relatable to the child, that they will understand and be more interested in the concept of finding rhyming words for that picture.

After the procedure there is a follow up section to test the child’s comprehension , as well as an extension section, so that the child is able to build on what they already learned. What I really like about this article, is that it gives suggestions on how to assess if the student understood the activity, but the form of the assessments are low anxiety and more relaxed, offering a more beneficial setting for younger students.

This can illustrate good teaching because all teachers need to be able to interact with their kids in a fun and exciting way. What I am concerned about in this, is that the teacher would need to be able to adapt the lesson, and maybe not follow the procedure word for word. Overall I believe that this is a good idea and activity to be able to branch off of and teach early phonetical awareness with rhyming to children that are younger and not literate. This lesson can be beneficial in the classroom, or even at home in a more lax setting with musical instruments and other household items that the child can make noise and rhythm with.

Evaluated by Jordan Farmer

3.

Generating Rhymes: Developing Phonemic Awareness

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/generating-rhymes-developing-phonemic-121.html

The Read Write Think website discusses the idea of phonemic awareness and a variety of activities that teachers may use in their classrooms to help students develop phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is “the awareness that speech consists of a sequence of sounds” (From Theory to Practice). This type of instruction should be used in early reading level classes in the form of storytelling, word games, rhymes, and riddles. This website specifically discusses how generating rhymes can help students become “aware of word and letter patterns that will help them develop decoding skills” (Overview).

The activities explained in the Instruction Plan category make phonemic awareness instruction playful and engaging for young students. There are four sections to the lesson plan, the first section, Session 1, describes a creative way to introduce the term “rhyming” to your students by using a fun activity that involves matching words that rhyme and singing a song. The second, Session 2, involves two more activities that allow children to practice rhyming. The first activity is a guided instruction and the second activity is an independent instruction. The third session of the lesson plan is for modifications or extensions to the previous activities. The students are given the opportunity to generalize rhyming and use it in different contexts. Lastly, the students have an independent task worksheet, which is an assessment or reflection for the teacher to see how well the students understand the concept of rhyming.

This lesson plan is very organized and goes through a variety of steps that allow the teacher to introduce the concept, model the concept, provide guided and independent practice, and assess the understanding of the concept. Going through each of these steps will further the understanding of rhyming for the children and allow them to comprehend why it is important. A limitation to this lesson plan is that it would take a long time for the students to get through each activity and the activities are somewhat repetitive. If the lesson plan was shortened to only playing one matching game, singing one song, and doing one worksheet on rhyming, the lesson would be more realistic for young children. The continuous change of activities will help keep the children focused, but will also give them enough experience with this new concept.

This lesson plan could be done all at once in a classroom, or some of the activities could be done in the classroom and the worksheet could be assigned as homework. These activities would also work for multiliteracy classrooms because the teacher can use rhyming words that are very general so that all cultures recognize them, or the teacher may decide to do English rhyming words for the English speakers and Spanish rhyming words for the Spanish speakers. Just by changing the words, the teacher could modify the activity for different language learners. This lesson plan as a whole illustrates good teaching because it goes through the steps of explicit instruction, which allows the learner to easily comprehend the concept and to use it in different contexts. Overall, when children learn about rhyming they are increasing their phonemic awareness, which therefore increasing their language and communication skills.

“Generating Rhymes: Developing Phonemic Awareness.” Read Write Think. 2010. Web. 6 April 2010.

Evaluated by Jeana Sorrels

4.

http://www.teach.virginia.edu/go/wil/rimes_and_rhymes.htm#About

The selected website is designed to strengthen young children’s phonological awareness or exposure to sound structure using rhyming. The program offers weekly downloadable units of instructions featuring thirty nursery rhymes presented in the order of frequency that ending sounds, such as “at,” “it,” and “ill,” appears in the text of primary grade reading material. For example, “Jack and Jill” opens week one with emphasis on the sound, “ill,” and the endings, “oke” and “oak,” are introduced in week twenty-eight with “There Was an Owl”. Furthermore, this classroom plan includes four downloadable items; nursery rhyme cards, rhyming picture sets, riddle rhymes, and teacher lesson plans.

Designed by Webbing in Literacy (WIL) foe Headstart programs, the website program seeks to help students identify unfamiliar words and improve reading skills by promoting the recognition of rhyming words. To accomplish this, the website includes weekly lesson plans that progress from introduction of a new nursery rhyme on Monday to actively using the rhyme in acting, singing, chanting, and riddle rhymes by the end of the week. As a result, the method reflects the principles of good teaching in the form interacting and having fun, as well as doing as much repetition and activity as possible to set in motion motor and brain skills to insure retention and learning. In addition, the easy rhythm of the text and simple picture presentation makes the website a strong resource for second language instruction. Also, teachers can change the weekly order of instruction to meet the needs of a diverse class. Despite the strengths of the program, the lesson plans offer some limitations for classrooms composed of students with varied reading and language skills. Specifically, the plans often insert the introduction of new vocabulary at the risk of confusing students that are not proficient in English. For example, with “Jack and Jill,” the teacher is instructed to ask the student to “touch the crown of your head.”

