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

http://www.web-pop.com/portal.html

The "Web-Pop Portal" (http://www.web-pop.com/portal.html) website is designed for "web-enhanced reading adventures." The site is great for parents and teachers alike. The website offers great features such as a "book-pop", "link-pop", "parent and teacher pop", "beta book pop", "mail-pop", and "art-pop" links. The "book-pop" link offers parents or teachers online books and stories to assist with enhancing the student's reading abilities. The user also has the ability to purchase books online, hear the author tell their stories, and the chance to email the author's with questions you may have. The "link-pop" link is great for teachers. It allows you yo play and download your favorite songs. This link is also great for children because they have the chance to check out "Barbie", "Theodore Tugboat", "Rugrats", and other children friendly characters that will gain their attention. The other links mentioned above share the same qualities as the aforementioned. They are all designed to assist parents and teachers with enhancing their children's reading ability. Something that stood out about this website was the "Stephen" characters Zibbies and Dunebug. The "Zibbies" feature was an additional website that had games, toys, and other items to help with developing a child's literary skills. "Dune Bug" is a very entertaining online story about life in a zoo. Overall, I would suggest this site to any parent or teacher who wants to help children to read.

James W. Jarvis

Activites and Games

http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/pawpark2/pawpark2.html
This website helps children with many skills such as spelling, vocabulary, and reading. Alphabetizing words is just one of many activities kids can play and learn. By showing them an example the first round shows children what is expected of them when they play this activity. They have a fun background with bright colors and an amusement park which will attract children. The bears are wearing yellow shirts with the word on them along with a picture so it can help children who work better with visuals along with the word underneath it. Then the child must alphabetize the bears from left to right and drag them into a cart that they will drive off in. It has fun graphics and sounds that will grab the child’s attention which is important for children’s games. I like this game because even if a child does not know the word the bear is wearing, when you move your mouse over it will say the word which also helps children with visual impairments. Also, the main website has levels that you can have you child play. It varies from beginner, intermediate, and advanced which is helpful for teachers and parents who have a variety of learning abilities. Because of the levels, I accept the other games even if they are little more advanced. Some of the games could have a better pronunciation person because it is hard understanding some of the words he/she might be saying. Other than that, this website is organized and well structured in dealing with children’s games and what they want to teach. Students will be able to try a variety of games that could teach them spelling, vocabulary, and reading.

By:Courtney Kagan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/
This is a great interactive website for students. It provides reading, writing, and spelling and grammar sections. Inside each of these sections are links for games, reading activities, videos and quizzes that deal with each section. For example, the reading games that a student can play includes things like reading directions to get to a certain in place in so many steps. The child has to read the directions carefully to follow the steps correctly and win the game. These games provide children with fun ways that require them to read. In the read link there is important information about different types of reading, like newspapers, and advertisements, and more. In this tab students are able to read and gain knowledge about different types of literature and where people find readings. In each section there is a quiz link about what that section discussed, which is beneficial to students because they are able to summarize and solidify what they have learned. This website is a great tool for children and students who working on their reading, writing, spelling, and grammar skills, therefore it is a very good site for English language learners. This website provides literacy development activities for English language learners that help to develop their literacy skills. There are links for teachers and schools that have lesson plans and general education information on it.
By :Molly Rice

www.readwritethink.com
Although the requirements for the Word Family Sorts online activity may appear to be simple, this website provides students with both the understanding of rhyming and different vocabulary words as well. In this activity, students must identify "word families" where they are provided four words that have the same main vowel use but are structured differently. When each new word pops up, the student must be able to identify which "family" the word belongs based on its grammatical structure. While students are identifying each word's makeup, they also have the potential to learn new words, considering the activity provides up to 28 words per vowel. Although this activity may appear repetitive, this process promotes students to become accustomed to seeing the grammatical structure of various words and helps them to recognize why these words look and sound the same. In addition, students have the opportunity to practice this activity with each of the five vowels, which means the idea of word families is reiterated even more. I think it is a very helpful way for a student to become familiar with word structure and also potentially to learn new vocabulary. RWT: Word Family Sort
By: Melissa Berger