Consequently, as a future teacher, I can use portions of this website as a resource to help students read more easily and efficiently. That is, using the nursery rhyme cards and rhyming picture sets in the order suggested, I can show how words sound similar so that the students can realize that they have the skill to read unfamiliar words that have the same ending. Furthermore, assigning read from the “Seventy-One Other Take Home Rhymes” included in the program, as homework will provide students with the necessary practice to retain information.

Evaluated by Kathleen Armitage

Emergent Writing for Children

Our resources are great for children who are in the beginning stages of writing. They include worksheets, printouts, and activities for the children to do in order to begin the writing process.

1. Kid-Zone
http://www.kidzone.ws/preK_wrksht/dynamic.htm

Teacher can use this website for children who are starting to write. The worksheets on the website start out with simple straight lines and then go into more complex drawing. The purpose of the activities is to develop the student’s control of their small muscles in their hand. Developing these movements will help the children make more precise movements when forming letters and improve hand/eye coordination. The worksheets start with tracing horizontal and vertical line then going on to curve lines. The worksheets begin with the student tracing the line. Towards the end of the worksheet the student has to try and make the line by themselves. After going through the different line worksheets there are pictures that the students can trace and then color. Teachers can coordinate the worksheets to another part of their lesson plan, such as if the students are reading a book about pigs they can trace and color a picture of a pig. Teachers have to make the worksheets fun so the kids are more excited to work on there writing skills. I think kids need to start with small steps as they begin to write. Kids need practice making straight lines and curves because it links to being able to write letters. All letters have either line and/or curves in them. If kids are familiar with making lines and curves then writing letters will come easier to them. This activity can be used in any classroom because all languages have a written form. All students, no matter what language they speak, will have to write in some language.

Evaluated by: Ashley Chumchal

2. Enchanted Learning
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/essay/writing.shtml

The website EnchantedLearning.com is a wonderful tool for parents or teachers to use with children to help them learn how to read and write. Enchanted Learning has tons of easy ways to teach children how to read and write. The goal of the site is to, “produce children's educational web sites which are designed to capture the imagination while maximizing creativity, learning, and enjoyment.” (Enchanted Learning). The lessons the website provides are enjoyable and easy to follow. This website has materials based on themes, languages, grade levels, and many more. The website makes it easy for a parent or teacher to use the lesson plans already provided to help their child or student start the writing process.

The website is great because it provides writing activities for children who are early to fluent writers. The user of the site can use the activities provided to move along in the writing process. Besides printouts, the site has other activities as well to aide in the writing process. It has activities to aide in writing letters, short books, reports, essays and writing prompts. There are many worksheets that could be used for homework or in the classroom as well as at home. They give you examples for topics that interest children and many printouts that would spark a child’s interest in writing.

Although the website has many activities, it does not explain the importance of teaching children how to write. There isn’t any focus on how emergent reading and writing go together and the site is also had to follow. There are many items to click on and it’s easy to get lost within the site. The site also has a fee if you wish to use all the resources within the site not just the sample pages.

Overall, this site is a great resource for activities to use at home or in the classroom to help students learn to write. With activities like this, children are sure to have fun while gaining the skills they need to write.

Evaluated by: Callista Young

3. Read-Write-Think
http://www.readwritethink.org

www.readwritethink.org is a great resource for teachers, students and parents for emergent reading and writing. This website offers new approaches to teaching literacy, opportunities to connect with local literacy leaders, classroom resources, professional development resources and parent and afterschool resources. There are four tabs located at the top of the page, including classroom resources, professional development, about us section and parent and afterschool resources.

The Classroom Resources tab provides lesson plans for grades k-12 including standard lessons, mini lessons, units, recurring lessons, learning objectives for students, and themes. The student interactive link also provides activities by type, theme and learning objectives. There is also a link for calendar activities and printouts of multiple literacy activities.

Strategy Guides
Professional Library
Meetings & EventsOnline
Professional Development

The Professional Development tab provides links for strategy guides, accesses to a professional library, local and national meeting and events, and online professional development that provides web seminars.

The About Us section provides information about IRA, NCTE and Verizon thinkfinity. This section also provides community stories, news and national and state standards; every lesson plan on readewritething.org has been aligned to the IRA/NCTE standards and to each individual state standards.