http://www.literacycenter.net/lessonview_en.php#This is a great site for ESL students to learn and practice their vocabulary, reading, writing, and comprehension skills. There are multiple activities for ESL to do for fun. A great way for students to practice reading skills is by clicking on the "Colors" tab and clicking on a color, and the name of that color pops up. This is an effective exercise because it is providing a picture to go along with the word so the student can apply the English name of the color and compare it to the their own language's name of that color; thus, they are learning that word with more effective instruction. To practice their writing skills, the "Writing" tab is effective for ESL. It teaches students how to write uppercase and lowercase letters of the English alphabet. For early English learners, there is a tab for "Uppercase letters" and "Lowercase letters" to look at the letter "A" or "a" to get familiar with it and remember their names, and there is a "Uppercase/lowercase" tab to compare and contrast the letters to show the difference. Using pictures, as stated above is affected for ESL students because it shows them the difference, and also helps with their comprehension skills in English. The "Words" tab is one of my favorite tabs for ESL students. First, it shows all the vowels of the alphabet, and the students are free to click on the words. Then, it has pictures of crayons, and the student can click on the color, then they must spell it out the English name of the color to work on their vocabulary, spelling, and comprehension skills. The "Word" tab exercises are designed to help students read words. Instead of teaching students that "o is for orange", the site shows students an "orange" or "cat." An exercise teachers can try is saying to the ESL student(s) “o-r-a-n-g-e spells orange”. This will help the teacher to later replace the first language word with a second language word for the same object. Also, teach the names of the numbers and then names of the colors so you are using the chunking technique, which in turn can give students confidence, a sense of achievement and help build self esteem. Then, celebrate when your child can read all the number words or all the color words. is also a "Shapes" tab to introduce ESL students to different shapes, encouraging recognition and comprehension. The site also familiarizes the students with numbers. Overall, this is a great site for ELLs and is strongly recommended for educator to refer to families and incorporate into their
By: Morgan Smith

Grammar and Writing

These sights are designed to help children with their grammar and writing skills.

Clean Up Your Grammar: http://www.missmaggie.org/scholastic/cleanup_eng_launcher.html

“Clean up Your Grammar” is an online game from the site “Maggie’s Earth Adventures, LPC.” The mission of this website is to help children learn about real life environmental problems. They state that “learners respond best to integrated material presented in meaningful situations.” With this particular game, “Clean up Your Grammar,” students “recycle the trash that washes up on the shore by dropping the words in the right bin.” If the children make any mistakes the beach becomes dirty with litter.

The goal of the game is to recycle 10 pieces of trash. Each piece of trash has a word on it that’s either a noun or a verb. The children have to click on the words and drag them into their correct recycle bin. The recycle bins are labeled “Nouns” and “Verbs.” The game has a lot of sound effects and there are two different levels to choose from. If a child makes a mistake and puts a word in the wrong recycle bin, the game makes a noise and puts a big ‘X’ and the word ‘incorrect.’ The trash that the word was attached to then gets thrown on the beach.

Some of the strengths of this game are that it’s enjoyable to do and provides children with some information on the environment. It also teaches them an important difference between verbs and nouns. However, this game would be restricted to a very limited age group and some very specific words are continually recycled within the game. It would not be long before children master both levels and are ready to move on to something else.

I also think this would be a good game to use when teaching the specific concepts of verbs and nouns and I would probably use it in my classroom as a fun way to solidify those ideas. But children would definitely need some background information on what verbs and nouns are before playing. This game is also relatively applicable and useful for multiliteracy classrooms because there are visuals to help children with the concepts. Nevertheless, children would need to have a basic understanding of the difference between verbs and nouns and would need to know and understand the vocabulary words used in the game.

Overall, I think this is a useful game for solidifying the concept of verbs and nouns. Children should enjoy playing it and feel good about keeping the beach clean. The game can also teach them how important it is to recycle and they will hopefully be able to apply this in their own life. It would have been a great game to play during class on Earth Day this past week, or in a unit focused on educating children about environmental issues.

(Evaluated by Clare Cryar)

Toon University: http://www.toonuniversity.com/aol/aol_language_k2.asp

Toon University is an online activities website geared towards elementary age students, more specifically 1st & 2nd graders. This page offers 5 online games/activities students can play around with for fun, while learning at the same time. The focus of this site is to improve language arts skills and each game focuses on a specific area of content.

On the main page there are 5 links you can click on that take you to the game of your choice. The five focus areas are opposites, alphabetizing, inferences, punctuation & capitalization and abbreviations. I played all the games and they are fun and easy to use. These games can be used by teachers or parents because they are educational. Another great thing about this page is it can be used by students who are learning English because it is basic and not too challenging. ESL students who need help in these content areas will greatly improve their knowledge of language arts. These lessons teach necessary skills to speak and write in English and through repetitive practice they will grow as English speakers. Once they master one activity they can move on to the next and have a new area to focus on, and so on.

Some cons of this website are the limitations of the main page and rest of the website. There is not a lot of room to grow besides these 5 activities unless you want to pay to be a member. Kids may get bored or move on to the next language arts level and therefore move on from this site. Another con is some of the games don’t provide feedback or the correct answers so students who aren’t at the level of these activities may need teacher or parent supervision. Also some of the links lead you to other parts of this website rather than the activities main page. Though this site has some flaws its purpose is accomplished through the activities it offers.

As a teacher I would use this website during free time. If my class is working in the computer lab and students finish their work early I would allow them to play on this type website. It may not be used for a main assignment but more of a review type situation. I think it would be great for parents to use with their children at home if they are struggling or need extra practice. In classrooms, if students work on these activities alone, they won’t feel the pressure of getting the answers wrong in front of everyone which will build their confidence. As an ESL teacher you could play this game as a class or in groups which will work on comprehensible input and output from the teacher, students and website.

Overall this website is simple and beneficial for students. It helps to build a stronger foundation for reading and grammar while engaging kids in fun activities. I would suggest this site to anyone who is looking for an internet based interaction for students’, parents or teachers. Also if you do decide to become a member ($99.95 yearly, discount for students and teachers) there are a ton of resources and activities for all ages. Parents, teachers, and students will love the opportunities to learn, teach and grow because of Toon University. They offer activities for the subjects of math, reading, social studies, and science for Pre-K to 6th grade level students. Also they have a teacher store and toonbooks. If you are truly interested in this website they even offer a free 10-day trial. Check it out!

(Evaluated by Marissa Rosenstein)

Bitsize: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/english/writing/

Bitesize is a website where children can practice their English, math, and writing skills. It is really easy to navigate, with links that lead the children right to the different activity choices. This is a great resource for students who are English speakers or ELL students. It Explains why writing is important for children to be able to communicate, and then gives multiple kinds of writing styles that may be used. This would be very helpful in the classroom or for children to use at home, because it not only helps with how to form sentences, but also how to write letters, instructions, arguments, comments, leaflets, and story planning. Allowing students to practice different types of writing will help them in the future when they are writing for different purposes. This is an extremely hands on website. For each type of writing the students can play a game, read about important information on each type of writing, watch a video about it, or take a quiz over the subject. This gives them information and practice in multiple ways, which is one of the main strengths of the website. I would not say that there are any downfalls to it, and I will for sure use it when I become a teacher. I could use this website for home work assignments, and have the children practice playing the games and learning about each type of writing style, have them take the quiz, and then have a writing assignment in class using the different styles of writing. I would recommend this website for children who are ELL learners and English speakers for all the subjects that it offers, not only English.

(Evaluated by Micah Morgan)

Arcademic Skill Builders: http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/

This site has different subjects that the kids can build their academic skills on. The different subjects that they have are: Mathematics, Language Arts and Geography. Children get to play different kinds of games that will test how well they are doing on those subjects. Each game is a race against either the computer or another player and there are also some timed individual games. At the end of each game, the children are shown what they missed while they were playing the game. This site can be really fun and they have an option that once all the children are logged in they can all compete against each other.

This site can be really fun for the children who do well on the site. However, for the children whose minds are not as quick to be able to answer the questions fast enough to win, then it could have a negative effect on them. They can feel like they are not as smart as the children who always win the race because they are very quick with their answers. As for ESL learners I think that this would be extremely difficult for them because they won’t be able to think as fast as the other students who are native English speakers. So they wont be as motivated to try to win the games because they will most likely feel like the native English speakers will win anyway so there is no point in putting up much effort. The games are very fun; the individual games will be less pressure for the child to come up with the answers against anther peer but there will still be pressure to come up with the answer fast enough to have a high school. The timed games are much easier for a ESL learner because the only person who is going to see their score is the student.

(Evaluated by Candyce Pace)

Literacy Games/Activities for Improving Vocabulary

The links below are ones that are useful for increasing a child's vocabulary through fun games! Growing a child's vocabulary is a very important to help with learning literacy skills. These websites will help students to understand the meanings of important vocabulary words and much more!

1. http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/wordfamily/

The Family Word Sort is an excellent online resource to teach children different vocabulary words and word families. It is an excellent game where the children are given a vocabulary word and they have to choose which word family it falls under. The user begins by clicking on a vowel to begin a word sort with words in that vowel family. Then, they are given 28 words to sort into four different word families. Once the user has completed the chart, he/she can print off their word charts.I think this activity is helpful because it is a great activity for beginning or struggling readers. The vocabulary words it includes are short, simple words that children can sound out or break apart easily. This activity allows the children to visual see the differences and similarities among the vocabulary words they have to sort. Once they have completed the activity, they can check themselves by making sure they put the words in the correct categories. If they had made a mistake by accident, they can easily move the vocabulary word to its correct word family.