The parent and afterschool recourses tab provides an activities and projects section, games and tools section, tips and how to section, printouts and podcasts. All organized by Grade level.

The readwritethink.org website has an incredible amount of useful information and resources. It is organize very well and easy to find what you’re looking for. It provides activities and resources for all grade levels. Easy to follow activities for parents, multiple printouts and lesson plans for teachers that are in accordance to the national and state standards. Each lesson or activities also provides examples and information on how this activity will help your students and what exactly they will be learning. It is also associated with the International Reading association (IRA) and National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) so the information provided is valid, trusted and up to date.

Evaluated by: Jennifer Porton

4. Kids’ Space
http://storytrain.kids-space.org/index.html

The Kids’ Space website is very creative and awesome resource for emergent writers. In the website, children are exposed to write stories and submit them which could be posted on the website. It involves participants from different countries, which makes writing more meaningful and fun. The website encourages children to write stories of their own, giving a sense of ownership, self-esteem and motivation. Children post either or both of their writings and drawings, therefore, kids who enjoy arts could have more fun in writing. It is also very interactive because children share their own original stories with others all over the country. Even children who have not acquired a proficient level of writing skills can enjoy writing with a little help of an assistance, which gives a purpose of learning writing. All of the writings from children are protected and monitored carefully by editors from the website.

In Kids’Gallery, there are abstract, animal, fantasy, people, scenery, etc. In each section, there are drawing, and kids get to come up with a story from the picture. The pictures are created by children from all over the world, which is just fascinating. They will more likely to have fun making up a story with the picture that other kids drew, thus, motivating them and giving them a fun reason for learning to write better.

In Story Book section, kids can read what others wrote and also can submit their writing. In one activity, kids write stories using certain pictures. They make the title, name the object and write the story. In another activity, children write a folk tale that they either heard or read. And children can read the stories of folk tales from all over the world.

Evaluated by: Yire Lee

Unique Strategies and Activities to Help Teachers Teach Children Literacy

The Websites our group has provided will help teachers develop methods and strategies to improve their student’s literacy and learning capabilities. These websites include stories, games, and practice work to help children develop their literacy skills for the future.

1) http://www.meddybemps.com/7.33.html

The Website I have chose focuses primarily on helping children in preschool and children up to the age of 8. This website is great for helping children hone their literacy skills by providing a large amount of games that specialize in different aspects of literacy. For example this website provides games in the fields of “writing and reading”, “observation and discussion”, and “language skills.” Though I have only listed three sections that offer games to help children increase their literacy skills, there are many more. What makes this website great is that it provides levels for each game, for example a 4 year old child can do the same game as an 8 year old child, but the content will be slightly different. I really like the structure of this website, it keeps the child thinking differently by offering a wide variety of games to chose from, a child can work on his reading by doing the “riddle” sections or if the child would like to work on their writing, they can just play the “writing and reading” games. Also if games like that don’t appeal to the child they can play puzzles.

This websites looks like if it were to be used by a teacher they could only assign these activities during school. It would not be a good idea to use this website for homework assignments because there is no way to check the child work. When dealing with multiliteracy classrooms, this website is useful to a point. This website offers a “language skills” section where they offer stories that can be translated into 12 different languages. This would help greatly in a multiliteracy classroom because the teacher could tell the child to read it in their 2^nd language first than their 1^st language to grasp the full meaning of the story. The “language skills” section offers a wide variety of stories and this would be very helpful in multiliteracy classrooms. The best way to use this website would be a “classroom fieldtrip” to the computer lab. Most of the learning that will be taking place will be on the computer and alone without the help of others. Scaffolding will still be possible, the teacher should walk around and make sure the child is doing what he or she is supposed to, but there is room for the child to wonder about and just randomly click during the games and end up not really learning. The teacher should make sure he or she knows the levels of each child’s literacy, so they may assign the child what game level to work with. Also the teacher should definitely switch up the games in order to keep the child’s mind thinking and creating new ideas.

By: Michael Dang

2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/index.shtml

I think this is a great website to improve children’s literacy, as well as build confidence, as the activities seem easy enough that they could do them on their own for the most part, with a little guidance on the instructions. It uses a bunch of bright and pastel, fun colors on the homepage, which are more appealing and inviting.