The only negative thing I don’t like about this activity is that whenever the user is finished with all the words, it doesn’t check to make sure they put the words in their correct word family. I would advise to have an adult present when a child is using this resource to monitor the child’s choices and make sure they are putting the words in the correct word family.

By: Amy Yarbrough

2.http://www.funbrain.com/words.html

As we have discussed multiple times, it is extremely important for children to have a simple but strong phonemic and literary foundation before learning to read. The website I found, www.funbrain.com, deals with these basic concepts. One the site, there are numerous literacy games to help development in many areas. The game “Word Confusion” helps children differentiate between certain words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings. A question sample from this game is “Put plastic in the correct recycle bin or been?” They must select the correct choice and then they can move on the next question. This helps with word differentiation and vocabulary skills as well. Another game, “Scramble-Saurus” gives children the option to pick their own skill level and category. If they chose the “dinosaur” category, they would be given scrambled words pertaining to dinosaurs and would be given chances to unscramble hopefully ending with the correct conclusion. This will require some higher thinking skills and will help immensely with spelling and vocabulary. The game “What’s the Word” will again give children the option to pick the level they are comfortable with and the category they are interested in. This game will show a picture and they will have to select the word that best describes it (this game is multiple choice). Again, this game is an excellent way to improve children’s vocabulary skills. I believe that this site in a great resource for teachers of kindergarten through first grade that will help children develop skills they need to be successful readers!

By : Alyssa Sacco

3. http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/flip-chip-30031.html

Flip-a-Chip is a game on the website “Read Write Think.” This is an effective and fun game to build vocabulary comprehension skills for ELL students. Although the website says the game is intended for 6^th-8^th graders, I think students as young as 4th grade could use this website. Flip-a-Chip gives a fill in the blank story, and students click on a chip to “flip” it until the appropriate root word + suffix comes up to fill in the blank. This is a good activity because it shows students how to put together affixes and roots to form significant and appropriate vocabulary words. It also promotes the use of context clues, which is an important skill for children to acquire. I would use this activity in an ELL classroom because it teaches them how to create meaningful words that are different from how they are formed in the Spanish language. I would utilize this resource by having them do the fill in the blank story, read it out loud, and then create their own words to make a story. This would give them several opportunities to develop their English language proficiency.

By: D’Anna Siciliano

4. http://www.fekids.com/kln/games/wordjungle/

Word Jungle is a wonderful website to help students truly comprehend vocabulary words. It not only helps the students, but it is incorporated into a game format so students will have fun while learning. Vocabulary is key in reading so the students will understand what they are reading. The game is really easy once you learn the instructions. It is an interactive game where the child plays as a character of a monkey. At the top of the page a question appears such as what word means “to send a ball through the air towards a basket?” Then on the side there are several words that the answer could be and the child picks an answer. If the student gets it right then the monkey goes through an obstacle without falling. This game is so helpful with vocabulary because it asks students what words are similar and sometimes it gives the definition and the student has to pick the right word. The game is intended for 3^rd graders, but I think this could be great for ELL’s. This game helps students get to know vocabulary while mixing things up so that the student really understand the meaning for words. This game really is helpful for improving vocabulary skills. Vocabulary is so important for literacy skills and this game will help!

By: Stephanie Nguyen

5. http://www.janbrett.com/games/hedgies_alphabet_game/intro.html

In Hedgie's Alphabet, there is a vocabulary game in which there are five or six different words in a word bank and different pictures with blanks next to them. The target of the game is to match up the vocabulary words to each of the pictures, accurately. Once the first level is completed, then you can move on to the next level, in which the level of vocabulary increases in difficulty. This activity/game is great for vocabulary development, because students can read the vocabulary word and then see pictures that can activate background knowledge and lead them to make connections between the two. This game also has a great feature in which "Hedgie" the hedgehog reads out the vocabulary word that matches the picture when you scroll your mouse over it. This is helpful because when a student may be struggling between a word or two, this feature can give them the answer. Also, even though the student may hear the word, they too have to read the word so that they can make a connection between the oral word and written word, so they still have to practice their reading skills. However, the best way to use this feature is to check for accuracy, rather than just look for the right answer. The downside to this feature in the game is that students may abuse this feature and instead of making educated guesses for words they are unsure of, they simply just scroll over the picture for the answer. Overall, this is a fun way for students to develop their vocabulary, if used properly.

By: Noura Wakim

Phonological Awareness

Phonological Awareness
Our group explored websites that have emphasis on phonological awareness. There are activities and games that children can do, and teachers and parents can utilize. I hope they are helpful to all of you guys!

1. Readinga-z
www.readinga-z.com/phonics/index.html

The website focuses all on phonological awareness and phonics. This program uses direct and explicit instructional strategies for teaching phonological awareness and phonics. Reading A-Z provides instructional resources for teaching the sounds and symbols of language and their relationships to one another using 30 phonological awareness lessons and 68 phonics lessons. The website is broken down into eight different sections: Phonological Awareness Lessons, Phonological Awareness Assessment, Phonics Lesson, Phonics Assessment, Phonogram Flashcards, Decodable Books, Read-Aloud Books, and Sound/Symbol Books. Each lesson provide teacher and parent many resources they can use with their kids. In the Phonological Awareness lesson children are taught to notice, differentiate, think about and manipulate sounds – from sounds of words to sounds of individual phonemes. Some of the things the lessons focus on are blend syllables; manipulate initial sounds, segment syllables and onset and rime. Phonological Awareness Assessment is where the children listen for, identify, discriminate, and produce sounds. The assessments cover rhyme, onset and rime and syllable awareness. The phonics lessons contain worksheets that focus on consonants, short vowels, and word families, blending of sounds, long vowels, open vowel, vowel digraphs and other vowel patterns. There are two phonics assessments available. One assessment focuses on the child’s ability to associate a sound with a given symbols which covers decoding simple CVC words. The second one focuses on the child’s ability to decode nonsense words which is blending, long vowels, digraphs, and diphthongs. Phonogram flashcards are usefully in teaching word building. The flashcard focuses on the five short vowel sounds. Decoding books can be useful with a child who needs practice decoding the sound/syllables relationships in words that they have already learned. The read-aloud books help children hear a certain sound that they have been working on. Sound/Symbol books let the children read by themselves while they focus on sound/symbol relationships. All of these lessons are great to do with kids who are struggling and kids that are not struggling. The more practice a child receives the better they will understand the sounds of the letters and how the letters work together. There are so many opportunities to practice certain phonics and phonological awareness on this website. It is a great website for parents and teachers who want their children to become better readers.

Evaluated by: Ashley Chumchal


2. Half Pint Kids
www.halfpintkids.com

The website, halfpintkids.com is a wonderful tool for parents or teachers to use with children to help them with their emergent reading and activities for phonemic awareness.
Half Pint Kids has "readers" that a parent or teacher can buy that are fun to read, easy to decode and affordable. The readers were written by a Kindergarten teacher so they are both practical and effective as each word was carefully chosen. The readers are based upon the principles of phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. Half-Pint Readers introduce only a few sounds or new skills at a time while providing lots of opportunities for practice before adding more skills. The books are centered around a theme and each book builds upon the skills of a previous book.
Half Pint Kids also has over 30 different activities that can be done with a child to go along with the readers. Some of the activities prepare the child for reading while others give instructions on how to teach and blend sounds. After the child has mastered the skill, there are games and activities to review and practice that skill.
The downside to this website is that the readers are not free. They are for sale on the website along with several games and activities to reinforce phonemic awareness.
Overall, this website has many great free activities to do with a child to get them started reading. Whether you plan to buy the readers or not, the website offers valuable information, games and activities that would get any child ready to read!

Evaluated by: Callista Young


3. Free-reading
www.freereading.net/index.php?title=Phonological_Awareness_Activities

Freereading.net is a fantastic website with numerous resources and activities for students and teachers particularly dealing with phonological awareness.
There are five tabs including, Core Activities, Educator-Contributed Activities, About Activities, Teaching Tips and Resources.
Under Find Activities there are many resources including- Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Comprehension, Vocabulary, Fluency and Writing.
If you click on Phonological Awareness there are numerous activities for building students phonological awareness, these activities are ordered in skill level, so once your students master the skill you are able to scroll down to a new level. Each activity provides explicit directions and details and some also provide a video of the activity or skill being learned. Some of the activities are identifying and generating rhyming words, body part game, counting words in a sentence and blending syllables name game.
Under educator-contributed activities there are over 70 other different activities for phonological awareness.

Under about the activities there is a complete overview on the importance of phonological awareness, two important manipulation skills are:

• Oral segmenting, which refers to taking spoken language and breaking it into separate parts. Phoneme segmenting, for instance, teaches students that words are composed of sounds, which they need to understand in order for sounding out to make sense.