What stood out to me right away was the fact that there are games and activities for all different levels, whether you have a child who is just starting to build their literacy skills, or whether you have one who is a little more advanced. I think this would help a whole lot in a class with both L1 and L2 learners, as there is something for everyone. For example, on the left includes different links of different categories that are available to children. These include, but are not limited to, CVC Words, High Frequency Words, Consonant Clusters, and so on. Clicking on CVC Words, shows a couple different activities, including a “Magic Pencil,” in which you can watch the pencil write a word, and then write it yourself. Another is a little more advanced and you try to make different words with the limited letters they give you, proving to be a little more of a challenge. Another thing I like is that all of this is not online. They also have a “Print and Do” section. This could come in handy, as the teachers could print these and send them home with the children. Or, if a family does not have computer access, they could maybe go to a local library and print the sheets out to take them home to do with their children.

This website focuses on many of the difficult aspects to fully grasping literacy. There is a whole section devoted to words that are frequently used, as well as one focusing on long vowel sounds, such as “coat” and “hide.” Another cool aspect is the gallery of “Silly Sentences” where children and parents can actually submit sentences of their own that they have made up. This could give children a sense of accomplishment as they can build on their skills, and then prove what they have learned later.

I discussed all of the strengths above, so now for a couple weaknesses. There could be more pictures, especially on the home page, to make it seem like a more fun website. I think a more exciting layout would definitely spice it up. Also, once the students have done the exercises, there’s not really any more to do, so maybe an update every once in a while with new, exciting ideas would be a good idea! And finally, some software is necessary, for example, a RealPlayer for the Magic Pencil, which might not be compatible with all computers.

Overall, any kind of practice is good practice when learning and developing literacy skills. But, I think that this website has a fun and cool way of doing things!

“Evaluated by Kayla Acosta”

3) http://www.tickettoread.com

The aforementioned website is a wonderful tool for children to use to increase their vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and increase their overall level of literacy. Although the website is not free, it can be a very effective if purchased through the school or the district.

This website is individualized so that each student has his or her own account. Each user has a home page called a club house. The club house is a place that they can decorate and customize. They may purchase decorative items and other trinkets with tickets they earn. Users earn tickets by reading short passages that range from a paragraph to a page. T.J. Ticket is an animated character who reads all of the instructions aloud and gives clues to the user as he or she navigates the website. He’s TicketToRead’s equivalent of Microsoft Word’s Paperclip. T.J. Ticket shows up after each segment of the lesson to further instruct students.

This website is really effective because it measures the student’s progress by asking comprehension questions, setting a goal for the words read per minute, tracking the student’s words read per minute, and tickets. For every passage the student reads, they get 100 tickets. The website tracks the amount of time the student uses to finish the passage and records it. If the student reads too quickly, the When they read the story aloud into a microphone, they get 50 additional tickets. At the end of each short passage, there is a series of 6 comprehension questions. The questions have an audio button for students who can’t comprehend what the question is asking by reading it. This is especially helpful for second language learnersbecause it reinforces their comprehension with the audio aid. For each question answered correctly, 10 tickets are earned. In order to help readers stay on track, the screen highlights the current line when the student mouses over it.

For students who have trouble with reading and are not reading at the “Target” speed, T.J. Ticket offers a few words of encouragement and asks the reader to follow along as the narrator reads the story to the student. Then, there are flashcards that appear with the three vocabulary words in the passage. On these interactive flashcards, the word is read aloud, a picture of the word is shown, and the definition is read aloud. After a few moments, the narrator uses a sentence with the word, making the word more meaningful to the student. The student is then asked to read the passage along with the narrator which helps the student with fluency, inflection, and tone.

If implemented in a school-wide setting, it would be a great incentive system for children to read. Teachers can keep a list of how many tickets their students have and use that as an incentive for a school wide store full of goods like pencils, school supplies, small toys, and bigger prizes that can be won if students save enough tickets.

By: Karynna Garcia

4) http://www.eduplace.com/kids/

The Austin School District has just adopted Houghton Mifflin as their primary textbook source. This website would be extremely beneficial for students (especially AISD students) because it is a great way for the students to have access to a fun way of learning on the web and it is in sync with what they are reading and learning in school. This website is very interactive and the learning aspect is easily disguised because it is entertaining. The student can choose between many different school subjects, among them spelling and language arts. There are levels that pertain to grades so the activities are appropriate. It’s important, in this era, for children to learn how to access the web because there is so much information they can gain through it. These games are kid friendly and provide an excellent source of information because it comes from the textbook creators.

Students could be required to master certain levels and games at home or even at school and print out their scores. This is a way to check their understanding but also give them a sense of accomplishment. The website has a wide spectrum of learning techniques for all different types of learners. This is especially helpful for visual learners (like me!) Using this website is helpful because students can go at their own pace and bilingual students can find games and activities according to their level and knowledge of English.

I love the idea of this website because it parallels to what is being taught in schools that carry Houghton Mifflin books.

By: Kate Hoffner