• Oral blending, which refers to taking a sequence of sounds and putting them together to form spoken language. Phoneme blending is what students will need to do when they sound out words to pronounce them correctly. And information provided by the national reading panel.

The teaching tips tab provides great strategies and explanations on the lessons and activities that are very helpful. And the last tab which is resources provides picture cards that you can download, sound pronunciation guides in mp3 format that provides the recommended way to segment words into onset-rimes and phonemes

Freereading.net is a very useful tool for educators and great learning activities for students. It is also a collaborative website where you can share lessons and ideas!

Evaluated by: Jennifer Porton


4. PBS Spelling Games
http://pbskids.org/games/spelling.html

PBS is a great resource for young children’s learning. I particularly explored the area, spelling. It was such a wonderful website because how it delivered the phonological practices for kids. I mean, it was fun to go through different games/activities because of its rich sound and visual effects. The activities are animated so colorfully and more than that, the narrator’s exciting intonation was what grabbed my attention the most. I think children would not feel boring doing these activities even though most of them are similar. What they do is, in the spelling section, the narrator tells the sound of the letter for them to guess the correspondent letter that eventually makes up a word. For example, the narrator says, “Which letter makes the sound “p” pig?” And then the child has to choose the letter. When they get right, the narrator encourages the child, saying comments such as “Sensational!” There are different levels, which I thought it was good. In each game, there are always directions read from the narrator in fun background music, that children would never get bored. The only downside is that you might need to dig and choose what games to do according to specific practices you want children to learn. And there are a lot of activities other than the spelling part.
I had such fun time exploring it, and I am sure the kids will enjoy them, and teachers and parents can use them, pulling up this website to do the activities together and have some fun learning the sounds of the letter!

Evaluated by: Yire Lee

Activities to Develop Phonemic Awareness

All of the following resources have activities that can be used to develop phonemic awareness. They can be used with children of a variety of different ages and can either be done online or printed off and used in a classroom. The sites are not geared towards independent students, but are useful for teachers, tutors, and parents trying to help children succeed.

Phonics and Phonemic Awareness Worksheets: http://www.tampareads.com/phonics/phonicsindex.htm

This website is literally a “gold mine of phonics and phonemic awareness worksheets.” There are 56 worksheets to choose from in three different sections: kindergarten through early first grade, first grade, and ages six through 100 years. The worksheets focus on “memorization of important consonant and vowel sounds.”

The first section is for kindergarten through early first grade and specifically addresses consonant sounds and basic phonemic awareness skills. These worksheets include things such as the “Chocolate Chicken” coloring sheet (focusing on the “ch” sound). There are activities and cutouts about the “Chocolate Chicken” as well. This section also includes “Sharing Sherry” for the “sh” sound, “Thunder Thumb” for the “th” sound and “White Whale” for the “wh” sound. Furthermore, there are worksheets for the different sounds of the letters in the alphabet. For example, the letter “b,” which has a “buh” sound can either occur at the beginning of a word such as “ball,” or at the end of a word, such as “web.” The worksheets on this site include several examples and pictures of the different sounds and their placements in words.

The second section is for first grade students. These worksheets focus on phonics and phonemic awareness and are divided up into six lessons. Lesson one has worksheets involving the Consonant Vowel Consonant (CVC) words, lesson two has worksheets for blends; lesson three addresses the Final E Rule; lesson four deals with digraphs (ch-sh-th-wh); lesson five introduces two letter vowel sounds (ai-ee-ie-oa-oi); and lesson six works with r-controlled vowels. All of the worksheets have colored pictures for the children as well. This section of the site also includes ideas for teachers on how to use the worksheets.

The only down side of this website is that if you would like access to the rest of their materials, you have to purchase them. The materials you can purchase include a vowel sound teacher as well as an adult phonics teacher that uses audio technology to help students learn. This material is useful for ages 6 through 100 years.

Overall, I think this is a good website because it has a lot of activities that can be used to develop phonemic awareness. I am planning on using some of these worksheets to help my tutees. These worksheets are also excellent for multicultural classrooms, especially since all of the worksheets have accompanying pictures. This helps the children to understand the words regardless of their English abilities. However, one of the problems with these types of worksheets is they focus on seeing the learner as a plant and encourage memorization of concepts. I think these worksheets are definitely a good place to start but should be supplemental to other types of phonemic awareness activities.

(Evaluated by Clare Cryar)

Phonemic Awareness: http://www.highlands.k12.fl.us/~lce/non_homeroom/phonemic%20awareness.htm

Phonemic Awareness is an important skill to teach in the lives of young children according to recent studies. This website titled simply Phonemic Awareness is a great tool for teachers and students at the Pre K-1st grade level. The focus of this site is to provide an explanation of what Phonemic Awareness is and what you can do with it in and out of the classroom. This website provides sections that take you to other websites that have things such as activities, games, informational articles and more.

This website is very basic and easy to use. The top of the page provides a definition of the word, why it’s important, samples and even statistics about the importance of teaching Phonemic Awareness. At the middle to bottom of the page there is an activities database, as I am calling it, that offers links of other websites and some of these categories include: strategies to use when teaching, games, songs to teach and worksheets. Though hesitant at first to choose this website, I find that it’s great because it provides many resources and different topics all in one site. Also this site has basic information on Phonemic Awareness that gives you knowledge you’ll need before you can teach these activities. I think parents will love this site because they can find games and activities for their child to do at home or they can be used in the classroom by teachers and students will love being able to use the technology at such a young age. In addition this website can be used by ESL teachers and it can show those steps in how to begin to teach their students English.

There are cons to this website, some of the links provided are broken or cannot be found and some words look like they are links but they are simply emphasized. The broken sites are Reading Workshop-Phonemic Awareness , Jim's Crankophone , Phonemic Awareness What Does It Mean? and http://reading.uoregon.edu/pa/index.php . Now you might be asking why even include this website if it has a lot of broken links and the reason I think this it’s so great is because though some are broken there are many more that work and all of those are included on one web page. To fix the problem of the broken links I have shared with you the ones that don’t work so you don’t waste your time when exploring this website and listed below are the working links.

Reading workshop: http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/samoset/resources/rcompindex.htm

Jim Crankophone website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/innovation/public/wordsandpictures/cvc/crank/index.shtml

Phonemic Awareness what does it mean?: http://www.educationoasis.com/resources/Articles/phonemic_awareness.htm

Beginning Reading Web Page: http://reading.uoregon.edu/pa/index.php

An article by Yopp & Yopp provides information from Every Child Reading: An Action Plan of the Learning First Alliance (1998) that “identifies phonemic awareness as one of the most important foundations of reading success and recommends that its development be addressed in prekindergarten and kindergarten.” After reading the article I realized how important this really is. Children need a place to start when learning a language, aside from the knowledge they gain from the outside world, and Phonemic Awareness can be that place. It will help kids see and hear parts of a word so when all information is gathered they will be able to reach the conclusion of spelling it. This site can help build that foundation in many different ways which will only be beneficial for the learner.

Some activities you can have your student do are the worksheets, games, or songs. After teaching a lesson on Phonemic Awareness you can take your students to the computer lap and have them play the Clifford Game. This way you can monitor their progress all at the same time and see how much they learned from the lesson. Also you can sing the songs in class which is always fun for the kids. In addition to that I may have my student’s do games at home with their parents such as the Jim’s Crankophone Game. Parents will be able to see what you as a teacher are teaching their children and participate. If they want to further their knowledge on this subject they can also visit this website and begin working on it with their child at home.

This website database really provides a useful source in the lives of teachers, students, and parents. Its easy accessibility and great amount of information will really help educators take a successful step in the direction of mastering how to teach this subject. I hope you enjoy this website as much as I have.

(Evaluated by Marissa Rosenstein)

Phonemic Awareness Activities: http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/ela/e_literacy/awareness.html

This Phonemic Awareness Activities website gives examples of activities that can be used for children to gain phonemic awareness, based on research and what studies have found useful for them to learn. It is very straight forward, easy to navigate, and clear for its audience. It says that rhyming and alliteration are the easiest forms of phonemic awareness for children. This website clearly lists the objectives of the activity, the materials that are needed, and the procedures that should be used to help the children learn, as well as a list of good books that can be purchased or found at the library to help the children with their phonemic awareness. This website is great because it gives lists from formal to informal activities that can be used in big groups or for one on one interaction and also gives different age range activities from pre-k to third grade. Another strength of this website is that it gives reasons for why each of the activities are helpful and useful in phonemic awareness. This could be very helpful in the classroom for any teachers between those grades because it gives them so many activities that they can try to help the children learn. If one activity is not working for a specific student the teacher can try another activity. They are all fun for the students while also helping them improve their phonemic awareness. All of the materials that are suggested are very cheap and can be made up. Also, the teacher could suggest this for the parents because it also gives activities that they could work on with the kids at home. One thing that could be improved about the website is that it only gives activities that are based on rhyming and alliteration instead of a using other activities that could be helpful. Overall, this is a website that I will keep in mind for when I have children or students.

(Evaluated by Micah Morgan)

English Phonemes, Spellings, Example Words, and Meaningful Names: http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/spellings.html

On this site you will find a chart of the alphabet and how each letter sounds in different situations. For example, the differences in the “a” sound in words like train and flat. The chart gives the student the correct sound of each letter and how to use them when reading and sounding out words. The chart also provides examples of how the sounds can differ in different words. This chart would be very ideal for English Language Learners because they would be able to look at the chart as they read to help them understand how to use the different sounds for the same letters. Teachers can easily print out this chart and give it out to each student to place in their homework folder so they can have it everyday when they go home. They also can blow it up and place it on the walls of the classroom for the children to have. Depending on the grade level this can be great for children all who are just starting to learn how to read. This chart would be very useful for teachers who are teaching English Language Learners and also any teacher who is teaching children how to read. Sounding out has been a problem for most children it could be a challenge at any level of reading so having this chart as a good reminder would be great.

(Evaluated by Candyce Pace)

Reading and Language

http://www.pbs.org/parents/readinglanguage/

The PBS website concerning "reading and language" is a fantastic website for assisting young children with their reading and language development. The site is aimed more at the parents rather than teachers or children which is very beneficial because young children spend more time at home with their parents than teachers in most cases. The website's main goal is to help parents "Learn how children become readers and writers and how YOU can help them develop by talking, reading, and writing every day." (PBS website)
The first thing that stuck out most for me was the tool bar to select the "appropriate age" exercises for your respective child. The parent has six options to choose from ranging from babies up to second and third graders. The tool bar is very helpful because not only is it very obvious to locate and easy to navigate, but it takes the guess work away from a parent who might not understand which material is appropriate for their child. Once a parent has selected their appropriate age group, the website takes you to another page completely dedicated to helping your child become a better reader.
The website also offers many "featured articles" aimed at assisting parents with the development of their child's reading potential. The three featured articles today concern "How to Create a Literate Home" (PBS website), "Car Talk" (PBS website), and "Raising a Child With a Learning Disability: A Mother's Story." (PBS website) The articles are not only diverse, as you can see here, but also change so as to constantly give new information concerning your child's reading ability. The website also offers a link to view past articles submitted to the site.
The website offers a tool called a "Bookfinder" which allows you to insert a particular age group, book theme, and book type (read aloud or read to self) into a search engine and find an appropriate book for that days lesson. This not only keeps the work interesting for children, but it also allows the parents to utilize different activities to develop a well-rounded reading regimen for their child. For example, one day the parent might want to only have the child read to themselves without their assistance. All the parent has to do is input the right criteria and they will have many different options to choose from.
Like many of the other reading websites for children's literacy development, the PBS website also offers many games and activities for their child. The one difference I noticed about this website compared to others is that it also offers birthday games, tips for healthy living, and tv programs all aimed at making your child's life better. I love that the website recognizes not only that reading development is fundamentally important, but healthy living is as well. The website also offers other fun items as well. You can download documentaries and independent films to you itunes. The site offers a Spanish version for not only strictly Spanish speakers, but for bilingual speakers looking to assist their child with bilingualism. You can also add "apps" to your phone for a more rounded learning experience.
Overall, I would recommend this website to every parent or teacher who wants to find new ways to encourage their child's reading. The site offers everything from online advice, to articles about other people's experiences with reading development. You can search for age appropriate books of all types. The site offers fun games and activities to prevent boredom on behalf of your child. You not only have access to many games for reading development, but also games to make a child's personal life more enjoyable as well. The site also offers a Spanish version of itself, downloads for itunes, and apps all in the interest of making a child's learning experience as enriched as possible.

-James W. Jarvis


http://www.abcya.com/alphabet_matching_game.htm
http://www.abcya.com/

This website is wonderful for children to engage in games that are meaningful for the skills used in school to be successful. The website has loads of educational content for elementary school-aged children. The acbya website is great for teachers and parents to get involved in guiding and helping their children with their reading and language. The website offers many activities and games for the children. Some of the activities and games offered for the children relate to phonemic awareness.
The website can be beneficial to the children in their literacy development including phonemic awareness. For example, the kid’s alphabet match game can help children with the beginning and ends of sounds or substitutions.
The teacher can guide the children with some of the phonemic awareness games provided in this website. For example, in the storybook game a teacher can create games that go along with the stories that involve the entire class. A game can be interactive and fun for children while learning about phonemic awareness.
Overall, the website is beneficial for elementary school-aged children to learn what phonemic awareness is and how children can use this website at home or school to learn rhyming, syllable segmentation, isolation, blending, etc.

-Lysandra Garcia

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